It’s been an eventful few weeks for Halifax’s In-Flight Safety. In February, their video for “The Coast Is Clear” received a Juno nomination for Video of the Year.
Less than two weeks ago, they took home three East Coast Music Awards—for Group Recording
of the Year, Alternative Recording of the Year, and CBC GALAXIE Rising Star Recording of the Year—
and performed live at the nationally televised ceremony.
But a few trophies do nothing to prevent piano and keyboard player Daniel Ledwell from sitting
on Gottingen Street in Halifax, waiting for a CAA representative while the band’s van refuses to start.
“These things kind of happen around the inner workings of the band … and they’re all great … but I don’t feel any different today than I felt, you know, three months ago,” Ledwell said.
“We’re still writing songs, and we’re still practicing most nights. And these things keep you going,
though—the excitement of being nominated for a Juno and ECMAs makes you want to keep doing it—but it really doesn’t affect your day-to-day thoughts.” In-Flight Safety’s apparently sudden good luck has a lot to do with hard work, including the arduous recording process of their 2006 album The Coast Is Clear. The band began recording in Vancouver with producer Warne Livesey (Matthew
Good Band, 54-40), but used up their entire budget well before the album was completed. Laurence
Currie (Sloan, Gandharvas) produced another chunk of the album at home in Halifax, but In-Flight Safety were on their own for most of the overdubs.
They ended up recording half the album in a home studio. A bit of an odd duck in the sea of Canadian indie releases, The Coast Is Clear is an unabashedly sweeping, epic pop record, sharing more territory with bands like Doves than with most of their national (or regional) peers. You might even recognize “Surround” from Dell Computers’ fall advertising campaign. Ledwell thinks In-Flight Safety’s East Coast base has been an asset in their development. “I think it would have been easy
to kind of move to Toronto early on and just as easy to get lost in a shuffle of bands there, where it
seems like we can stand out a little bit on the East Coast. … It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle of being in a band without actually working on your music that much, if you know what I mean, so I think being
out on the East Coast … we’re not just in the scene or in a band, we’re here playing, working hard
on writing good songs.”
The band is currently working on material for their next album. “We’ve grown a lot as a band, and I think the new songs will be reflective of that,” he said. “Don’t expect another Coast is Clear, is what I’m saying. You might get it—but don’t expect it.”
“We’ve got probably 20 little snippets of great music that will probably never be songs. I mean, they’re just one little part … that may be used, maybe not. We keep track of them. … It’s like sculpture,
you’ve got a little idea, you might have a face you like, and then it takes you the rest of the year to make the body of it—so that’s how we do it.” Ledwell isn’t optimistic about the group’s Juno chances. Their competition includes Billy Talent’s “Devil in a Midnight Mass” video (which Ledwell pegs as the winner) and Christina Aguilera’s video for “Hurt,” directed by Canadian Floria Sigismondi.
“I went on to YouTube ’cause I wanted to watch all the videos that we were nominated against, and our video had just been put on YouTube by someone, and it had 173 views, and Christina’s almost
had a million. … So there’s a sense of what an underdog we are in that category.”
While memorable moments from Ledwell’s time with In-Flight Safety include “waterslide parties with Raising The Fawn” on tour and meeting Daniel Lanois, the band’s progression has been steady enough to make it all seem natural.
“Because the music industry is the way it is these days, you never just make it, you know? It’s not
like we’re nobody and then we’re somebody. So because it’s such a long process and a gradual thing, it just seems kinda normal to be where we are. Even though two years ago, to say ‘In two years
you’re going to be doing this, you’re going to be travelling across the country in a band that people like,’ we probably would have laughed in your face. So, it’s very exciting, it’s a great time.
“If our van was working, it’d be even better.”
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In-Flight Safety and Two-Hours Traffic roll into The Grad Club on Saturday. Tickets are $10 in advance at Destinations and The Grad Club and $12 at the door. Doors open at 9 p.m.
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