Interview with Thomas D'Arcy from Small Sins

We have a special guest today for the Q&A interview! Thomas D'Arcy from Small Sins answered my questions! Enjoy!


Kanae: The latest music video "Deja Vu", has been attracting a number of attention since the release in Nov 2010. (Winning AUX Throughdown vs HOT HOT HEAT (Congratulations!), and climbing up on the CBC 3 radio chart). How do you feel about it? 

Thomas: It's been great. The record has been out since late September, and that single was released shortly after that. It's been slowly climbing up various charts, and doesn't seem to be 'done' yet. To get a few months out of it like we are is really satisfying. In the past, I've put out lots of records I love, and its sad to see them come and go in the public's eye in a way that I feel is premature. When something sort of catches on it feels like all of my hard work of the past was justified somehow. 

Kanae: According to the official website, the concept of the video was created from what resources the band had it available.  Could you tell us more about how you came up with the concept for the video?

Thomas: Basically we didn't have any money to make it with. When you don't have money, obviously the range of things that you can do is restricted, and you need to operate within the confines of what you have available to you. I think that can sort of liberate you though. There are plenty of videos out there that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many of them are totally boring to watch. It's almost like if you have too many options, and too much money to play with, you'll get distracted. When making this video, we didn't have a list of locations to choose from. It was our only option, so we had to make it work. Same goes for the lights. We never got distracted with crazy ideas, because we simply didn't have any other options. This is what we had, so this is what we made. When you know that, things can become very efficient. 

Kanae: The song, "Deja Vu",  featured the Toronto rapper, K-OS. How did you guys end up collaborating? Any stories?

Thomas: Kev (k-os) can be a little hard to nail down sometimes. He is a busy guy, and he operates on his own schedule. We only had one day on which we could film this video as people were leaving on tour, etc., so we started work without even having confirmed that Kev was in the city. In fact, from the time we came up with the concept to the end of filming was only a two day window. Frank and Micha (who shot the video) had to film him on a separate day in front of a green backdrop so they could edit him in later. That's right: Kev wasn't even there on the day of the shoot. All worked out though, and looks quite natural I think.

Kanae:The song has such an alluring guitar riff at the beginning throughout the song. (I almost thought the sound was from the synthesizer.) How did you guys compose the song?  What was the process? ( Was that main you bring ideas or you guys as a band compose songs together?)

Thomas: Steve (Krecklo) and I were working on the new material that would become this album, and somewhere along the way we both decided to upgrade to the new version of pro-tools. It comes with a bunch of free drum sequencing software and guitar amp simulators that Steve wanted to test out. The main rhythm of the song, as well as the bass line and guitar riff were both just Steve testing out the capabilities of the new software. Basically opening each plug-in, playing the first thing that came to his mind, and then moving on to the next one. There were a couple of little test riffs like that, but this one actually felt to me like it could be made in to a real song. I took lyrics from another song that wasn't really working, and layed them over his riff. A few bits of colour and an arrangement later and we had this song pretty much done on the day we started it. There are a lot of different ways that I end up writing songs. Sometimes you can work forever on something, and it just doesn't pan out in the end. Other times you sit down and write what you think is a masterpiece in five minutes. Those are my favourites.

Kanae: Can you describe 2010 in one word and can you tell us why you chose the word?

Thomas: Can we count the number, '2010', as a word. That's the only way I could think to do it. There are always ups and downs in every year, so let's keep it clerical. '2010' makes me remember everything that happened in 2010.

Kanae: Can you share anything that we can expect from Small Sins in 2011? Any plans in 2011?

Thomas:I've already started to demo some new songs. Not sure where I'm going with it yet, but it's beginning again. I have a couple of weeks booked to write in January, so we'll see what fruits that produces. Steve and I have also been talking about doing a cover record at some point. That is to say, taking one artist's record and covering it from front to back. I always though that would be a fun project. We were thinking about doing The Monks', 'Bad Habits'. Lots of good songs on that one. We also have a tour booked in March, playing Eastern Canada and then working our way down through the states to Austin for SxSW.

Kanae: At last, could you please share a message to your fan or to music psychos in Toronto?

Thomas:Party on.

Thank you so much Thomas for your time! we can't wait to hear from you again for any updates in 2011! Here is the video for Deja Vu! Enjoy!