Bodies rolled in sleeping bags...darkness on the dance floor. 6am and the band is serving breakfast. These are self-promoted all-ages all-night shows in unlikely places...art galleries,
community halls and circus spaces. Earlier...swirling lights, pylons and projected images hover above a dancing crowd. Assemblies of acts take turns on stage as people and band members mingle and munch grilled cheese sandwiches. Some may stop to buy a Spiral Beach t-shirt carefully burned with a hot iron.... an evening collectible baring no band logo. At the entrance kids wander in from the winter snow and throw coats onto a towering pile. Their hats and scarves, furry sweats and headbands follow them to the dance floor. The show begins...and never seems to end.
“Everything the band does is very visual - we always think about the whole experience, so
audiences feel like they're a part of what it going on. We try to make each show feel like full-on
sensory overload - there's a LOT of energycoming off the stage, and every show is a chance to get an audience worked into a total frenzy... we've run a lot of our own shows that will go all night or into the next day, so there's also an element of delirium involved,” says Drummer Daniel Woodhead about the performances. “Some of our biggest parties in Toronto have been at the Centre of Gravity, which is an old vaudeville/circus theatre, so we've taken that as our inspiration - we like to create an atmosphere that suits the music, so playing all-ages events in community centres and lofts where we can use the space to make something fun and interactive is the best.”
With the Canadian release of "Ball" in the fall of 2007 the buzz on the band became deafening.
They had already graced the cover of Toronto street rag "NOW" and ruffled feathers when they
unexpectedly invited fans in crazy costumes up on stage to join the broadcast of their performance on Canada's MTV-LIVE... The band toured extensively throughout Canada and was invited to tour with both Sloan and the Hidden Cameras in the U.S. as well as opening up for like- minded acts such as the Go! Team and Tokyo Police Club. By the time all the members of the band turned 20, they had already been twice across the continent!
In the spring of 2008 dazzling reviews of their album “Ball” from bloggers and mainstream press started to appear. A live performance on XM’s 'The Verge' was rated as the show's Top
Performance of the Year and the band was nominated for “Best New Indie Band” at the Casby Awards. Canada’s most important media outlets like Much Music and Toronto’s The Edge radio station began to champion the band. They spent the summer performing at festivals across
Canada, including Toronto's Virgin Festival, and took their incomparable live show to the UK and
US, where Tommy Boy/ADA released the album.
The band are taking it all to the next level this September with their new album “The Only Really Thing.” The album perfectly captures the jubilant frenzy of the band, filling out the kaleidoscopic
pop sound they had already developed with intricate arrangements and unconventional
instrumentation, including metal chains and a cell phone! Daniel says, “We had a pretty clear
vision of what we wanted to achieve; to make a Bollywood-influenced multi-layered color collage
kind of modern pop album, with songs that were good enough to stand on their own but put into
this whirlwind of different sounds and textures. Once you're there, you just kind of jump in!”
“The Only Really Thing” will be released on September 22 by Sparks/Tommy Boy.
Website
www.spiralbeach.com
Band Members
Daniel Woodhead, Airick Woodhead, Dorian Wolf, Maddy Wilde
Other Artists
Gogol Bordello, Queens Of The Stone Age, Sly & The Family Stone, pretty much any early Motown artist (Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Edwin Starr, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes), Kid Koala, Eagles Of Death Metal, Medeski Martin & Wood, Syd Barrett, Esquivel, Gogol Bordello, MIA, Jefferson Airplane, Tom Waits, The Flaming Lips, Liars, Nirvana, Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention, Ween, that song the King Louie sings in the Jungle Book, Moxy Fruvous, Kraftwerk.
