Fox Who Slept the Day Away to play Broken City
By Giselle Sproule, November 1 2016 —
Fox Who Slept the Day Away is a four-piece Calgary band made up of Connor Mead, Austin Franks, Austin Caron and Maxwell Haupapa. Described as ambient progressive indie rock, they name artists like The Antlers, Grizzly Bear and Explosions in the Sky — as well as what they call a “tossed salad” of genres, including jazz and electronic — as inspirations.
The four mostly self-taught high school friends started jamming together before realizing they wanted to pursue playing music as a band. Since then, they have played gigs in Calgary, as well as at Real Summerfest in Winnipeg and other venues across Canada.
FWSTDA enjoys being creative with their music, using elaborate instrumentation to create walls of sound, varying song structure and even switching up time signatures mid-song. Mead says one of the band’s greatest strengths is that they don’t settle.
“We’ll bring an idea to the table and we won’t be good enough — we’re always pushing it to be better than it was,” he says. “We’re a band that motivates each other, like ‘that idea’s good, but you can do a lot better than that.’”
Though particular about what goes into their final product, the foursome is willing to consider anything brought to the table.
“We’re not a ‘no’ band,” Caron says.
Their musical creativity extends to subject matter. Space, love, comic books, heartbreak, drugs and travel are all topics named as inspiration for writing music.
The quartet released their second full-length album, Find It Of Use, in May and say that the new album demonstrates just how much their style has evolved since starting out.
“[Our style] went from post-rock to more progressive to math-rock and now we’re leaning towards more of a pop music [sound], but our style of it,” Haupapa says.
Although it hasn’t lost its atmospheric, experimental sound, FWSTDA’s newest album is definitely more up-tempo than their earlier music. Mead claims that this shift is something the band has worked on.
“[Our music now] is easier to sing along [and] dance to. It’s not necessarily happy, but if you go and see it you can feel the emotion, but also you can move to it and be a part of the music,” Mead says.
In their three years playing local shows, FWSTDA has found Calgary’s music scene to be receptive of their work and feel that there is a real sense of camaraderie among the local artists.
“Everyone is very supportive and it’s a very tight-knit community,” Franks says.
FWSTDA is currently applying for grants and festivals, planning tours with other bands and writing new music.
You can catch Fox Who Slept the Day Away at Broken City on Nov. 13 and listen to their music on Bandcamp.