One-on-One with 1/3 of The Fires Of

The Fires Of (Canning- bottom row, farthest left and Donnolly- bottom row, second to the right)

by Michael

I recently had the chance to sit down with Steve Canning and Graeme Donnolly, two members of The Fires Of, a band that’s very involved in Toronto’s music community.

The band has an interesting claim to how they all met- it was a love of Ultimate Frisbee that brought them together. Most of the band plays on official Canadian teams. “I think it’s a sport you play intensely but it’s not confrontational,” Canning said.

Eventually the Frisbee players got together and The Fires Of were born, though they were first known as The Handsome Nobodys. However, none of the band members were that happy with the name, particularly the drummer. So the band spent (literally) months on a campaign for a new name. When Canning spotted a Star Wars trailer, he saw something about “the fires of” and spent some time trying to add a word to the end of the phrase. Eventually, the band decided they liked just “The Fires Of.” “I like that it leaves things unsaid,” said Donnolly.

The band sees a lot of influence from music from the seventies. “Sometimes we think Graeme secretly crafted the band to be a modern-day version of Wings,” Canning suggested. Donnolly burst out laughing. Being as big as the band is, the individual members bring in lots of different influences. Canning is a huge fan of My Morning Jacket, Donnolly loves Paul McCartney, female vocalist Lisa DiDodato likes Sarah Harmer and their drummer while drummer Greg Heard loves jazz.

“I think the idea wast to have a lot of pop sensibility but stick it in rock,” Donnolly said. That’s an easy statement to make, but it seems like this band knows how to pull it off. Their debut album is a joyous one and shows the strong community that is The Fires Of. And the band is set to release a new EP in the fall.

The as-yet-untitled EP will have five tracks. Originally, they were all going to be about sleep, and it would have been called “The Sleep EP.” The only problem with that, Canning said, was that it could be misheard as “The Sleepy Pee.”

With so many band members, one might think that it’s hard to get things done. That’s really only half true for The Fires Of. Musically, the band fits together quite well. Donnolly writes the songs (mostly) and then brings what he has to the band. Soon, the band is able to figure out their own parts.

“The thing we work on most is creating space for everybody,” Canning said. “Making sure we’re not stepping on anybody’s toes.”

“Otherwise we’re just a wall of sound,” Donnolly chipped in.

This ability to work together so well paid off when they were able to arrange their epic nine-minute song “Somebody Tell Me I’m Dreaming.” They played it at their show two weeks ago at Lee’s Palace. They even had Alex Pulec of The Ruby Spirit come on stage to play with them.

“When we sang it together it had this power I didn’t realize. [It was] more intense than we were imagining,” Donnolly said.

Also, having a lot of band members can make things administrative duties a little difficult, as Donnolly points out.

“This will tell you the character of our band,” he said. “We are perhaps the only band in the world that decided we were going to get together and write a mission statement.”

“And we didn’t even manage to do that,” Canning added. He also said they’re one of the few bands to hold musical feedback sessions and still like each other afterwards. The session involved the band members playing for other band members. The listening members would then, in turn, only tell the player what they should work on as opposed to what they did well.

Of course, as great as a band can be, if they’re not getting the word out about their music then it becomes rather pointless. Toronto in particular can be harsh to local musicians. However The Fires Of, like many other bands, plays an active part in Toronto’s indie scene. They’re good friends with The Ruby Spirit and Graydon James, among others. In such a large city, having friends in other bands, other venues and blogs can make all the difference.

And often they make fans without even meeting them. Once, apparently, they made a fan of a woman who divides her time between Los Angeles, New York City and Toronto. They never actually met the woman, but she apparently saw them play Lee’s Palace in April and said, via Twitter, how much she likes their sound. The band does well in keeping its fans up to date on Twitter, Facebook, and through emails as well.

In the future, the band hopes to start a tour outside of Toronto, playing in cities like Ottawa and Montreal, perhaps even heading to the Maritimes. They also hope that in the next few years they can start turning their music into a full-time job.

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