There’s nothing better than ending the week with some in-your-face, melodically rich, uplifting, sounds-best-at-volume-12, punk-infused, alternative rock and roll.
Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Spirit of the Wildfire deliver the goods on their newest album Bittersweet Nothings, now available.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with the band about the new project, motivations, challenges, technology and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
Spirit of the Wildfire is from the Halifax, Nova Scotia on the East Coast of Canada. We play music inspired from multiple genres and constantly try to push the limits of conventional music to create a sound unique to us. Influenced from rap, funk, ska and heavily rooted in punk rock we play a genre we have coined as “Funk-Punk”. Our songs leave the audience wondering if they should dance or mosh, often doing both by the end of a set.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
We started to play together when we were in high school. We would spend our evenings and weekends walking around our hometown with guitars singing, rapping, playing music and getting into trouble. Music has always been a big part of the dynamic of our friend group and it was only natural we would form a band. This band really feels like a family as cliche as that sounds. What motivates us to keep going beyond out love for music is the traction we are starting to gain and seeing people actually enjoy what we create. When you’re onstage and you have people going wild and yelling your lyrics back at you that’s a pretty unique experience that can’t really be found anywhere else.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
This release, Bittersweet Nothings, is a little more polished and focused than our previous albums while still exploring our sound and pushing the limits of genre boundaries. We worked with a really talented producer and engineer, Darren Van Niekerk, they helped push us in the right direction and was an absolute pleasure to work with. We wanted this album to appeal to a wide range of people with varying tastes and we wanted the album to be raw yet polished and we feel we have achieved a good balance.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
One of the obvious challenges we face is getting peoples attention. With the market being over saturated and us playing a somewhat fringe genre it can be hard to get on peoples radars and get taken seriously. There is a lot of noise out there and a lot of cookie cutter bands and artists that make it hard to get noticed. On the flip side of that if you put real effort into your branding and your sound you can really stand out among others and that helps quite a bit for sure. Technology has been a important tool for sure, the potential of reach you can have online opposed to even 15-20 years ago is insane. We have people from Canada to Kenya listening to our music and that’s all possible from the internet. Being from the East Coast of Canada it sometimes feels like we’re tucked away from the rest of North America and we couldn’t dream of having the reach we do without the internet.
What was the last song you listened to?
The last song I listened to was “Chip on Fire” by the artist “Disrupt”.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
As a physical format I prefer vinyl, it’s just cooler to hold and look through. I don’t link MP3’s for the compression of quality but I assume the question is more geared at just music online opposed to MP3’s and I must say I love the convenience of music streaming.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Asides from obvious issues with how they pay out artists I’d have to say Spotify. It is seems to be how the general public wants to consume music. On of the things you have to do as an artist these days is learn to adapt or get lost in the noise so Spotify has become somewhat of a focus for us when trying to promote our music online. It seems to have the most opportunity to get in peoples ears. As a music consumer I prefer Spotify for the convenience and interface therefore it is important to recognize that as an artist and plan accordingly. Bandcamp is a great platform to sell your music on or send around to people for a free stream whether its promoters, press, fans ect it’s a great tool.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
Facebook is a pretty solid way to find anything on us, with links to all of our music, upcoming events and what we are up to. Our instagram (Spiritofthewildfire) is good for general shenanigans and getting to know what we’re all about. Drop a message on either platform to get a hold of us! Aside from those you can find our music on any streaming platform, iTunes and bandcamp.
Anything else before we sign off?
Reach out to us if you enjoy what you hear, drop a comment on a post and help us spread our music around! We love to hear from new and old fans and it’s always a pleasure to see where our music has reached.
Cheers!
