I write about random things a lot. I write a lot about random things. Well, I tried not to think about when I'd have to write the last column of the year, but here it is. Don't get all heavy on me, it was always going to happen.

I tell you, though, it's been a crazy run with you this year, being fortunate enough to get to write for this paper and express a lot about the music I've been thinking about or listening to. Writing this column has provided me with a lot of cool experiences, ones I won't soon forget - the music I've been introduced to, the interviews I was lucky enough to get with some truly cool bands.

One such band is The Warped 45s, who reached out to Interrobang in advance of their March 26 gig here in London. I went out to see them perform with The Schomberg Fair at Moon Over Marin, and there are few words to describe their show. But first a little background.

This band, now based out of Toronto, is composed of multiinstrumentalists Dave McEathron, Ryan Wayne McEathron, Kevin Hewitt, bassist Alex Needleman, and drummer Hamal Finn Roye. Formed in 2007, they've received near exclusively-good reviews on their efforts - a self-titled EP released in 2008, and the full-length 10 Day Poem For Saskatchewan, released September 2009 and named for a poem by a friend of the band.


The band has been blazing a trail for themselves beginning with their mutual passion and instant chemistry, and moving along with the help and hard work of those around them mirroring their own. Hard work and talent the likes of which won them a Fan Choice Award at NXNE last year, along with a cash prize.

But therein lies the problem, for me; there's so much press on their website and social profiles, so many glowing reviews all around. Following their gig, I got to sit down with principle songwriters and cousins Dave and Ryan McEathron and I mentioned it to them, stressing instead my desire to hear their story in their own words.

So with that, I got them to open up and reveal for us a little bit of the world of The Warped 45s. And, since it's the last column of the year, what do you say we just hang up that word limit of mine and enjoy ourselves?

“After university I moved to Australia for a couple of years and I did a record out there,” Ryan told me, as the story of The Warped 45s begins. “We'd always kind of talked about maybe getting a band together somewhere down the road, and I... I stayed in Australia a little bit longer than I'd planned on, I couldn't help it.

“After a couple of years, I was sort of running out of paperwork to stay there legally, and I was thinking who I'd like to be in a band with, then I brought Kevin Hewitt and Hamal. We all went to Western and played in a sort of jam band together, and they were both living in the Toronto area now... maybe they'd like to be in a band with my cousin and myself. So I sent them an email, and instantly they were both all over it.”

Dave and Ryan McEathron, though separated by a few years, both have a musical background extending deep into their development, thanks to a musical family that hosted large jams up at the family cabin in Northern Ontario.

“I have a house there, but it's actually our grandparents' house where we used to jam,” Dave tells me, relating the story of their musical family get-togethers. “And then afterwards Ryan's dad built a cabin beside a lookout, and that became quite a - well, still is a place we go to jam and write.”

“Definitely my first memories were sort of around grandma's kitchen table or... the campfire, and then the cabin,” agrees Ryan.

Now touring the country, The Warped 45s are enjoying exposure due to the debut of their video for Radio Sky, which was first broadcast on April 3 on CMT Canada's Wide Open, a program featuring artists “a little outside the country box” and airing a couple of mornings each week. It wasn't an easy road, however, and the video is a testament to the dedication of Montreal director Vincent Scotti (vincentscotti.com).

“A friend knew a director in Montreal, and this director said to him, ‘I really wanna... move into videos and short films and stuff, I just need the right band for stuff that I can believe in.'” recalls Dave. “And so this guy's like, ‘I've got a band for you,' and gave him the EP.”

Contacted with a write-up of the intended work, the band applied for a grant to fund the video project. Unfortunately for them, they were declined.

“So this guy was just like, ‘Well, I've got a soundstage rented for something else, if you can come down during this time in this two-week window, I will do you a video for free.' ‘That's ridiculous, we can't let you do that,' but he's like, ‘Let me do this, I want to do this.'”

The band embarked around then on their first east coast tour, and instead of booking solid with gigs, left a little time open to go to Montreal to do the shoot. Over the next three months, Scotti completed the remaining aspects of the video when he had the time.

“I was honestly happier for him when I found out that the video had been accepted to CMT,” Ryan admitted, and Dave agreed. “Yeah, I was really happy for him, exactly. He needed that more for his package, you know, to be recognized by some kind of commercial element.”

For now, the band are working around the province, with a fairly intensive tour schedule currently extending to the end of July, seeing them travel out to British Columbia and back. Seeing them perform live was a real highlight for me, and something I recommend to everyone. Watching them at Moon Over Marin, I actually got to thinking about how good they all are together, and how I would believe it if told they were all cousins - they're so good with one another, so in sync, that it would be easy to believe they were all family.

Their music lends itself to the stage very well, too, though it's pretty impossible to describe it as any one kind of genre. I asked them about their songwriting process and background, about the work of constructing a song to see it transformed upon delivery by its environment (a theory I credit to Dave and Ryan, because I hadn't considered performing in such a way before).

“It's almost like, if you write a novel and it's in your head then great - it's on the page, you're in someone's head in their bedroom,” Dave pointed out for me. “But with music, you're like, geeking out on all the different layers and playing the word games and experimenting with the music - and now you have to go out and like, now it's fun! Now it's to drink to, and now it's about energy and getting people in a different way, and I think that's the part where we're really starting to act to that, on the road.”

To close, I asked Dave and Ryan what I've asked in every interview so far, the record that they most recently listened to. “I listened to Neko Case's record today while I was lying down on the couch,” Ryan said.

“And we listened to one song of the Arkells, and then we went to... was it a couple of Nick Cave songs, and then it was The Sadies.” Dave admitted that as driver, Alex had had the choice of music. “Is that how it went? And then we pulled into the parking lot.”

“I was kind of half-sleeping,” said Ryan, shrugging slightly. Though they aren't scheduled to return to London just yet, they are performing in Toronto and four times in Kitchener in May. Time for a road trip?

You can get much more information on The Warped 45s from their website thewarped45s.com, Myspace profile myspace.com/thewarped45s, or accounts with Facebook and Twitter. This is not a band to be missed - in three short years they've grown into a pretty big deal and are attracting more and more into their fan base, just think about all they can accomplish in three more.

And with that, I bid you all a fond farewell. It's been a real pleasure writing for you every week, and if I don't get dumped for obliterating the word limit so many times this year, perhaps you'll see me on this page again in September. Be safe, be well. I'm out of words.