Highwind Releases Empty Words
By Nick Murray
Highwind - Troy Waggoner, Chase Rysavy, Eric Taylor - photo credit Rob Hoskins Photography
Long-standing veterans of the local Moose Jaw music scene, Highwind, have just released a six track EP entitled Final Words.
The album sees the band, a frenetic, alternative-punk quartet, delve into dark themes and imagery. It’s an album about losing a loved one, presented through multiple different perspectives.
Final Words is an exercise in crisis. Existential crisis. It’s also “unapologetically nostalgic”.
They’ve even released a very Moose Jaw-centric music video for the first single “weighing you down”.
The band, which is typically a three-piece consisting of Chase Rysavy on vocals and guitar, Eric Taylor on Bass and Troy Waggoner on Drums added a fourth component for this recording; Ehren Pfeifer, a lead guitar player who had formerly played in A Perfect Punchline with Taylor.
“We’ve never played these songs together in the same room” Taylor said. “Ehren lives in Toronto. We just had him write and send files. So it’ll be nice to finally be in the same room and play these songs.”
The band recorded the drum parts of the album at Blue Door Studios in Regina and then finished the rest at Divergent Sounds, here in Moose Jaw, with Justin Bender.
“Justin Bender is a sound wizard, he has the beard to go with it, and we get along great” Taylor said.
It’s no surprise that Highwind opted to record with Justin Bender. Bender is no stranger to punk, rock and music with screaming vocals. In fact, that’s sort of his forte. A sizeable portion of the projects he has worked on, Untimely Demise and Altars of Grief, for Instance, are far heavier and more aggressive than anything you’ll hear Highwind play.
“It took over a year to get it all together” Taylor told MJ Independent. “I remember getting the first mixes back and thinking, oh man, this sounds great; and that was even before I asked Ehren to write guitar parts.”
The production and release of Empty Words certainly hasn’t dulled the band’s creative drive. They’ve written seven more songs since the EP was released and an eighth is underway. Expect even more new mystic in the near future.
The last record Highwind released was 2016’s Cellar Door. The band took an extended hiatus prior to that recording before returning and getting to work on Empty Words.
“We are extremely happy with how the EP sounds” Taylor remarked, adding “and, comparatively to Cellar Door the difference is night and day. There is a lot of tension when we reminisce on the recording of Cellar Door; having this EP sound as great as it does is a blessing, for sure.”
The band isn’t overtly strategic in how the present their music to the public. They just put it out there and hope people will like it.
“There seems to be a sort of guideline on how to release things. Release a single; milk that for a month, release a second single; milk that. You know? But the thing with us is we never want to seem fake. That’s not us. We want the music to speak for itself.”
On that ethos Taylor continued “you can see that when we play live. We don’t really rock out and lay on the ground, putting on a show of being rock stars. We just want the music to speak for Itself.”
And you can see it for yourself. Highwind is booked to play Late Nights Live with Garret DeLaurier, at the Mae Wilson Theatre on March 24th, where they will share the stage with Leroy & Leroy, Comedians Kanin Kuntz and Nina Wilder as well as Magician Chris Edwards.
Final Words can be found on Spotify and Apple Music. You can also find their previous recording there.
