Prominent Canadian band Walk Off the Earth performed at Carleton University on Sept. 9 to kick off the fall semester. Before the show, one of the band’s singers and sole female member, Sarah Blackwood, spoke to The Charlatan over the phone to discuss the band’s inspirations, aspirations, and success.
The Charlatan (TC): So I want to know—what’s in the water in Burlington? You guys are so talented.
Sarah Blackwood (SB): I don’t know. It’s funny you said that because I’ve always really thought about how many awesome talented people there are in Burlington outside of anyone in our band. Music was really strong and powerful when we were growing up, so we all just fell into that little timeframe where everybody was just wanting to make music and be part of a band or be part of something and just create . . . It was like the baby boomer generation but like the music boomers—they were all living in Burlington and here we all are.
TC: This is your second time performing at Carleton. How do you feel about performing here the second time around?
SB: I think this is, for Walk Off, definitely the second time, but . . . I performed here with my old band a couple of times as well. We’re excited. This has been a full two weeks of Frosh shows all around Ontario . . . I mean, it already started—we’ve already played a couple of shows and they’ve been really awesome. This is actually our second time to Ottawa this week, so we were at Algonquin a few days ago and we’re just really, really excited to do these shows. These kids are just, like, ready to go so it’s been an amazing audience at every single show.
TC: What’s your favourite thing about performing for students?
SB: It seems like everyone just hit the reset button after summer, you know? And they’re so excited, because it’s a new experience for them and it’s a new place and I think it’s a really cool way to kind of bring all the students together and introduce them to each other, and to meet new people and make new friends and just party. That’s kind of what that whole first month is about, really. It’s just partying and having a good time and that’s pretty much what we do on stage for the entire 90 minutes of our show.
TC: You guys are known for your electrifying performances . . . I want to know: who is your biggest performance inspiration?
SB: Well, I just recently went and saw Beyoncé and she’s, like, the ultimate. We’re huge fans of production, you know? We really love confetti and CO² and movie screens and backdrops and lights and, like, we really, obviously, love the music—that’s a huge part of it. But we also want to put something on that people are going to remember, instead of basically just letting them listen to the album, you know what I mean? . . . We just actually went and saw Cirque du Soleil and, like, it would be incredible–we want to work with them. This is the type of thing that we would love to be. We want to do a week-long Vegas show where we just do Cirque du Soleil . . . Oh, we went and saw Rammstein when we were in Germany—we did a festival with them and those guys know how to put on a show. It was insane.
TC: Well, you guys have had a really big national and international impact. Your latest album “Sing It All Away” peaked at number two in the charts in Canada and also charted in places like the United States, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. How does it feel for you guys to make such a mark on Canada and also around the world?
SB: That’s a really big deal for us because we love that we’re Canadian and we love being a part of Canadian music, and we love being a part of Canadian music spreading out into the rest of the world, because it’s not always easy for artists here in Canada to do that . . . You can make a really great career out of being a Canadian music artist but when you’re able to break free and go other places as well and show the rest of the world how strong the Canadian music scene is, it’s incredible . . . We have some really great music coming out of Canada and I think it’s really showing the rest of the world how strong our scene is here. ‘Cause they kind of look at us and go, “Oh, those cute little Canadians, they’re so nice.” But we’re actually really coming out of the woodwork.
TC: If you could give one piece of advice to [aspiring] musicians, what would it be?
SB: Learn everything about the music business that you possibly can. Even if you’re an artist and you don’t care about the business side of things, learn it. Because there are going to be people that are going to come in and they’re going to know way more than you. And they’re going to try and take a lot of stuff from you. So you have to be really smart . . . you have the knowledge to ask the right questions and to know when things are right and know when things are wrong. I think that’s really important.
TC: Great advice. So you guys, in addition to your plethora of songs that have charted and are known around the world, you are also known for your creative covers of pop songs. What is one song that you have always wanted to cover?
SB: Bohemian Rhapsody, obviously. Any song that is done and you listen to it and you’re like, “That is the perfect song and it can probably never be done better than that”, that would be the ultimate challenge. So that song’s up there. That would probably be the top runner. That would be one of the only songs that we would really look at and be like, I mean, obviously we want to do it, but that we would look at and be like, “We really need to be smart about how we do this one song. We can’t fuck this one up.”
TC: So you’ve embarked on many tours over the past few years. What is the most memorable fan experience you’ve had on tour?
SB: I think the most impactful experiences we have with fans are ones that share a story with us that we really did something to help them in their lives, just making our music and doing what we love. It’s always really inspiring. I think, for me, being a mother, seeing children that are struggling or ill or anything like that has to do with children that are touched in some way by our music is really incredible or inspiring for me. Like, I’ll have a mother write to me and say that they lost a family member or a child and that our music has helped them stick together as a family or, you know, just that kind of thing . . . when I hear about it or read letters from people, I just get so overwhelmed that we’re doing something for somebody else’s life and making it better, and that’s a really incredible feeling. We all start doing what we do because we like doing it and it’s fun for us, but when you start to change people’s lives with what you’re doing, then that’s a real thing.
TC: You’ve had such a successful career, and I’m sure fans can’t wait to see what’s next for you, so what can they expect?
SB: They can expect kind of what they’ve always expected from us. We’re going to keep making music, we’re going to keep shooting videos. We’re really on top of the game, like we really have a very clear road that we are looking down with the goals that we want to reach, [they] all involve tapping into every single thing creatively that we can. Videos, films, television, music, more albums, more songs, more Snap stories, like we just do everything, you know? Everything on every social media platform, we’re just going to keep doing that because you never want to stop doing that. We’re just going to keep working.
[vsw id=”ukigjUvwAR4″ source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]
