Share's recent EP featured Andrew Sisk and Miranda Durka.
(Editor’s note: As you might have noticed, we’re running a little behind this week … so, with apologies, here is our weekly Fridays with … feature, this time with Share’s Andrew Sisk.)
As we reported recently, Halifax’s Share released a free digital EP, Coco & Co, mere months after the band’s critically acclaimed Slumping In Your Murals.
Recorded at home, it captures yet another incarnation of the band – a duet, featuring songwriter Andrew Sisk and Miranda Durka (vibraphone, organ and vocals) performing the majority of the arrangements with guests including Snailhouse members Mike Feuerstack (lap steel) and Mike Belyea (drums).
As Share continues to perform, main man Andrew Sisk tells East Coast Noise he has his own project in the works and a few other interesting things on the go:
1. What are you up to these days, musically or otherwise? (Feel free to plug whatever you’ve got coming up.)
We just released a free digital EP. It’s a little footnote for our album, Slumping in your Murals, which we put out in August. It’s a bilingual three-song minimalist bossa nova pop thingy that I recorded myself, which is a new thing for us. Besides that I have a new side project under my name. So you can expect to see an Andrew Sisk album come out within the next year.
2. How did you get into the music business and what was the first major lesson you learned once you got your feet wet?
The music business is no place to be unorganized.
3. What song or album have you been listening to most lately?
There is a new act from Victoria, B.C. called My Lovely Son who just released an album that is really amazing. It is yet another example of something amazing coming from the Canadian music scene that may be ignored amidst the hype of bands who have lots of money to spend on advertising. If there is any justice it will get a Polaris nod at the very least.
4. What’s your favourite way to waste time or relax?
Picking away at songs in my little home studio. It is starting to make me somewhat of a hermit.
5. The Internet and social media are allowing artists to get closer to their fans than they ever were in some respects. What are your thoughts on this?
It is a business and marketing ploy, but it is what it is. It really has nothing to do with the music and if it does … then I suppose that is what happens when the business side drives the artistic side of an artist. I don’t know if that is good or bad for the music, but it certainly helps the business.
I grew up during an era where you could only imagine what the people making the music you loved were like as a person. Now you can be Facebook friends and follow them on their daily experiences. I know that I don’t like my favourite albums because of what the band looks like or the quality of their blogs and I think that is what will have longevity. Good music.
6. If you weren’t in the music industry in some capacity, what would you be doing today?
I would like to be writing, anything really. I really enjoy the process of creating and working with words.
7. What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned recently?
I read Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Outliers which is an amazing examination of patterns in history. He has this amazing ability to research different subjects and extract the most interesting parts and relate them to his argument. Essentially, in this book he examines successful people and dissects the series of advantages they were given which allowed them to become so successful. It’s worth the read.
8. If you could hit the “delete” button on anything related to music (a song, artist, trend, whatever), what would you delete?
I think it would be interesting to delete band names and band images then people had to judge music on the music. It would be interesting to see what happens.
9. What’s your favourite thing to drink (alcoholic or otherwise)?
I think that Kombucha doesn’t taste so great but I have totally bought into the idea that it makes me healthier. It is a tea beverage made through a fermentation process involving a weird fungus; needless to say I don’t know anyone else who likes it.
10. Finish the sentence below and please elaborate on what you mean:
The east coast music scene … has some really great people in it.
11. What’s the next thing you want to accomplish, musically or otherwise?
I am working on a few projects all at once right now, all musical. The one I am most eager to complete is based on a book I found from 1918 that I am hoping to interpret musically while having my friends read excerpts, combined with a animated projection. It is a big collaboration that I have always wanted to attempt. I am hoping to release it on cassette only and have it performed live only once. The rest is secret.
Check back to EastCoastNoise.com next Friday for a chat with: Sleepless Nights’ Aaron Wallace
