The average Canadian wears one coat at a time in winter. Granted it’s probably the warmest coat ever known to mankind, but it’s still just one.
But to get Cameron Potts, one-fifth of the Sydney, Australia’s band Dead Letter Chorus, through the season, he needed three.
“It’s been a shock for sure,” Potts told andPOP of the Canadian cold. “I’m a bit of a wimp … I think I brought three jackets and at one stage I was wearing all three.”
Dead Letter Chorus, made up of Potts and four others, is on a cross-Canada tour in support of their debut album, The August Magnificent. It was the band’s first time seeing snow fall from the sky.
“It was pretty overwhelming,” he said. “We were just sitting having breakfast, and all of a sudden it started snowing!”
Dead Letter Chorus is made up of unique sound and equally unique dynamic. Mixing country, alternative, folk and pop, their music is often described in Australia as “new folk.”
Another feature that sets this band apart is the fact that they have two lead singers: Potts and Gabrielle Huber (who is also Potts’ girlfriend of over five years). Add Michael Faber on guitar, Lee Carey on percussion, and Tristan “T-Bone” Thorne on bass, and you’ve got a sound both powerful and serene, unique and relatable.
“It’s really good for us because it breaks up the set. It doesn’t ever feel like we’re doing too much of the one thing,” Potts said of sharing the lead singer duties with Huber. “We write songs with each other in mind with what they could be doing in the song.
“We write songs for each other lyrically as well. It’s kind of good in that way. It helps us be a bit versatile.”
The August Magnificent, which was just released in Canada a few weeks ago, has been out in Australia since 2008. Touring Canada gave the band a chance to re-connect with the songs that were going slightly stale.
“They feel good again,” Potts said of the songs. “Probably six months ago we’d been playing them for 18 months and we’d done so many shows in Australia that we were ready to do something new. We weren’t too sure how we were going to go coming back and playing some of the same songs but they’ve been great.”
And fans can look forward to more Dead Letter Chorus music very soon. Currently working with Canadian producer Les Cooper, the band already has about 17 songs to choose from for their sophomore album. And getting new music out, both here and back home, is a major priority for them once this tour wraps up.
“We’re going to go home and record,” said Potts. “We’re definitely going to release a single mid-year.”
Still, the band is enjoying being immersed in Canadian culture for the time being. And while they prefer sinking into the swing of a city instead of doing the tourist aspect of travelling, Potts admits they would have loved to go to a baseball game if time had permitted.
“We wanted to go to the Rogers Centre to see a baseball game indoors because that would have been hilarious,” he said, a look of childish wonder and curiosity in his eyes. “That blows my mind: baseball indoors!”
