Tale of the Comet: Shoemaker Levee Returns with a Wallop on “Hinterlands”
Thirty years ago this month, humanity witnessed a rare sight: A comet measuring nearly 2 kilometres-wide slammed into the planet Jupiter, with a force that would have destroyed the Earth had we been the ones in its path instead. Astronomers named that comet Shoemaker Levy-9.
A few years later—on the far safer terra firma of Newmarket, Ontario—a bunch of indie/alt-rockers decided to christen their new group Shoemaker Levee, in recognition of the momentous celestial occurrence. Fast-forward to 2024, and that group is still going strong with the release of its new single, “Hinterlands,” which hits with the same planet-flattening impact their fiery namesake made all those years ago.
A bracing challenge to our very notions of being, the song paints in broad strokes the existential dilemmas facing every one of us in this highly uncertain era:
End times calculated
Learn the math
Algo-generated epitaph
Page writes for me
Flash burn lies
Why so angry
Don’t you realize?
That I’m awake
And I need something, I need something more
To make sense of what the future has in store
How am I not myself?
How am I not the ghost of someone else?
The words may be esoteric, but there’s nothing ambiguous about the music itself. Huge guitar chords rise from the mix like monoliths while lead vocalist/guitarist Kevin Rogers Cobus squeezes the meaning out of every syllable with a dramatically deliberate enunciation that whizzes past “questioning” and straight into “accusatory” before the whole thing culminates in a cathartic wah-wah freakout from lead guitarist Dave Broadhead.
“When we’re recording, we don’t like adding layers we can’t pull off live,” the band says. “When we play live, it’s just four of us: two guitars, bass and drums.” Four-stringer Matt Brown and drummer Dwayne Cardoso round out the lineup. “It means something to us to keep that live feel and sound in everything we lay down on tape.”
That’s typical of the Shoemaker Levee oeuvre, which trades in anthemic, introspective rock steeped in everything from classical to progressive to alternative to folk. Influences most cited by the band members include The Tragically Hip, Led Zeppelin, Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, and Iron Maiden. If you’re getting the idea this is no timid bunch of navel-gazers, you’re right; then again, heaviness was one of Cobus’ key priorities when he formed the group in 1998. Since then, they’ve written a full five albums’ worth of emotionally and musically weighty material, a treasure trove they’re not even halfway finished sharing with the public.
Why the delay? A protracted band hiatus that started in 2004 and lasted nearly 12 years due to a tsunami of outside complications, from cancer to addiction to more mundane interruptions like work and family. But being gone from the scene for the music-business equivalent of the wait between actual comet visits didn’t completely quash their momentum. They kept writing all the while and refined their lineup with the additions of Broadhead in 2016 and Cardoso a year later.
All that persistence and fine-tuning have paid off, in the form of a big win in headlining the Gussapolooza Music Festival (2023) and a second-place finish at last year’s Ticket to Tall Pines Festival contest in 2023 and 2024. Even more important, they’ve released two albums, Phase of the Days and Another Round, that have earned high praise from listeners and industry types alike.
The tradition is bound to continue when the band’s next record, Between the Lines, sees release later this year. It’s a 10-song collection that represents the best of all possible worlds for Shoemaker Levee, drawing on their rich backlog of compositions while benefiting from a newly collaborative approach to the finessing and arranging of a number.
“Some of the songs are revitalized versions of songs that were written over 20 years ago, and the lyrics still fit what’s happening today,” the group marvels.
As we speak, the band is furthering its reputation as a must-see live act with shows throughout downtown Toronto, adding to a résumé that includes past gigs at prestigious venues like the El Mocambo, Supermarket, The Reverb, The Opera House, The Horseshoe Tavern, Lee’s Palace and the Rivoli. Two songs from the forthcoming album are already in the live set, with “Hinterlands” in the prime position of show opener. That’s a strong and obvious vote of confidence, and it portends great things for Between the Lines when the record drops later in the year. Because while the sentiments expressed in the song may be profoundly ambivalent, the reaction to this heaven-sent fireball of an album is going to be anything but.
Hi Kevin! Care to introduce yourself to the readers?
Hello there, everyone. My name is Kevin and I am the lead vocalist for the band Shoemaker Levee. I also play the guitar. I hear a chorus of angels every time I see a taco.
Your new single “Hinterlands” seems to delve deep into existential questions and the uncertainties of our era. Can you talk about the themes behind the song and how they resonate with your personal experiences?
Hinterlands for me is a validation, and kind of “We see you” message to anyone who has woken up wanting more, wondering where this sense of purpose comes from and where it will ultimately lead. The lyrics make me think of the crossroads between fulfillment and oblivion. To me, that land exists on the edges of our consciousness. Sometimes you get a moment of clarity when the world’s din quiets down enough for you to contemplate your existence, and then ultimately you’re drawn back into the fray. When you’re in the hinterlands of introspection, you’re compelled to ask questions like “Who am I”, and “How am I not myself”? The latter is a line we took from a great movie about existentialism and the human condition.
You’ve mentioned that you prefer not to add layers in recording that you can’t replicate live. How does this approach shape your creative process, and what challenges does it present when bringing a song like “Hinterlands” to life on stage?
That’s a good question. Sometimes we’ll find ourselves talking about adding layers and complexity in the studio to flesh out the sound, but it often comes back to what we can properly play live. Sometimes that has led us to add nuance to parts in the studio that we didn’t create in pre-production. Then we map those new parts into rehearsal to perform them well. It’s tempting to add layers and get carried away with multiple instruments and complexity, but we’re not really a backing track band. We like the idea that our sound is identifiable both in the studio and live. The challenge comes from pushing ourselves to get those nuances tight on stage. Having said all of that, there’s still a place for some layering. For example, in our song Vision, I play a 12-string Martin X-Series as well as my Stratocaster. I can’t do that live, but I’d say that’s an exception, not a rule.
You’ve had a long journey since the band’s formation in 1998, including a significant hiatus. How did those years away from the music scene affect your songwriting and the overall direction of the band?
The funny thing is, we never stopped writing. There are some songs we’re bringing out now that were written a long time ago. We also played some shows in that period. We had a stint with a different lead guitarist. We recorded a demo at a studio that unfortunately burned down, along with all our masters. But the point is, in one iteration or another, we always made time to get together and write, or jam, or play a show here or there. But it wasn’t until we had this current lineup that we started taking things to the next level.
With the release of your upcoming album, Between the Lines, you’re revisiting and revitalizing songs written over 20 years ago. How do these older compositions resonate with the current times, and what was it like to breathe new life into them?
It’s been cathartic. It feels like we’ve all had significant input on the arrangements and the overall mood of these tracks to make it our own. I find it interesting that some of the lyrics are still applicable. We have not changed many of those lyrics from how they were originally written. For example, our song Oversight, which is going to be released soon, has the line: “Patient sacrifice of deliverance; we’re held in against our wills for convenience” which one may think is a reference to the pandemic but in fact, it was written long before that event occurred. But this record also has a lot of new material that we’ve written as a four-piece that we’re very proud of.
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