By Kerry DooleArguably the first couple of Canadian roots music, Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland have toured and recorded together extensively over the last six years. In new project Whitehorse, they make this musical marriage official, consummating it with this eight-song, 24-minute mini-album. It includes seamless revisions of two tracks they have previously recorded individually. "Broken" and "Passenger 24" are two of the strongest tunes in the catalogues of, respectively, Doucet and McClelland. His big, resonant guitar sound, one of the most recognizable in Canadian music, adds muscle to the latter, while "Broken" is similarly invigorated by her strong harmony vocals. The trading of vocal parts works well on Springsteen classic "I'm On Fire." New jointly written originals include the dramatic "Killing Time is Murder" and dreamily poetic "Night Owls," while the album begins and ends with the short and avant-garde-ish two-part "Eulogy for Whiskers." Something of a grab bag, Whitehorse remains an attractive teaser for what is surely much more to come.
Was it important to have a band name for your new project? McClelland: We have spent years getting our names out there, so we initially weren't going to turn our backs on that. But it got to the point where it was, "we need a band name."
Doucet: We have a more definable sound as Whitehorse than individually. There is chemistry ― an artistic union does produce something larger than the sum of its parts. We have often gone out on the road as a duo act, trading songs back and forth, singing harmonies, but now we are a band.
McClelland: And it is more than trading songs back and forth; it will be about both being involved in every song the entire set. We have done the duo show, and it is way more casual. We really want to focus on the fact that this is a band.
Doucet: Being a singer-songwriter can be horribly tedious, boring and artless in a lot of ways. The solitary, introspective, navel-gazing type of singer-songwriter is so cliché. We murdered the singer-songwriter in each of us to be Whitehorse.
The album is something of a hybrid, with old and new songs and a cover. Doucet: This record is about introducing Whitehorse as a band, as an entity and as a musical marriage.
McClelland: It is also about bringing our two fan bases together. There is a lot of overlap already, but we thought bringing some of the old material and putting it in a new light would be a good way of introducing this new band.
Doucet: There is not a lot of rock'n'roll in Whitehorse at this point, nor retro country ballads ― they probably will not be a part of Whitehorse. It is the common ground we share that will define what Whitehorse are. It made sense to find songs from each other we have both been a big part of.
McClelland: One thing we share as artists and writers is that we are all over the map stylistically. We both have trouble sticking to one thing. That can work against you. When we came together, we found the thing that works; it is more focused.
Doucet: Whitehorse have more of a sound than either of our solo careers ever have had.
Any role models or inspirations for being a couple making music together? McClelland: Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash have that epic musical love story. There is something very beautiful about that. That final video Johnny Cash made brings me to tears every time I see it. Such a beautiful final mark, and there's the legacy of that marriage. There's something not very rock'n'roll about growing old together, but when you see that, you can't deny the romance.
Doucet: In forging this project, we were listening to a lot of Gram [Parsons] and Emmylou [Harris], actually. Being a couple and making music together, there's a relatively small amount of couples doing that, so comparisons are inevitable. Gram and Emmylou definitely hit close to home. The comparisons are interesting. He's seen as a country-rocker, and I've been accused of that. She's a wonderful singer and so is Melissa. Gram's rather a shitty singer; I'm kind of a shitty singer. I love his warbly, shitty singing. There are a lot of parallels that work. He was a closet Rolling Stone. So am I. She was something of a beautiful country diva, and you could say that about Melissa. The beauty and the beast duality in that relationship I love, and I feel that in ours. It is the tension and the release in the music too, the darkness and the beauty.
How will Whitehorse work live? Doucet: We're rehearsing at home and we'll do some rehearsal gigs in Hamilton and Waterloo. We'll be using a lot of loops and instruments, not just the two of us on guitars ― there'll be drums. If we do it well, it will be something that has never been done, though I might be talking out my ass.
McClelland: We want to build a show that is out of the singer-songwriter realm of just passing a guitar back and forth.
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