Bend Sinister gets ambitious

The Vancouver band’s latest album, Animals, draws inspiration from classic rock and Andrew Lloyd Webber

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      “We’ve put over 150,000 kilometres on our van in under two years, which is pretty crazy,” Bend Sinister frontman Dan Moxon reflects between sips of unsweetened iced tea. The thickly bearded singer-keyboardist, relaxing with his sandalled feet up in a Starbucks on Oak Street, glances toward the large white tour van that’s parked just outside.

      “I was Googling it the other day, and I think it’s 40,000 kilometres around the equator if you were to just drive or fly around the world. So if you put it in that context, we’ve almost driven around the world four times in the last two years.”

      There’s no question that the local prog-rock band has been awfully busy of late, having toured North America repeatedly since the release of its album Small Fame in 2012. One of these many trips led the quartet to Mesa, Arizona’s That Damn Show festival, resulting in a chance encounter with Grammy-nominated producer Joe Marlett.

      “He was super wasted, but he was obsessed with our set,” Moxon remembers. “He was like, ‘Oh my God, that was so awesome,’ and he bought a vinyl. We didn’t even know who he was, but then it turned out he was this producer.”

      When Moxon and his bandmates were looking for someone to help them record their next album, their hunt led them back to Marlett. They travelled south to San Diego and completed the entire 10-song album in a condensed two-week session.

      “In Vancouver, I’ve done a record that took a year because everybody was doing their day jobs,” Moxon says. This time around, however, many of the songs were captured quickly and without a click track.

      “There were a few songs that were just one drum take,” the vocalist remembers. “We set it up, got the sounds, and literally rolled through it once. It was like, ‘Well, that sounded good.’ ”

      Bend Sinister’s fast-and-furious approach to recording resulted in the wildly ambitious recent LP Animals. The band holds nothing back on these 10 songs, which contain dizzying arrangements delivered with feverishly buoyant energy.

      This is particularly true of opening cut “Best of You”, an operatic eight-and-a-half-minute epic that moves from towering classic-rock guitar leads to “Bohemian Rhapsody”–style staccato piano and includes a series of frantic crescendos before culminating in a sprawling comedown.

      It’s wildly dramatic, and although Moxon doesn’t cite musical theatre as one of his immediate influences, he acknowledges, “I did listen to Andrew Lloyd Webber constantly growing up. My parents had tapes that they would put on in the car: The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Les Misérables on constant Repeat. Maybe that has something to do with it.”

      Elsewhere on Animals, the jubilantly bouncy “Fancy Pants” is the perfect soundtrack to getting up on the right side of the bed, and Moxon cheekily pilfers a lyric from Oasis when he sings, “Back beat, the word is on the street that the fire’s out.” The ensemble taps into blistering blues on the full-throttle surge of “I Got Love”, while the psychedelic organs of “Teacher” highlight Moxon’s devotion to classic rock.

      These songs were penned collaboratively by the frontman along with Joseph Blood (guitar), Jason Dana (drums), and Matt Rhode (bass), who have all been with the group for the past few releases.

      “Bend Sinister was always my pet project, where I had a lot of members come and go but I kept it going,” Moxon says of the outfit’s rotating lineup. “I felt a little more protective of it initially. I would write the songs and bring them to the guys. But I feel now, at this point, I’ve had the same group of dudes for so long that I want to involve them as much as I can in all aspects of it.”

      With all four members fully invested, they will press ahead with their ever-busy live schedule, which includes a fall trip through Europe opening for Los Angeles prog band Bigelf. “We’ve got a tour bus while we’re out there, which is super exciting,” Moxon enthuses. “I’ll have to check that off the bucket list—touring around Europe in a bus.”

      Beyond that, he isn’t sure exactly what the future holds for the band. The 32-year-old plans to focus more of his efforts on composing film scores—he has already written several in the past couple of years—and he has been toying with the idea of releasing a solo album. Still, fans shouldn’t expect Bend Sinister to disappear anytime soon.

      “Bend Sinister somehow has this life of its own,” he says. “It just keeps going and we keep getting these opportunities to tour and to put out records and to do stuff. As long as those opportunities come, it just keeps rolling.”

      In other words, don’t be surprised if that tour van makes a few more laps around the globe.

      Bend Sinister plays as part of the Mosaic Music Series at the PNE on Thursday (August 28). It also plays two Gastown BBQ Fest sets—outdoors at 7 p.m., and 19+ at the Blarney Stone—on Sunday (August 31).

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