Catch them at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in October!
Reuben and the Dark is quite busy nowadays. They just announced their new album Un ǀ Love, and released a single Faultline. Reuben Bullock, the lead singer, has also been doing some commercial writing for tv and movies. “I’ve done some of it in the past, but not intentionally. A lot of my songs have been used in trailers and TV shows. But it hasn’t necessarily been the intention directly,” he says.
It’s a new direction for him and he is trying to keep an open mind. “Me being in a writing session, has always been kind of a nauseating experience for me. I’m very much a lone wolf, with that kind of thing and I write from a real stream of consciousness kind of place. So it’s always been a challenge involving other people in that. But through it there has been some really cool things that have been written, some good songs have come out.”
Writing with an open mind has also led to something new for this new album as well, as it wasn’t really planned. Bullock was in Mexico and the album took shape. “I went out there for a month and rented a cabin in the jungle, maybe an hour from Puerto Vallarta,” Bullock says, “and about two weeks in, called a couple guys from the band and flew them out there.”
So this album features way more collaboration from members of the band. “In the past the songs have all been figured out, and the band comes in and plays them. This one, two of the guys were with me during a lot of the writing. We collaborated on the music the same day that I wrote the songs.”
Bullock says that he has ” leaned into a softer side of song writing” for this album. He says that it’s perhaps more intimate and more experimental than their other songs. There are a couple songs on the album that feature him with a guitar that he recorded in one take. There are also some songs that have a lot of rhythm that you can dance to. “I think this is a record that I really want people to listen to, from beginning to end.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Bullock says when asked if he has ever wanted to walk away from this. “I’ve had times where I was like, what am I doing?Especially in the early days. I had a moment where me and another guy in the band had a heart to heart and we were wondering if we sucked and nobody would tell us that. No one would just be direct and be like, ‘I know you guys mean well but this is just not going to work for you.’ Because you are so insulated by your friends and family.”
Creating music has been successful for Reuben and the band since they started and he tries not to look ahead or back too much. “I don’t think there has been a big point of arrival. Somehow it has worked, somehow we have been able to pull it off, somehow we have been able to keep going.”
Reuben and the Dark will announce tour dates today, and one of them is October 18th and 19th at the Banff Centre. Bullock has some things in the works to make it special. “We’ll be so close to Calgary that we can bring some friends in to play with the band.”
Tickets and more information are available for their show at the Banff Centre online. Stay tuned for tour dates – on their website.
Photo Credit: Sheva Kafai