Group drops new track “King Shit in a Small Town (Pardon My French).”
Teenland, a simmering supergroup comprised of several prairies ex-pats, are about to release their debut album in a couple of days. But in the meantime, you can listen to the new, exclusive-to-Ominocity preview track “King Shit in a Small Town (Pardon My French).”
And it kind of rules.
Consisting of Matt Goud (Northcote), Leif Thorseth (Rah Rah), Graham Jones (Yukon Blonde) and Michael Dawson (Library Voices), Teenland is a fuzzy pop-rocks wet dream come true. Featuring burly, gruff-edged pop hooks, the group barrel through grungey, rough-hewn songs that take anthemic choruses load them with accidental charm.
According to the band, the album was written over just two evenings, and was hastily recorded shortly thereafter at Bully Studios in New Westminster, BC. All for fun, apparently. Except it sounds great.
Ominocity recently caught up with Mike Dawson for a chat on why you shouldn’t expect a big homecoming show any time soon and why Teenland is the Aquaman, Captain Planet, Captain Caveman and Super Grover of supergroups.
Ominocity: Where did the idea for Teenland come from? Was there an actual idea to make a ‘supergroup’ or was it just all for kicks?
Mike Dawson: I can assure you thought of making anything super never once crossed our minds – we barely even meant to form a group. To believe that something is super you have to accept that it is first-rate, superior, and perhaps unattainable. I can accept that Goji berries are a superfood and that it compares to Super Soakers, superstring theory and My Super Sweet Sixteen… but we’re like the Aquaman, Captain Planet, Captain Caveman and Super Grover of supergroups. We’re just some skids who were making noise and drinking some warm cans of beer at 11:00 am.
Although some day I’d love to get in a chat about such groups though. The Highwaymen vs. The Travelling Wilburys, Alias vs. The Power Station. Mad Season vs. Temple Of The Dog.
OM: The album was written really quickly – where did this burst of creativity come from?
MD: It wasn’t so much that it was a burst of creativity, but rather that writing songs really quickly was entirely the point of the project. When you play in a band, any band, after an album or two it’s impossible not to have some sort of self-imposed editing in the songwriter process where you find yourself confined in the music you write or saying ‘this doesn’t sound like us.’ This was the opposite. The mood was very light and positive, and there were no rules to writing or recording. We just tried to use the broken microphones on the good instruments and the good mics on the broken amps.
Although to be 100% fair, the album was written really quickly but it took half a decade to make. I remember meeting up with Matt for coffee when Means had just come to an end and he was telling me about how he was writing solo material and considering the moniker Northcote. We also talked that same day about how we should get together and make some music for fun. Five years later we finally managed to find two days that lined up. He slept on my couch for a couple of nights. On the first we drank a lot of really nice craft beer. On the second we drank the cheapest beer that money can buy. In the end I think we were left with 14 finished songs. Both Graham and Leif are old friends of ours so they seemed like obvious choices to round the project out. Although it didn’t hurt that they’re also two of my favorite players I’ve ever met.
OM: Can fans expect a tour or any live shows in the near future?
MD: Nope.