BY LESLEY HASTINGS
Photo credit James May and Libertee May
Sent from my iPhone
Led by Romani-Canadian musician Candace Lacina and her husband, world-renowned keyboardist Mike Little, The Hello Darlins are some of Canada’s most in-demand professional session and touring musicians who came together to forge a distinct hybrid of country, gospel and blues. Often compared to The Eagles, The Band, Bonnie Raitt and classic country acts like Dolly Parton and The Carter Family , they released their most recent album “The Alders & The Ashes“ earlier this year which includes the fabulous tribute to Candace’s grandfather “He Died With His Boots On”
The band will be playing a string of shows in Europe and the UK this Summer including Shrewsbury Folk Festival and London’s Green Note , and ahead of their visit it was great to get the chance to chat with Candace.
The interview was at 4pm GMT on the hottest day of the year here … I looked like a sweaty mess for which I apologised …. and 9am in Canada so I started by asking Candace if she was generally a morning person ….
“I am actually! I’m usually up around 6am, or a bit before, I like to have a quiet morning and coffee before things get going. Today is going to be a full day tho cos we’re getting ready to leave on Friday“
I then explained that all the other Canadian artists I’d interviewed had relocated to Nashville and I wondered if that’s something she’d ever considered doing ?
“We spend a lot of time in Nashville, probably Mike was ready to make the move and become a professional studio musician there … but as it turned out and the way the world shifted you can now do everything on line. Instead he made the decision to build a studio at home so he does a lot of tracking there and sends it to Nashville“
Obviously I had a raft of questions about the band’s recent album and began by asking if a double album was always the plan, or whether they took the decision looking at the amount of songs they wanted to include on their next project
“I think it was kind of a combination of both! We released our debut album (Go By Feel) in 2021, obviously a difficult time to tour, so we didn’t get to tour that record til 2022 and into 2023. By the time we were ready to do another record we felt a bit like a bull in a cage! And there was a lot of things happening personally and professionally, life just dealt us a lot of stuff and for me songwriting is how you work through those things. We lost a very close friend and Mike was diagnosed with cancer plus his dad passed away … and we were still touring! My way of coping was just to hide in my closet and write so we had a lot of material. Thankfully this is a much better season, Mike has gotten a clean bill of health”
She then explained how such life events led to the title of the new album, the titular two trees symbolising change and growth respectively in Celtic ….
“Our previous record was named after a track on the album but this one felt symbolic of the way nature is, how when something dies there’s new growth and new insights that come from that. It was a representation of that window of our life, endings and new beginnings”
On whether the songs fell naturally into the two halves of the album …
“Initially we were going to separate the songs sonically … all the more down tempo, poignant reflective ones on one half, then the more uptempo ones on the other, but when we listened to them laid out separately like that it didn’t make sense! It’s not who we are as a band or artists, so we laid it out more like a live show”.
Unable to chat about all 17 tracks, I picked one of my favourites, the aforementioned “He Died With His Boots On“, which is also one of the few solo writes from Candace on the album. I wanted to know if she felt any additional pressure, celebrating the life and legacy of a much loved family member who inspired her so much …
“I just really wanted to have a bluegrass song on the album! Being raised on that and country music (and yes he was a bluegrass musician) it comes the most naturally to me. As far as writing, that was one the easier ones actually, writing about a true story with real content is always easier. He was a very happy, joyful man who didn’t take things too seriously so I feel he’d like that there was something that made fun of how a person dies!”
I told her I was so glad her Grandfather taught her to yodel (which she includes on the song) as I felt it’s a dying skill and I wondered if she’d passed it on to anyone …
“To some of the band guys, but not to my children. That real true hillside yodelling is VERY impressive , a tricky thing to master and I haven’t! But who knows, one day if I have grandchildren I may pass it on” .
The album was partly recorded at the legendary United Recording Studios in LA so I asked about following in the footsteps of such great artists as Linda Rondstadt and The Doors, could she feel their presence?
“You absolutely could. I’ve never been anywhere quite like that. The closest feeling I can equate it to is walking into maybe a cathedral in Europe, where you go and know there’s a history and a legacy. Knowing you’re somewhere very special that’s absorbed the energy. We were so humbled and honoured to be invited to record there … not knowing too that the purpose of that space would be changed just afterwards … our album was the last to be recorded there and now it’s going to be a movie studio”.
Having been released a few months ago, I asked Candace if any particular album tracks were resonating with fans….
“That’s always my favourite thing about releasing records, you never know what people will gravitate to! I think because we had the chance to tour and play some of these songs live beforehand we had a bit of an indication before we put the album out. Live, people always love a good uptempo tune so I’d say some of the songs that take a journey musically, where Mike can let go and play some solos … ’Sea That Meets The Sky’ which featured the Canadian artist JD Edwards and is one of the rock ‘n’ roll songs on there, which is always fun to play live. The one song consistently that I’ve got the most feedback and shared stories from is ‘Highway 355’, a lot of people can relate especially where we’re from growing up in rural landscapes, and of course it’s the story of my grandmother who has Alzheimer’s and a lot of people can relate to that as well“.
Here’s a live performance of this beautiful song to help whet your appetite for their upcoming European tour!
I wanted to know if there was an archetypal Hello Darlins fan, given the variety of genres their music spans …
“I think they’re quite varied. I’m always surprised … in the line up at the merchandise table the other day we even had a couple of kids, like 7 and 8 year olds, who said ours was their favourite album! But I think the listeners really are people that especially appreciate the lyric, because to me that’s at the heart of country and regardless of the style we’re playing I always want the song to have meaning, a story that’s behind it”.
I moved on to asking about the upcoming European tour, and mentioned the schedule looked totally exhausting to me but that actually the distances involved were nothing compared to touring in Canada …
(laughing) “It’s funny cos we were raised in spending a lot of time on the road as Canadians, we will drive three hours for a show and then three hours home … it’s something we are very used to! So it’s actually a joy to be able to tour in Europe. We really LOVE, LOVE touring, and meeting people and sharing music is energising for us so it looks exhausting but when we come back off tour our hearts are just so full“ .
Touring as a five-piece with Candace the only female in the band, I wondered if it was up to her to keep everyone in check …
“Ha, we are fortunate enough this tour to have a female tour manager join us, but most of the time I am tour manager … so I guess basically yes, I keep everyone in line. But they are all really kind hearted, respectful guys and it’s very easy to be around them”
When it comes to the two UK dates they are very different types of shows I wondered if the band enjoy mixing thing up in that respect, maybe varying their set lists accordingly ….
“Yeah, we get a chance to play through our full repertoire, which I love as sometimes people will come to both shows. The show is not static and doesn’t stay the same all the time which is fun and we get the chance to exercise different music muscles! Every day is a little bit different. And we don’t travel in Europe with a sound engineer because what we’ve found is at every venue music is just so appreciated and understood that whoever is there on staff we have always been treated so wonderfully and they know how to get the sound working for that space. It feels very easy to tour in Europe and the UK.“
As such busy touring band I wondered what Candace missed most when she was away from home ?
“My animals! We actually just have a new puppy, a black lab who is so very sweet, called Jimmy … and two rag doll cats”
(I asked to see Jimmy but he was out with Mike but Candace fetched one of her stunning cats who is probably bigger than two of my dogs!)
Then Candace added
“this tour is very special for us ‘cos we also miss my Mum and Dad, who are the biggest fans of the band, and they are coming with us on the whole tour … they’ve never been to Europe! “
My final question was regarding their next album which is already in the works …
“We will be going into the studio to record in 2025 and have quite a few tracks already written. Actually there’s a few we didn’t record for the last record that might well make the cut … we had 32 and released 17 … I love writing in the Wintertime tho, as it’s so cold outside here!”
That was my cue to mention the UK temperature as we were speaking and apologies for my appearance … Candace was gracious enough to say I looked fine!!
And that was a wrap apart from thanking her for her time (and her saying she was really grateful to Country Lowdown for sharing all their tour news and music) and wishing the band and her parents safe travels.
Who will I see at the Hello Darlins London show on August 29th?
Ticket links to all upcoming shows here
Music Streaming and Website links here