Artist Spotlight: The History of Gunpowder

Writing in India, Hating Ostriches

“It’s kind of like Tom Waits married Taylor J. Hawkins and somehow conceived a child that really liked punk music—and then he started playing with a lot of horns and strings,” says Alex James Morison, about The History of Gunpowder.

Morison sings and plays guitar in the band, on top of being the founder and composer. He is the constant in a lineup which has had around 25 members to-date.

Montreal is the band’s home base, but it’s not where their most recent album, Stained Glass, Rye and Wax, was written. It was a trip to India that inspired Morison to create what he describes as a very “dissonant, disgusting-sounding album that is about very beautiful things.”

“A lot of the content had to do with some of the events that happened while I was in India and other places in Asia. It definitely got its grit from India,” says Morison. “But musically, it didn’t affect me. You know, I didn’t try to put a sitar in there.”

He explains that the poverty, illness, and power struggle in the country is what caused him to describe it as gritty and write people taking advantage of one another.

Morison’s departure to India came out of a desire to split from the Vancouver music scene—where he was working at the time—and “break momentum.” Before going, he planned to record there as well, alongside players from the country.

It was over two years ago that he spent eight months in Asia and four in India, but the album was written in only one month. Throughout that month, Morison holed himself up in a small room to take advantage of having 24 hours to write every day. Eighteen tracks came out of that experience, and only seven made the album, but the uniqueness of the conditions they were written under made each one special.

“I was able to separate myself from what would normally inform my style and my content. I had a little bubble—a little incubator to grow in. Most people aren’t fortunate enough to have that isolated space to write in.”

“Most of all, I was in a room for a month and I didn’t allow myself to leave that often, other than to get cheap rum and cheap cigarettes and food.”

That alone time allowed him to produce an album that he is proud of, more so than anything else The History of Gunpowder has released in the past.

“In my eyes, this is kind of our first record. It’s miles ahead of our other stuff just because I did it right. I didn’t rush anything and all of the players I wanted to play on it played on it.”

Currently, the band consists of five steady members: Michael Johancsik on saxophone, Aleksi Campagne on violin, Stephane Krimms on bass, Quinn Dennehy on drums, and Henri Rabalais on keys.

In reference to the record’s album art—which depicts an open-mouthed, brightly-coloured ostrich—Morison doesn’t have much of an explanation.

“I think I was drunk on the porch at one of my friends’ houses and I said, ‘You know, ostriches are the most disgusting creatures,’ because they are. They’re like the camel of the bird world, and anyone who knows camels knows they’re bastards,” says Morison. “The problem is that I don’t respect them.”

He says that he doesn’t “know where it came from, much like the band name.”

The History of Gunpowder is already working on a new album, the details of which are to be announced.