French-kissing in the bushes, with the Deep Dark Woods

A guide to ‘folk-rockdom’

Chelse McKee, staff

With a haunting and nostalgic sound, the Saskatchewan-based band, the Deep Dark Woods (DDW) have been busy since the band’s formation in 2005, touring with a country artist, Shuyler Jansen, and releasing their second album.

The lead singer, Ryan Boldt, agrees to a phone interview while taking a break from his stone masonry job. With a deep country drawl, he begins to talk about the band’s history, their story-telling lyrics, and throws in some fables about touring and summer camp.

The band is made up of Boldt, Chris Mason (bass), Lucas Goetz (drums), and Burke Barlow (guitar), with all members contributing to vocals.

Besides being a touring buddy and fellow Saskatchewan, Jansen was actually the one who introduced DDW to what would become their future label, Black Hen Music.

A few months ago, Boldt explains, Jansen moved to Saskatoon with his wife, since she was originally from the city.

“He came out to a show one night and saw us play, and it went from there,” Boldt recounts.

Now the two artists jam together in the flat province, Boldt explains, since Jansen doesn’t have a back-up band. Even on tour, the group acts as his back-up band, while playing their own set for the crowd.

Even though the band has only been around since 2005, they have just released their second album, Hang Me, Oh Hang Me. Their first album, self-titled, took only 12 hours to record; for the second recording, the band took almost five months to complete it, just working on weekends.

“That’s all we wanted to do . . . record and make loads of records. And, if it was possible, we would probably be putting out a record a year,” said Boldt.

Despite the increased success of the group (getting signed, releasing records, and touring), Boldt only hopes that more people will listen to the band.

“I don’t know if I want to be played on the radio all the time, because the majority of the crap on the radio annoys me by the end of the day of working.”

All the members, except for Goetz (now unemployed and a former employee at CD Plus), balance the obligations of the music world with the obligations of the business world by holding down second jobs. Boldt makes his living working with his brother as a stone mason, Burke works as a chemist at the university, and Mason works with his father in sales.

As one of the main songwriters, Boldt says he would have never been able to write what he does if he hadn’t moved to British Columbia in ’02.

“That was a very good thing for me to do. I kind of learned how to write songs when I was out there. But, yeah . . . Saskatchewan is a really depressing place in the winter-time, so I think I’ve written a lot of songs about how depressing the winters are.”

Eventually Boldt would move back to Saskatchewan in 2005, joining the other three guys to form DDW, where they would begin to jam almost every night together.

Along with travel, Boldt says that listening to his grandmother sing country gospel may have had an influence on his sound, alongside the heavy influence of classic country, like Mississippi John Hurt, and murder ballads.

“Just back then . . . they sang with meaning, a lot more meaning compared to nowadays for the most part, anyways,” Boldt said. “[Our songs are] a lot of murder songs and gospel songs. The majority of our songs are either about death or God.”

Boldt began to reminisce about his relationship with the other band members. Mason, he said, he met in Grade 12, and they used to drive to the United States to attend music festivals. Barlow he has known since summer camp.

“Oh yeah, lots of good memories with Burke. There’s French-kissing in the bushes. Not with Burke,” Boldt laughs. “With nice-looking girls when I was a kid. Oh, those days. [Now?] It’s all stone masonry.”

Boldt continued along memory lane, cherishing his most memorable show at the Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club in Winnipeg.

“This drunk woman comes up [while I’m performing] and she’s got her [pointer] finger out. She’s, like, slowly walking towards me . . . and I’m looking at her singing this soft song. So, all of a sudden, she . . . pokes my dink twice. She gave me . . . a nice little, just like a push.”

The band hopes to be recording again in either September or October in a studio in Vancouver

The Deep Dark Woods will be playing on March 15 at the Cavern with Shuyler Jansen.