Woodpigeon’s Mark Hamilton, a recent transplant to Vancouver from Calgary by way of Vienna, will wind down his current cross-country tour with a set at the Company House. “Intimate venues are great,” he says. “Grand halls are great. I’ll play in a bedroom or a field and be eternally grateful for the opportunity to do so.”
After spending much of the past year being “basically out of music and disinterested in life itself,” Hamilton was talked out of retirement and into touring by his label. “What I’ve heard about HPX has me excited to experience it firsthand,” he says. “Making our way across the country, some audiences have been bigger than others, but there’s always an energy there whether it’s five people or 500. I guess I kind of forgot about that in my darker moments.”
Woodpigeon, a 2009 Polaris Prize long-lister known for its folksy ballads, will be collaborating with electronic-leaning Sandro Perri on its next album. Hamilton says the tour has been a bit of a departure as well—“particularly noisy and at times a little overwhelming.” Along with stand-up bass player Colin Cowan and percussionist Jenn Bojm, “we’re making as big a sound as three people can make using acoustic instruments.”
And while Hamilton finds it meaningful when an audience’s take-away from a Woodpigeon show is “relating to something in the songs and applying it to themselves,” there’s also the bottom line to worry about: “If I’m being realistic and business-minded, I hope everyone takes away a record, as well.”
This article appears in Pop Explosion.