London's Ivory Hours to return home

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: MELISSA KERRY
London based band Ivory Hours' new album, Morning Light is a mix of alternative and pop music.

London's Ivory Hours is swinging in the right direction. And it can only get more exciting for this band as time goes on.

Initially formed in London back in 2012 by Luke Roes, Ivory Hours blends an alternative-pop sound that includes Roes on vocals and guitar, Chris Levesque on bass and Thomas Perquin on drums.

Sept. 15 at The Out Back Shack will be the place to be to witness both the Ivory Hours and The Elwins take stage. This past summer saw Ivory Hours release a fulllength album Morning Light, joining their earlier extended play (EP) Mary in 2014.

Described as an exciting and infectious sound, their music weaves a lot of creative song writing into each tune. This was undoubtedly one of reasons why CBC and countless campus radio stations across Canada rotated their EP, Mary so frequently. Over the phone, Luke Roes let us in on their harmonic ride.

Q — First of all, getting into the sound, who would be some of your influences?

A — I would say for the most recent work, it would be bands like The Strokes, Phoenix or Mother Mother, that kind of thing.

Q — You've been quite successful: you've had a few songs on rotation on CBC, what songs were they specifically?

A — They played “Honey” and quite a bit of “Mary” from the older work and from the last EP and now a current single “Warpaint” off the new record that's rotating on the Edge and a couple of mainstream stations

Q — Where did you guys go to school?

A — Tom goes to King's but he's on a break this year because we're just going to be so busy, but I went to school in Kingston, at Queens for Mechanical Engineering and Chris went to MIT, a guitar school in Los Angeles.

Q — You guys are coming to Fanshawe at The Out Back Shack Sept. 15, what do you hope to bring to the show?

A — Just our regular energy, our hometown shows are the most fun and it's not a huge room so it should be really busy and we are also looking forward to playing with The Elwins. They're a band that has been on our radar for a while now, so it's really nice to finally link up.

Q — Would you like to describe the new album, Morning Light?

A — We like to think it's a pretty exciting listen, short too. And just because of the pop format we embraced, for our song writing, it's kind of just a push, more excess, bold, upbeat pop direction, veering away. Looking at the last EP, it's more of a mix of all these song writing styles that I really like, some of them being more vintage.

Q — You mean the EP was more of a vintage sound?

A — Certain songs on it were. All three of us combined have a wide appreciation for different forms of music. For each of us, we do like older music, stuff like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and a couple of those older tunes squeaked in the last EP, just because it's fun to write that sort of sound, but also the EP was not as cohesive of a sound when it came down to it. That was a big part of this one, you can write all these different songs, but it's a better idea to make them fit together.

Q — Is there anything else you'd like to add for the readers and listeners to know?

A — Just that they can check out the rest of our information and tour dates on our website. We have a lot of Ontario based touring coming up so keep an eye out for that. Keep listening to radio because we will be pushing that single further on up!

You can visit www.ivoryhours.com and listen to their CBC playlist at music.cbc.ca/#!/artists/Ivory-Hours. They are also on Twitter @IvoryHours, Facebook at www.facebook.com/IvoryHours and youtube: www.youtube.com/user/ivoryhours

They will be playing Tuesday, Sept. 15 at The Out Back Shack with The Elwins.