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members
Kevin Comeau guitar, bass, keys
Cody Bowles vocals, drums
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biography
“You can walk a middle path or you can just jump in,” says Kevin Comeau of the powerhouse Canadian duo CROWN LANDS. “For so long, we were afraid of getting fully into more complex music, so we just dipped our toes into it. But with these new songs, there’s no half measure—it’s all out there.”
Coming off of a whirlwind (if unpredictable) year, CROWN LANDS—Comeau (guitar, bass and keys) and Cody Bowles (vocals and drums)—have returned with two songs that return them to their prog-rock roots and point the way to a limitless future. “Context: Fearless Pt. 1” and “Right Way Back” also connect the group to the band that served as their initial inspiration, in ways they never could have expected.
CROWN LANDS’ self-titled debut album, produced by Grammy-nominated Dave Cobb, was released in the summer of 2020, to widespread acclaim from the likes of Guitar World, Kerrang!, and American Songwriter; coverage from the BBC and the CBC; and placements in campaigns for Peloton, the Canadian Football League, and the incomparable “Hockey Night in Canada” franchise. But without the ability to tour during a global pandemic, the pair was frustrated by their inability to bring their blistering, hard-charging music to the people.
“Being a rock band, and very much a live band, we had built our entire plan around touring,” says Comeau. “I love the way a song can evolve and become its best self on the road, and the biggest bummer was not giving these songs a chance to grow.”
So, like most of us, they adapted. They also released an acoustic EP, Wayward Flyers Volume 1, including a cover of Neil Young’s “Birds.” They also focused on the politically charged song “End of the Road,” which pays tribute to the Indigenous womxn, girls, and two-spirits who have gone missing on the Highway of Tears in North British Columbia. The powerful music video features an opening narration by Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq.
“That was definitely the highlight for me, for the mission statement and the video,” says Bowles, whose own heritage is half Mi’kmaw, an indigenous tribe from Nova Scotia. “It really got the message across.”
The forced time off led the members of CROWN LANDS to think more about their direction and their ambition. “After all this time of being whisked off to shows,” says Bowles, “we’re able to reflect more on what kind of music we really want to write.” As a result, they found themselves being drawn back to the intricate compositions and time signatures they loved when they were first starting out.
“We’re not writing three-minute blues-rock stompers, that’s not what the muse is striking right now,” says Comeau. “The music is getting more complex, more interesting. We always wanted to push ourselves and write in different meters, and now we’re really pushing ourselves on that. How do you make someone dance to 13/8? How do you make someone love your music who doesn’t want to think, and then you throw it on for a music nerd and it satisfies them too?”
Just prior to lockdown, they had revisited a song that they had been messing around with for years. They had been connected to Terry Brown, who was Rush’s producer for ten years—which, being obsessive Rush fans (they first bonded over Comeau’s Rush tattoo), was already a dream come true. They went into the studio with him just to cut early demos for “Context: Fearless Pt. 1,” but Brown insisted on trying a real recording. “On the spot, we arranged the song,” says Bowles. “It was so stressful!”
After a bunch of touring and performing “Context: Fearless Pt. 1” live, the song would naturally get sharper and so they looked to re-record it. They scheduled time to travel to Nashville and work with Nick Raskulinecz, who—astonishingly enough—was Rush’s producer in their later years. “These guys are the two most important producers in their career,” says Comeau. “The story of the song is better than the song at this point!”
But they day before the scheduled session, Rush’s legendary drummer Neil Peart died after a fight with brain cancer. They assumed the trip was off, but Raskulinecz texted them with the message, “you guys need to carry the torch—you need to come down here.”
In the studio, the producer brought out a drum kit that Peart had used on the 2007 Snakes & Arrows album for Bowles to play. “It was the most spiritual experience in my life,” he says. “My family’s favorite band is Rush—I inherited this from my father, who was a drummer before me and worshipped Rush—so I felt like it was a culmination of my whole entire life.”
They thought “Context: Fearless Pt. 1” was done, but when they got the rough mix, the vocals still needed some work. Working remotely, since quarantine had now started, the record label hooked CROWN LANDS up with David Bottrill—who remixed Vapor Trails, Rush’s 2002 comeback record – to mix the vocals. “He’s the mythical third Rush-associated producer,” says a disbelieving Comeau. “This one fucking song had the triad of Rush producers!” The ultimate recording is an epic, hydra-headed beast of a song, complete with a full-scale, Mandalorian-style sci-fi music video.
The second new song, “Right Way Back,” is a tribute to Peart that came almost effortlessly. They brought it to Nashville as a rough demo, working out the chorus and writing the lyrics on the spot. “It’s about the feeling of trying to carry on from where your heroes left off,” says Comeau.
Raised in Southwestern Ontario, Comeau and Bowles met eight years ago, when Comeau came home for Christmas from Los Angles, where he had been playing in a reggae band. They became “instant best friends” and started jamming together in a local barn, switching up instruments, but never straying from a two-piece set-up. The group’s name is indicative of its identification with marginalized people and interest in the troublesome history of Canada; “Crown Land,” also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch—or, as Bowles puts it, “Crown Land is stolen land and we are reclaiming it.”
In 2016, CROWN LANDS released their first EP, Mantra. Until the world shut down in 2020, they continually accelerated their relentless touring schedule, which has seen them open for such acts as Jack White, Coheed and Cambria, Primus, and Rival Sons.
Following the release of “Context: Fearless Pt. 1” and “Right Way Back,” CROWN LANDS plans to begin recording again, and to put out a series of songs in small batches throughout the year, with more flexibility to experiment than they would have focusing on a larger album project. “All of our favorite artists have explored what turns them on musically,” says Comeau, “and we’re finally allowing ourselves to do that—to explore a certain world in ten or fifteen minutes of music.”
“These are our best songs yet,” says Bowles, “and they’re opening the door for the future. They propel us to a whole new era of music, and hint at what’s to come.”