The old adage goes that time flies when you’re having fun. No group of people could attest to that better than Ontario band My Darkest Days.
The group scored a hit early in their career with their single Porn Star Dancing and subsequently spent a good portion of their lives over the past two years touring. They performed with a who’s who list of modern rock’s elite including Nickelback, Buckcherry and Linkin Park while performing in virtually every Canadian province as well as the bulk of the continental United States.
My Darkest Days will perform at the Magnetic Hill concert site on Saturday alongside Nickelback, Three Days Grace, I Mother Earth, Arkells and Gloryhound. The festivities get under way at 3:30 p.m.
My Darkest Days vocalist and rhythm guitarist Matt Walst estimates the group spent more than 15 months on the road in support of their 2010 self-titled debut. In fact, Walst estimates that the group probably had no more than two to three weeks rest before they began the process of writing the songs featured on their newest record Sick and Twisted Affair.
“We spent a good 15 months on the road, playing in virtually every state in America as well as almost every province in Canada,” Walst says. “It was a pretty amazing opportunity to see the different cultures in the United States and Canada. Once we reached the end of the touring cycle, we took a quick breather and then started hopping on airplanes to start writing with others.”
While the band is more than capable of penning their own hits, Walst says that bringing others on board during the writing process is a path the band chose to pursue to ensure that their ideas were as fleshed out as they could be.
“We definitely wanted to strike while the iron was hot,” he says when asked if their break between touring and writing was too short. “These days, a band can’t afford the luxury of taking their time to make new music. You can never sit around for too long, so it was that ‘got to keep going’ mentality that really drove us throughout the making of Sick and Twisted Affair.”
Though he is the first to admit that the group is thrilled with the final results of their latest effort, the record was birthed in a much different manner when compared to their debut.
“When we made our first record, we were able to revisit things a bunch of times; the recording was more spaced out. The new record was done in a very small window of time, which was a completely different process than what we had done the first time. But being in a situation where time isn’t necessarily on our side wasn’t a bad thing either. I think making the record the way we did let us not worry about overthinking things. Sometimes the longer you sit with songs, the more diluted they can become. You can always add or change your songs when you’re in the studio but there comes a point that you simply have to walk away from them.”
Though Walst isn’t sure of whether or not the band will break their 15-month streak of touring with Sick and Twisted Affair, he says that the group has already accomplished far more than they ever dreamed possible and that in itself is something that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.
“So much of what we are doing is still so surreal to us,” Walst says. “We just played the MGM Grand and Madison Square Gardens and those are the types of experiences where you step back and realize that so much of what we are doing is still so surreal to us. No matter what happens though, I think we’ll always maintain a humble attitude. Despite all the craziness, we are still the same people that we were 10 years ago.”
Article published in July 6, 2012 edition of the Times & Transcript
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