Interview: Seaway ‘We’ll have a release early next year’

Earlier this month, State Champs done a full UK run of shows, and brought none other than Canadian, notable pop-punker’s Seaway.

I sat down for a chat with front-man Ryan Locke to talk about what they’ve been up to since their most recent album Vacation and what’s next for the band.

ME: Vacation… What a fun and impressive album, I know it’s been a while, but it is hands down my favourite Seaway record.

Ryan: For real!

ME: Caleb Shomo of Beartooth made a little appearance on the album! How did all that come about? He is a fan of the band I take it!

Ryan: Yeah! Yeah and when we were making the record we were just trying to figure out who we could have on the record. We’ve always had friends feature on every one of our records. We had Shane from Silverstein on our first record and we had Ian from a band back home called The Full Blast on our second record. We were talking about this one and trying to figure out who we were going to get and we were kind of stuck and didn’t know what to do. Then somebody just brought him up and it was one of those ‘of course why didn’t we think of that’ kinds of moments, it should have been obvious you know? I reached out to him and asked him by e-mail, because I wasn’t too sure about all of the politics behind it with them being on a different label and all that. Once we got the idea of him, we knew it was a cool thing to have.

ME: So you’ve been out here (UK) quite a few times now, what is it about the UK that keeps bringing you back?

Ryan: The shows! The shows are always great. We tour the states so much so when you play these cities over and over you kind of get the feel of what the show will be like, and it’s not anything against any of the smaller cities but you know how it is with a smaller city; there are less people which may not deliver the craziest shows. We would play like 30-40 shows in the states when we’re doing a full US tour so they aren’t always going to be super crazy. I think tonight will be our tenth show of this UK tour and there are so many col people over her that the shows do tend to be consistently good. Like, the other night in Norwich, which I think is one of the smaller cities on the run but it really was a great show. So it isn’t just London that have the good shows you know?

ME: So London usually is the better show?

Ryan: Yeah! But you know it usually the bigger show of the tour in London, but last night in Birmingham was great and we’re expecting a great show tonight in Bristol. There isn’t really any of those smaller markets where you don’t really want to play, so yeah that’s why we continue to come back.

ME: Awesome! So how has it been over here so far on this run alongside State Champs?

Ryan: Yeah it’s been really great! Like as I was saying all the shows have been awesome so far so there are really no complaints.

ME: So, do you really do much sightseeing while you’re over here? Or not so much now, as you’ve been here a few times?

Ryan: I was actually talking to somebody yesterday about this! This is our sixth time over here in the UK, so once you’ve done these laps around a few times…

ME: It’s like there’s only so much you can see I guess…

Ryan: Yeah we usually play the same venue’s so there’s always the same sort of stuff around but we did take a walk earlier and checked out all of the vintage stores and stuff and we did do some cool stuff in London, to some neighborhoods we’ve never been to before but we mainly just chill and take it all in.

ME: Awesome! Can we expect anything new off you guys anytime soon? Not so much this year but maybe some times in 2019?

Ryan: In terms of a new record, yeah we’ve started to talk about that and we’re brainstorming ideas around. So like early next year around March possibly, we’re putting out a compilation of some acoustic renditions from Vacation, we got some brand new B-Sides coming. We recorded a single between recording Vacation and now, so we got that too. So yeah, we’ll have a release early next year with new takes on songs and some new songs completely. We’ll also throw some old stuff on there too which is out of pressing right now. So I’m really looking forward to that because its got some pretty cool stuff in there.

Catch Seaway on their co-headline US run alongside Trophy Eyes with Microwave, Can’t Swim and Hot Mulligan which kicks off tomorrow by clicking here.