'It Was a Necessity at the Very Beginning' — Crown Lands Discuss New Album, What It's Like Being a Duo + More

Wednesday night's edition of Loudwire Nights (May 20) featured two very special guests, Kevin Comeau and Cody Bowles, the duo that comprises Crown Lands. Celebrating their latest album, Apocalypse, Bowles and Comeau dove into the journey of the band, what's on the horizon and much more.

Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

"It's a relief in many ways," Comeau admitted to Loudwire Nights' Chuck Armstrong about the release of Apocalypse.

"It feels like it's been such a long time coming. There was a really big break in-between Fearless and Apocalypse. Of course, in between, we did the Ritual records and a couple of other instrumental, experimental records that might be coming out later this year, but this was our return to epic, progressive storytelling form and it just feels so nice to finally have this beast out in the world, man."

Since 2020, Crown Lands have demoed everything in their own home studio. After realizing they were spending too much money driving to Toronto to record everything in what they called a "clandestine studio," they made the decision to do everything themselves.

"It's been really nice to be able to see through a vision, front to back, in the same space that we love to be," Comeau shared.

"We pretty much live here, maybe myself more than Cody, but I mean, I spend every waking moment I can here working on music."

When Bowles heard that, he was happy to share how nice it is to be able to work so hard in their own space.

"It's such a privilege to do what we do," he shared.

A major part of the creation of Apocalypse — which you can order here via Loudwire's record store — was the fact that they worked with two celebrated producers, Nick Raskulinecz and David Bottrill.

"We were chatting with Nick on how we were going to approach this next record and we were thinking we do the whole record with him, so we made this awesome arrangement to go down to his place, his home studio and we started working on Apocalypse," Bowles said.

"It was great. We did a couple sessions there and then it became clear that he was just so busy. He's such a cool dude, he's got too much on his plate. So we asked his permission, like, 'Hey, can we finish the rest of it?'"

As they were finishing it on their own, they both felt like they needed a little bit more help, or as they shared, "That extra 10-percent bump on the top line." So they called up their longtime collaborator David Bottrill.

"I think, for the most part, why we go to these guys is there's often stalemates in the Crown Lands world," Comeau said.

"There's no democracy in this band, there's two people so if there's a disagreement, nothing gets done and things sit in stasis for too long."

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When stalemates came up with Raskulinecz, he was quick to tell them what he thought, allowing Bowles and Comeau to move on.

"With Bottrill, it's a similar thing where you know you just need an objective ear sometimes," Comeau said.

"But it leads to [this]: We sound like us. No matter what."

What Else Did Crown Lands' Kevin Comeau and Cody Bowles Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

• The start of the band and why they began — and continue — as a duo: "It was a necessity at the very beginning. It was because we couldn't fit anyone in my dad's Elantra. It was one of those situations where we had no room for anyone else ... But off the tail of that, we quickly realized when we wrote our first EP, we're like, 'Damn, this works really good, let's just keep it this way.'"
• One frustration with being a duo: "[It's] the qualifier of 'you're good for a duo.' That bugged me, I think more than Cody, but what bugged Cody more was the idea of bringing in live performers and bringing in a couple of extra people, because it's that fear of, do people like us because we're amusing or do they like us for the circus act where you know we pull everything off live with no trickery?"
• Why they've committed themselves to speaking out about injustices the Indigenous communities face in Canada: "We feel like as artists, you have a voice, you have a platform, everyone has an opportunity to say something. It wasn't lost on us that all this stuff was going on around us. We saw it, we didn't see enough people talking about it ... We felt it was like a duty, a responsibility to ourselves and as people to elevate these voices and to talk about these things, because they matter. We'd rather speak out against this stuff than put our head in the sand and kind of delude ourselves that it's not going on. Once you kind of see what's happening, you can't unsee it and we felt very strongly about that and we still do feel very strongly about that and supporting these issues."

Listen to the Full Interview in the Podcast Player Below or the Video at the Top of the Page

Kevin Comeau and Cody Bowles joined Loudwire Nights on Wednesday, May 20; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station and listen to interviews on-demand.