Hey Canada, It’s The Darcys

 There’s a strong chance that as this is being written, five young men from Toronto calling themselves The Darcys are huddled in a van, driving across the great white North, intent on bringing their distinct musical vision (which blends shades of indie, post-punk, post-rock and contemporary folk) to the furthest reaches of our home and native land. Tonight, March 31^st, they’ll be playing in Moncton, New Brunswick. Tomorrow Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. And the day after that they’ll be back in Halifax, where the history of The Darcy’s begins.

“Jason [Couse] and I had been at King’s for a year, going to school, and we really wanted to start a band,” recalls drummer Wes Marskell. “We found out this guy named Kirby [Best] had some demo tapes that he’d been screwing around with. We didn’t know him, so we were drunk one night and we finally got up the nerve to ask him if he’d play in our band.”

 

They also pinned him down for some reason having to do with it being Halloween and them being drunk. Luckily Kirby still joined the band.

 

“We woke up the next morning and said, ‘shit, we gotta go to band practice,’” says Marskell.

 

With bassist Dave Hurlow (and later Mike Le Riche) completing the lineup, The Darcys began gigging heavily around Halifax, playing a 50/50 set of covers and originals.

 

“We played as many shows as we could and Halifax is wonderful for that, because there’s always something going on,” says Marskell.

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydKuARmONJY]

When four out of the five members of The Darcys finished their tenure at King’s in Halifax, they moved back to Toronto, where they’d all come from originally. Having initially thought that the move would spell the end of the band, they instead found that they actually all lived within a couple blocks from each other, and so despite the relocation it was business as usual for The Darcys.

 

They continued touring and in 2007 released their debut full-length, Endless Water, an album recorded in a children’s museum in Waterloo, Ontario. Positive reviews ensued.

 

“We kind of just did it to say, ‘hey, we’re in a band, we made a record.’” says Marskell.

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADOKoJqBNtg]

After the band completes their current nine-week tour of Canada, the tour after it in June, and the “small one” planned after that in August, they hope to “buckle down” and finish their second album in time for the holiday season. In the meantime they’ve released a cover of Final Fantasy’s “The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead” as a free download on their website to tide over fans hungry for new material.

 

The Darcys are playing Tribeca April 2^nd and The Paragon Theatre (formerly the Marquee Club) April 3^rd.

 

http://www.myspace.com/itsthedarcys

 

http://www.thedarcys.ca

 

Click here to purchase Endless Water.

Tags: the darcys