In the decade of death, Spiral Beach found life. Formed in 2003, the ragtag crew of four has built a six-year career with their manic, shocking bursts of trance-pop tunes both on-stage and on record.
The band consists of singer/guitarist Airick Woodhead, singer/keyboardist Maddy Wilde, drummer Daniel Woodhead, and bassist Dorian Thornton. Together, the band recently performed at the On3Radio Festival in Munich, Germany with other super-indie darlings Dance Yourself to Death and My Little Pony.
But even with the release of their third album, The Only Really Thing, Spiral Beach is as wide-eyed and fresh as any new blog-buzz band—minus the Wavves-like burnouts.
“Touring has been great. We actually haven’t had more than five days in Toronto for three months,” says drummer and lyricist Daniel Woodhead while en route to a performance.
Sitting in the backseat of Spiral Beach’s 16-passenger mini-bus, Woodhead is filled with glee and excitement as he reminisces about the band’s recent tour to the land of the Hoff, courtesy of the Hidden Camera’s old booking agent.
“I think the show in Germany was one of the biggest shows ever. Plus, the food there is amazing, holy shit. You can drink on the subway there and you can—”
Woodhead abruptly goes silent as he finds himself on his back. His bandmates laugh but quietly hush after five-seconds.
“Oh shit, the whole seat just fell, the van is falling apart. The whole thing just flipped over. I’m on my back but I’m correcting myself.”
Citing Germany’s more laid-back and party-inclined culture, Woodhead and his motley crew partied at the hotel with other festival bands like My Little Pony and Ebony Bones. Partaking in what Woodhead describes as a “multi-nation party,” various music collectives partied until 6 a.m.—though when they stopped, it wasn’t by choce. It was at that time that the cops came and put a kibosh on the festivities.
Getting busted by the police is not new to the quartet. In 2008, EcoMedia Direct slapped them with a $1,470 fine for covering up paid-for advertising on their bins. The band eventually held a benefit show at the Whippersnapper to cover the costs.
In spite of their brief run-ins with the law, they more often encounter colourful flashing lights at their concerts—and these are usually the more muted elements of a Spiral Beach show. Their stage has played host to giant eyeball balloons, pylons, and cardboard thought-bubbles.
“We basically started playing within our community of friends. A good friend of ours had a house where there would be parties with up to 50 people, and it was the perfect world of teenage debauchery. There were people spray-painting on walls, taking mushrooms, and smoking pot. I think that house was a big inspiration for us.”
While Spiral Beach’s circus-like whimsy has informed their musical and aesthetic from the beginning, their brand of surrealism has recently leaked into mainstream music through acts like Lady Gaga, Little Boots, and La Roux.
“We’re really scatterbrained individuals, so we decided to go forward with a kind of chaotic and psychedelic visual style,” says Woodhead. “The surrealist elements in music have always been around, since the beginning of pop music, but with the amount of exposure that bands can get, visual aesthetics can just blow up. If you look at someone like Slim Twig, he has created this persona around himself, and it’s kind of like his visual style, a classic kind of noir.”
In spite of Spiral Beach’s eccentric antics, the band has and continues to focus on the collective experience—whether it was at their first gig in 2003 at the Free Times Cafe, or overseas in Germany.
As the mini-bus nears the studio, Woodhead expresses excitement about the coming holidays, which, not surprisingly, includes a collective jam session with his brother Airick and folk-musician father David Woodhead.
“Every New Year’s Day night, my parents have this kind of folky jam party which is amazing. We’ve been doing it for at least 10 years, where everybody gets together—those who are not too hungover—and sing songs from bands like The Beatles.”
With TV appearances, blog praise, and a thwarted attempt by Pete Doherty to steal Airick’s hat in Germany, Spiral Beach are ready to take on the new decade—that is, if Daniel Woodhead ever figures out what to call it.
“We’ll see what the future holds and what opportunities are in store. I think we’re all super excited for the 2010s? The two-thousand-teens? What do you call it? I don’t even know.”
