Wildlife

The heart is a funny thing. It’s strong, vulnerable, vital, but unlike most of the important things in our lives, it’s not protected by bricks or Kevlar. Unless you have a Kevlar heart… and if so, where did you get it? Can I have one? For the rest of us, we put ourselves out into the world blind and unguarded; we love, we live and sometimes we get hit (possibly hard). When we mess-up or get messed-up, our hearts help us use those mess-ups to learn, to light the way, and get a bit closer to a less messed-up truth.

Wildlife has always kind of been about a similar kind of thinking. We’re all in this together, so let’s get movin’, always forward, never back, don’t dwell on the past, let’s build on our mistakes, try new things and stop pretending you know everything ‘cause you don’t and that’s annoying. AND that’s pretty much what our entire first record was about! Strike Hard, Young Diamond (our first record) was a study of letting go, an observation of youth, what it means to be young, reckless, naïve and all of the incredible things that can come out of happy accidents. We used themes of adventure, exploration and vitality to explain jumping into the dark, deep water not knowing or caring where you came up for air.

I guess it only makes sense that our new record is about realization. It probably asks more questions than gives answers. The one answer it does give is really nothing new, but it has a lot of meaning to me either way, which is why we call it “…On The Heart”. We view it as an essay, a love letter, a tribute to the heart itself. Everything it does for us, to us, how it helps us and hurts us. How it heals us, holds us up and pushes us forward. It keeps us going, keeps us living and gives us a place to be free. Don’t stop believin’? Follow your dreams? Sure. But it seems to me that the heart is too complex to be summed up in a catchphrase. I think it would be fair to say that this new album was created to try to make a little sense of that complex, mysterious, vital muscle. Maybe with a couple catchphrases thrown in for good measure. We buried our hearts deep inside this thing, and we hope you love it as much as we do.

Dean Povinsky + Wildlife

(Dean Povinsky is some guy who just wrote this thing you read. He is the lead singer and guitarist of Wildlife, along with Derek Bosomworth (bass), Dwayne Christie (drums) and Graham Plant (guitar). Their critically acclaimed, not so good selling first album Strike Hard, Young Diamond came out in November 2010. But what they care about right now is …On The Heart, to be released March 5 2013 on Wax Records. It was recorded with some really awesome guys named Peter Katis (The National, Interpol) Gus Van Go and Werner F (The Stills, Hollerado). Wildlife lives in Toronto, but they want to come meet you in person and spoil you rotten.)