Just Another Ordinary Day: Patrick Watson

With eight music industry nominations this year to their name, including their latest album ‘Close To Paradise’ being a finalist in 2007’s Polaris Music Prize (the Canadian equivalent to the UK's Mercury Music Prize), it’s safe to say that things are going rather well for Canada’s Patrick Watson. And Gigwise couldn’t resist the opportunity to catch up with the frontman and man who lent his name to the band, Patrick Watson, at their one off gig at London’s Borderline.

As is often the case with many bands, the press have labelled their sound like music genres were going out of fashion. From cabaret-pop to classically influenced art rock, the list goes on. But to Patrick himself, their style is a lot more clear cut and easy to explain. “Its pop music in the traditional sense that pop music is music for the people and its full of stories. But we use a lot of different styles that help tell our stories”.

Not a band to plump for the easy option, their interest in experimenting with sound and style stands them apart from many of their peers; as Patrick is all too keen to point out: “We like to try and find new things and once you start exploring you get a bit crazy about it. It’s exciting when you have something to bring to the band and show the rest of the guys. And when you come to the live stage you still want to be able have an original sound design, but just having a keyboard and pressing a button doesn’t feel as exciting as finding different acoustic ways of finding those sounds”.

What began as a multimedia project with Patrick working with a photographer, soon saw other members of the group join and slowly but surely the project turned into a fully fledged band…it just so happened that Patrick’s name stuck. And the way they perform and present their live show is as equally important and interesting to them as the physical music itself. We started off as a cinematic band with visuals and slowly but surely we started getting better at being simple, which is definitely a task in itself”.

Patrick continues: “We don’t put on a show, we play music and it’ll be spontaneous with a lot of improvising. We have a good relationship with our audience and we just enjoy the fact that we can share music with people. The audience is kind of the fifth member of the band at our concerts because if they’re not with us it’s difficult to do this type of music”.

And as you would expect, their inventiveness goes beyond performance and far into the production process. And Patrick visibly enjoys talking about the groups methods. “We try to hand build everything and its kind of fun to watch and make those things, rather than just pressing buttons and making them happen,” says Patrick. “I think people have lost the sense of how much they enjoy the process…there’s something to be said about handmade things and sounds. People enjoy watching how you create things it’s a really fun experience to figure out how to make these really weird electronic sounds live”.