Wildlife Shines Bright With Debut Album Strike Hard, Young Diamond

Toronto indie-pop band Wildlife releases debut album, Strike Hard, Young Diamond.

YT: What’s the inspiration behind the title of the album?
DP: Yeah, the inspiration is from the phrase, “strike hard old diamond.” It’s from a Jack Kerouac novel. Tim suggested it and I thought of linking it to the theme of the record. Strike Hard, Young Diamond sounded better and it also made sense because a lot of the themes from the record deal with what its like to be young, full of energy and the kind of decisions you make when you’re a young person and then the transition in between that and the next part of your life.

YT: In your bio, you describe your band as energetic, adventurous and youthful. Would you describe your approach to songwriting the same way?
DP: I think somebody else described our band that way, actually! And that’s fine. I would agree with energetic and adventurous. I don’t think youthfulness necessarily applies to our songwriting, but yeah, I think energetic. We put a lot of energy into it and we try to be as not cliché as possible even though we really like pop music. So that’s kind of what our music is all about – trying to combine those two things.

YT: So like a mixture of indie and pop?
DP: Well, like a mixture of indie and pop in the sense that if we’re writing a song and it starts to go down a road that’s too cliché or sounds like somebody else, we try to flip that on its head as fast as we can and go in the opposite direction.

YT: Wildlife has been compared to Arcade Fire. What do you think about that comparison?
DP: It’s nice, they’re a good band... they’re one of the better bands. So yeah, we’ll take the compliment. I don’t think we sound like that band so much but I get where that comes from.

YT: Do you like being compared to other bands?
DP: That’s what you have to do when you’re talking about a band that people don’t really know as much or who aren’t really the most famous band in the planet. That’s how I describe a band to somebody - first thing you do is to compare them to other musicians. I think our band essentially fills the same emotional space for people that a band like Arcade Fire does. I don’t think the sounds are too similar but maybe the feeling that people get when they listen to it might be similar.

YT: Since the release of your debut album, what have been some the most valuable lessons you have learned that have helped to elevate your band?
DP: If you’re driving across Canada, have a lot of patience. [laughs] Make sure you like the people in your band, which I do… so that’s positive. We’ve released things before and we’ve been a band for a while so I think the goal of this album was just to do it properly.

Wildlife perform Stand in the Water from their debut album Strike Hard, Young Diamond.

YT: Who came up with the idea of wearing uniforms during live performances and how do you feel that unity contributes to the success of your band?
DP: I guess it was sort of my idea, but it was just a general thing within the band where we wanted to have a uniform that we’d wear. Like you said, it would just sort of unify us and it’s not even necessarily so much about the look, it’s just about a general feeling of ritual and unity. We would get dressed together and get pumped up together – and it doesn’t really matter what it looks like – it was just a visualization came to mind pretty readily and we all liked it so we went with it. I don’t think it necessarily contributes to our success, but maybe it does because part of being halfway goofy and pretentious for a second... in pop, art is about repetition and memory, so if we’re repetitive enough in a visual way, people will remember that.

YT: What do you enjoy the most about performing live?
DP: Probably just forgetting about everything else that goes on. I think it’s like – I don’t really exercise enough, so that’s where I get all my exercise – onstage. That’s basically the only time that I exercise – when we perform. I sort of get it all out in a 45-minute period. You don’t think about anything else – this is my favourite thing to do.

YT: If you could tour with any band or artist, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
DP: Sam Cooke, maybe. Just because he’s my favourite singer ever. I have to name one? It’s hard to choose favourites. The Boss [Bruce Springsteen], for sure – that’d be a dream come true. Just because you get to play in front of thousands and thousands of people who love happy music.

YT: How does it feel to see your fanbase grow?
DP: It’s cool that the more you play, the more people find out about you and the more people get exposed to your stuff – that’s all you want – for more and more people to hear your music - that’s pretty much what it’s all about. When we play live shows, it’s supposed to be a really inclusive thing. It’s all about engaging the crowd. We’re not the kind of band that stares at our feet; we like to put on a show.

YT: One of your career goals was to tour in the States, which you recently completed. What was that experience like?
DP: It was lots of fun. There were a lot of ups and downs because it was our first time in the States – the first couple of shows were in Kentucky, which was a little slow... like the southern USA were small towns where no one’s heard of us – it was kind of a Sex Pistols type move. We played in St. Louis and Chicago and we played a small town called Rock Island, and all those shows were really fun, and it was cool, and we’re gonna go back. I can’t wait to go back next time.

YT: What are some other career goals you would like to reach in the next couple of years?
DP: In the next couple of years, we’re putting our record out on vinyl. I’m hoping to go back to the States, go to the UK, basically tour a lot more and then start work on the next record, which we basically have half-written. We just want to get that out, but we have to wait in order to do that, because the cycle for albums takes a while. Start on a new album, do a bunch of touring and also, after this tour we’re gonna go home and in the next little while hopefully put on some more interesting shows because that doesn’t happen that much in Toronto. We want to do some sort of weirder stuff and get back to the artier stuff of being in a band, as opposed to the repetitive part of being in a band.