Bobbyisms: Teenage Kicks triumph with Spoils Of Youth

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: CHRIS PAYNE
The band Teenage Kicks will visit the Forest City on September 26 to perform at Rum Runners.

I write about random things a lot. I write a lot about random things. As a storyteller, however, I’m drawn time and time again to music – unforgettable memories are made every day in music, like Arkells’ recent performance to 100,000 people in downtown Hamilton, crammed together on James Street North for Supercrawl. Or perhaps like the band’s frosh gig here in 2010, playing in the rain to hundreds of Fanshawe students in the SUB Courtyard.

Even if you aren’t the biggest fan of music in general, you may have noticed its inextricable link with adventure. Music plays the supporting role on road trips, at afterparties and in epic movie scenes because of its ability to encapsulate a moment into a memory. Long after the buzzing in your ears has passed, the thrill of the experience is a melody away.

A true rock and roll underdog story, Teenage Kicks has endured growing pains and industry obstacles alike to release their debut LP Spoils Of Youth, a record full of stories of survival and personal mantras of strength. The band is bringing its show to London on September 26, headlining #TheLateShow at Rum Runners with London acts The Weathered and Big Lonely and Yukon Territory’s The Naysayers.

Currently made up of brothers Peter and Jeff van Helvoort, the band has seen a number of lineup changes over the years – let’s say more than the Foo Fighters, fewer than Spinal Tap – but hasn’t deviated from its rock and roll vision. Over the course of two EPs, an exclusive Singles Club of free downloads for email subscribers and an explosive debut full-length, the band has delivered moving, exciting music and shows no signs of slowing down.

Released in April, the band’s latest record Spoils Of Youth is an enduring hit that documents a long journey to realization, one that begins long before yet hinges crucially on a largely unusable album made in West Hollywood early in 2013.

Studio bias played an unfortunate hand in the early stages of the album, and when the band returned to Canada after five weeks of recording the guys found they had an album that didn’t sound up to their standards on any but those studio speakers.

Attempts to remix or remaster the album came and went but the source material didn’t stand well to being edited in such a way, so the need to re-record became clear.

“We were basically making revisions on these one-hour walkthroughs, which is not a lot of time to mix a song,” frontman Peter van Helvoort said. “We were making revisions on something that probably wasn’t finished in the first place … by the time we were talking to the third or fourth person to remix one song, we said [to Rezolute Music] ‘if you don’t just let us make the record again ourselves, we’re probably not going to be a band anymore.’”

Determined to see the record through, the band booked three days at Metalworks Studios in Mississauga, van Helvoort would produce and engineer and Gus Van Go signed on to mix in Brooklyn. But those three days were a challenge unto themselves, spent relearning music and trying to preserve their space from another artist in the studio over the summer.

“When we came in on the last day, someone had pressed a bunch of buttons and messed up all our knobs,” van Helvoort said. “We had to recall everything from cell phone photos, and after we had I was recording something and started hearing water dripping … that was during the flood last year, and soon the ceiling of Metalworks just started pouring water.”

The result might not be the exact record they set out to make when they excitedly arranged their trip to California, but it is a remarkable rock album that is pure of heart and dripping with integrity and plaintive truth. And in spite of everything that’s happened, the brothers are approaching the future with a positive perspective.

“It’s water under the bridge now,” he said. “It’s like, if I want to play music, I need to get my shit together and know that there are worse things happening to other people in the world, it could be a lot worse.”

For more on Teenage Kicks and its current tour, visit the band online at teenagekicksrock.com or follow on Twitter and Instagram @teenagekicksto. The brothers’ show with The Weathered, Big Lonely and The Naysayers begins at 9 p.m. and admission is only $5 and is 19-plus.

For more of the latest music news, album streams and concert previews, follow this column on Twitter @fsu_bobbyisms. Support your local music scene, I’m out of words.