“I think we are stronger than average as a community because we share a lot of information with each other. We don’t covet our experiences abroad. We come back and share our ideas and try to help each other be better musicians.” In-Flight Safety frontman, John Mullane, is explaining to me, (via his Haligonian home), the benefits of Halifax as a musical breeding ground, and he should know. In-Flight Safety are about to release their first record for a label and rightfully take their place amongst Halifax’s next invasion of cream-of-the-crop Canadian talent.
“I think Halifax breeds a certain type of musician,” he says. “I would attribute this to being on the colder of the two coasts – there’s not much to do in winter but work on music. Also, when you live here, you’re all too aware that you are on the margins of ‘big time action’, so bands and musicians are free to express themselves without any pressure to conform to certain trends you might see in bigger centers.”
The In-Flight Safety story is the stuff of indie legend; the kind of tale that makes a band feel the sky’s the limit. After recording and releasing their debut EP in 2003, (the five-song bedroom recording Vacation Land), Canadian indie darling Emm Gryner caught a set of theirs in Moncton. She immediately declared them her favourite new band and went to work spreading the word. She even managed to get a copy of it into David Bowie’s hands, (she was singing in his band at the time), and he was quick to express his admiration. With these accolades in-hand, Mullane, bassist Brad Goodsell, pianist Daniel Ledwell, and drummer Glen Nicholson played their first NXNE showcase and were named 2003’s ‘Best Un-Signed Band’, and had their EP re-released by Universal. Now, the band is ready to release their first long-player and have found themselves a home at Emm Gryner’s imprint, Dead Daisy Records. Named as an affectionate nod to their hometown, The Coast Is Clear finds In-Flight Safety expanding on the ambient melodicism of their debut, but with slightly higher production values and more specific goals in mind.
“When we started recording the songs that would eventually become The Coast Is Clear, we found ourselves with a proper producer, (Warne Livesy), and in an extremely well equipped studio in Vancouver. We came back to Halifax and tried to maintain the big studio sound for the drums and decided to overdub virtually everything else in my small home studio. In my studio we realized that we were trying to achieve a sonic quality that you really can’t get with limited gear and knowledge. At first we were rather frustrated, but then we just decided to try and make the best record we could make and that’s what we did. We are very proud parents of this record.”
Rife with triumphant melodies, tinkling, mysterious piano passages, jangling guitars, and Mullane’s falsetto croon, The Coast Is Clear is a dense sonic stew, tailor-made for lovers of beautiful, unpretentious pop. It’s quite an achievement that they’ve done it nearly all on their own, and now they’re looking forward to finally getting a little help.
“Before Dead Daisy, we’d been without a label for four years and it’s only just sinking in that we are not alone in this next release. It’s a great comfort to know that you have a core of dedicated people working on your behalf, towards your goals. We feel a little disconnected from Canada’s music center, (Ontario), so it’s been amazing to have people out there representing our interests while we are far away working on music. We don’t even have to worry about the dreaded College radio mail-out, and that’s more than we ever expected. We are happy campers.”
(originally published January 2006. Echo Weekly. Kitchener.)
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