Local glam rocker Art d’Ecco has been anything but still since the release of his album After the Headrush earlier this year. Art just returned home from a European tour this October and is now preparing for shows here in Victoria and over in Vancouver.
As a kid, spending hours in the mall at HMV, Art discovered rock and roll while scoring deals like two CDs for $22. His first CD was AC/DC Live, and his musical education continued into his teen years.
“Working in kitchens as a teenager you’re exposed to all sorts of classic rock, you know, Queen, Bowie, The Beatles, The Beach Boys and AC/DC, all the ’90s stuff,” he says. “So, I mean, it was just kind of like a collection of music that really turned me on to rock and roll in general. When you’re hearing these songs that are now obviously ubiquitous, like when you hear ‘Stairway to Heaven’ for the first time and it kind of melts your brain. The musical discovery when you’re a teenager, discovering this treasure trove for the first time, and all these like, amazing compositions, you know, what an incredible mind-bending experience, it’s like coming-of-age stuff.”
Art believes that his sound is ever changing as he grows and shifts as an artist. He describes his music as an amalgamation of genres.
“It’s kind of a pastiche of new-wave glam, new romantic, post-punk psychedelia, krautrock. You know, there’s obviously some straight up, I guess… ’70s and ’80s [sounds] and all the subgenres within, like, if you throw all those in a blender that’s kind of my sound to date,” said Art. “I’ve been obsessed with jazz and pop music that uses interesting chord phrases and chord combinations that are a little bit more complex than just minor-major. I’m really going deep into trying to find a way to bring in these esoteric, sort of compositional sound themes of expression and weaving them into a pop blanket.”
Art says that “Midlife Crisis” is one of the most meaningful songs to him on After the Headrush. He says that he uses an unexpected ending in that song to encapsulate the human emotion behind a midlife crisis.
“There’s some lyrics that are quite self-referential,” says Art. “Instead of the song ending when it should, I thought it’d be funny to kind of add a coda, add a two-minute jam out to it where it gradually speeds up, which sort of personifies the anxiety and mounting pressure of a midlife crisis.”
While creating this album and even newer songs, Art has a method that involves movement and getting out of the house, so if you bump into him on the streets and he seems stern, don’t worry, it’s all about the creative process.
“When I’m writing I’ll go and run and listen to the work in progress… It will, oddly, spark some crazy creativity,” said Art. “When meditating on a song it’s in the form of listening to it on a walk, listening to it on our drives, or a bike ride. If you ever see me walking with a very tense expression on my face, there’s, like, a Rubik’s cube of chord progressions and melodies circulating in my brain.”
Art d’Ecco
Friday, November 25
$17.50, Capital Ballroom
thecapitalballroom.com