UWindsor Lance
Issue 35, Volume 85
March 20, 2013
Jon Liedtke

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The Reason were in Windsor Friday night to kick off a cross country tour, though not at concert venues, clubs or bars, but at the homes of radio station contest winners.

Included in the prize from The Rock 100.7 FM was an acoustic set by The Reason and enough Steam Whistle beer, Pizza Pizza pies and Chuck Taylor shoes for 20 people.

“It was an absolutely amazing night, and it would’ve been amazing on its own as it
is, but it turns out half the guys and girls that were here knew them from so long
ago when they were Sewing With Nancie,” explained The Rock host and Tea Party
drummer Jeff Burrows, referring to band’s pre-The Reason days.

The Lance caught up with Adam White and James “Cubby” Nelan after their set
to talk about The Reason’s upcoming tour and plans for the future.

JL: Why are you here?

AW: We wanted to do something different and do something special [as] we’ve
been a band now for I0 years. The opportunity came about to do these house parties, and this is the first one on the trip, so it set the bar pretty high. Instead of doing some shows, we thought we’d kick it old school for a couple months and do some house parties across Canada.

JL: You say ‘kick it old school,’ you had to play some Sewing With Nancie songs by request, how was that?

AW: That’s okay. It’s a thing … it’s a Windsor thing. It’s not like some dude in Red Deer [Alberta] is going to ask for a Sewing With Nancie song. I don’t mind it.

JN: It’s appropriate when it’s appropriate.

JL: Were you expecting those requests?

AW: Yes.

JN: Kind of, but not preparing for it. We didn’t know who won the contest until two days ago, so we had no way of knowing … we weren’t really familiar with how familiar [the winner] was with us when we showed up here. When we showed up, he [explained] that he had friends who used to go to Gino A. Marcus shows and
we were like, “okay, cool,” and Adam had like two hours to remember like 30 songs in case someone wanted to hear one.

JL: What are you expecting the rest of the tour to be like?

AW: God, I hope it’s as good as this, this was wicked … coming back to a basement party, it’s good.

JN: It’s just right, it seems right.

JL: It’s your 10-year anniversary, talk about that.

JN: We’re shooting the whole [tour] and we’re going to document the whole thing and see all the way across the country what this is like for us.

AW: We’ve always toured in a van, we’ve never gone on a train before, the VIA thing is crazy … you get to see the country in a way we’ve never seen before. I’ve always known I was going to play music, I’m just glad that Cubby and [bassist] Ronson (Armstrong) stuck around with me so I could still call it The Reason. It’s good to be with your buddies and it’s good to share something and just kind of wing it.

JL: What can people expect after the tour?

JN: Hopefully, a full band version of what we just did, not necessarily in people’s houses. We’re going to hopefully do some summer festivals and touring.

AW: We have a 10-year anniversary show planned in Hamilton … because that’s where the band started. We moved to Hamilton at the end of Sewing With Nancie … It’s going to be a special show, we’re going to do some special shows surrounding it, get this documentary done and in the meantime get on some festivals, do some touring and get ready to do another record … just keep pumping
out the music.

JN: Our idea is to do fewer songs more often rather than a bunch of songs.

AW: Rather than a 12-song album every three years, do a six-song EP every eight
months.

JN: That’d be the best because we’d be putting out more music.

AW: People’s attention spans are different now than they were … the internet’s changed everything.

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Jon Liedtke was the Features and Opinions Editor, Associate News Editor, Advertising Manager and Deficit Consultant at the UWindsor Lance.