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MP3 Audio/Rocketry - Eastward + Onward
14 MP3 Songs in this album (49:42) !
Related styles: Folk: Alternative Folk, Rock: Folk Rock, Type: Acoustic
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The next time you’re on the LRT or Whyte Avenue and hear someone singing their heart out for spare change, take a second look. It might be Joe Vickers, one half of the Edmonton-based folk-punk duo, Audio/Rocketry, who are releasing their second album Eastward & Onward this Friday.
Before moving to Edmonton from Drumheller in 2005 and meeting bandmate/bassist Matt Murphy, Vickers was in a high school punk band called Murk, where he got his start in music, and also his first taste of busking — an activity which he developed such a fondness for, he ended up naming Audio/Rocketry’s first album after it.
“I was playing a show with [my band Murk], it was the summertime, and I was 18 and kind of silly,” Vickers recalls. “We were drinking President’s Choice beer beforehand, and we decided to take the beer with us [busking]. We had it just behind us, and there are regulations. You have to be standing, and in some areas you need a permit, but we were completely clueless. We played for about five minutes and then the cops busted us, with some confusion, because they weren’t sure if we were drinking pop or beer because of the ambiguous cans.”
Since then, Guinness has become the band’s brew of choice, and both Vickers and Murphy enjoy a few pints of it during our chat.
Their new album was recorded over a short five-day span this past December, but according to Vickers, many of the songs were shaped during his past year of travelling across North and South America. He cheerfully shares tales of missed busses and hitchhiking, but when I ask him who his song “Gypsy Gal” refers to, Vickers can’t help but blush.
“She’s a real gal,” he smiles. “I’ve sung my share of tunes about fake girls, but this one is certainly real.”
“This is my model girlfriend from Paris. Isn’t she so hot?” laughs Murphy, teasing his friend and gesturing to thin air.
“I met her here in Edmonton,” Vickers continues, “but she took off travelling, so I took some time off of school and went chasing for her. She’s my sweetheart. We’ve been dating for two years now.”
In addition to following his heart while writing Eastward & Onward, Vickers and Murphy also spent a long time following the Trans-Canada, hitching rides whenever possible.
“That was our cardboard sign at one point,” says Vickers. “Eastward and onward.”
Both he and Murphy are from small towns — Drumheller and Drayton Valley, respectively — and a number of the tunes on the new album seem to reflect that. Vickers sings about being homesick, and makes references to farming, which is what his dad does for a living. Murphy’s connections to Feast or Famine from his hometown ended up being the ties that allowed him to meet Vickers and form Audio/Rocketry.
Though the band has had a drummer on and off, they laugh that the last one was a bit of a “Debbie Downer,” who quit suddenly before the band was to do a show. After debating cancelling, Vickers and Murphy decided to go ahead with it and discovered that they worked well as a two-piece, and for the most part, they’ve stayed that way since.
“For a lot of people it’s a business, but for us it’s fun,” Murphy says.
“We have really good chemistry on a musical level, and we’re really in sync friendship-wise. Throughout my experiences playing in a band, friendships are first. You can be playing with some of the best musicians, but if you don’t gel on that personal level, you don’t have anything,” Vickers says.
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