“The new CD was written over the span of two years,” explained Manvils’ frontman Mikey Manvil adding the band also trimmed down to a svelte three -piece rock and roll juggernaut (including bassist Greg Buhr and drummer Jay Koenderman and in the process added a more progressive rock feel to their energetic songs.
“We hired Ryan Dahle because we wanted a producer who really fit in with the Manvils. That’s really important to us. We wanted someone we respected and who was willing to go to bat for us,” he continued.
“We wanted to transfer the live show to tape and catch that energy,” he observed adding the new music retains the ’60s era Who and Kinks feel while adding more elaborate textures to the tunes.
“ It was a completely different experience, He (Dahle) really challenged us. He was a real catalyst. It was stimulating and stress free,” Manvil enthused, observing the songs all clock in at under three minutes.
“That’s as about long as people want to hear so that’s what we aimed to keep them at. We made sure every phrase and each element of each song had a purpose,” he continued, adding crowd response has been very positive to the new music.
“It’s been really nice, people really appreciated the songs right off.”
He works as spokesman for a new Vancouver based record label called Sandbag Records which only handles three acts (Rich Hope, The Manvils and Ryan Dahle) .
“We’re not signed to a label with 20 acts. That would make it harder to sell the record,” he observed adding he hopes plenty of people jump on board with the new music.
As it is they have a fairly famous fan— actor John Savage, who was in the movie the Deerhunter, stars in the video for the first single “Turpentine.”
“A friend of ours gave him the record when we were in Los Angeles and he liked it,” he said adding a friendship was struck over an early morning coffee.
“It was the most surreal coffee I’ve ever experienced. The next thing we knew, he said he wanted to do a video.”
It was shot quickly over two days in Toronto. It will premiere in Vancouver next month and in Toronto shortly after that.
“We had to scramble because his agent said he wanted to be in the video. Everyone worked on it for free. It was shot on 35mm film, so it has got great detail. People believed in this project,” Manvil enthused.
“It’s definitely been a fun ride,” he continued adding it has been more than a year since the band played Lethbridge.
“Lethbridge is definitely one of our favourite places to play. It has some kind of energy. We’re really excited, we’re happy to be booked on such short notice.
— by Richard Amery L.A. Beat Editor