Pleased to Meet Me: Bruce Wilson / Sunday Morning
Sunday Morning is the brainchild of Vancouver music scene stalwart Bruce Wilson. His prolific art and music career took shape in New York and Detroit after his drug and alcohol fueled grunge punk band Tankhog imploded in Vancouver in the late 90s. Years of addiction, lost time, and eventual recovery would reshape his entire creative voice.
Introduce yourself… (Where are you from, what band do you play in etc.)
I'm Bruce Wilson from the Vancouver band Sunday Morning, a project I’ve been spearheading since 2016. I wrote the first self-titled album with my dear friend and brilliant musician Stephen Hamm and went on to work with the amazing producer Felix Fung. Felix and I made the Consequence of Love EP and a series of singles that I’m really proud of. On this latest single, "Carry the Sky," I had the wonderful opportunity to work with producer legend Jamey Koch at The Warehouse Studio and it truly was a dream come true.
Why do you play music?
I’m definitely not a nihilist or a Nietzsche enthusiast, but I do love his famous quote, “Without music, life would be a mistake”. That really rings true to me, and music just feels like magic. The fact I get to make it brings me boundless joy.
What was a major influence on you as an Artist/Band?
I grew up listening to punk rock, and the do-it-yourself ethos of bands like Minor Threat, DOA, and Black Flag was ingrained in me at an early age. That’s been something of a traveling companion through my life and certainly has influenced my approach to making music.
What’s a favourite book or film?
I recently watched the very entertaining Richard Linklater film Nouvelle Vague, and that led me back to rewatching Breathless again. Godard did such a great job at capturing motion and immediacy. Don’t know if I have a singular favorite movie, but that one’s definitely on my list. I went through a period recently where I watched a lot of newer horror movies. I love Jordan Peele’s movies—Ari Aster’s Hereditary was incredible too—I also watched this crazy dark English movie called Dark Song based around an actual magic ritual that was a lot deeper than I was ever expecting. I got really into Zach Cregger’s movie Barbarian and his recent Weapons. I tend to go off on tangents for a couple of months and then move on to some other genre.
I do the same with books, but Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson is one I always go back to. It’s so lyrically beautiful. I was talking to someone recently about Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and how much I love that novel. Right now I’m reading a book about the Cathars.
Do you prefer the recording process or performing live?
I can’t say I prefer one over the other—they’re such different animals. Recording is a exercise of creative problem-solving—I’ve had the opportunity to work with some very talented and musically intuitive people that make that process exciting and productive. Playing live is more of an energy exchange with an audience. I’ve always wanted to make Sunday Morning shows invitational rather than my past confrontational approach to performance. When I’m in sync with an audience, there is truly no better feeling.
What would be a dream collaboration?
I’d love to be locked in a studio with Charlie XCX, PJ Harvey, and Dangermouse and see what we come up with. Can you maybe make that happen?? Maybe the guys from Boards of Canada could swing by too with their messed-up reel-to-reel decks. I can bring my Digitakt and a Korg Volca or two.
Describe a favourite album.
The same as with books or movies, my “favourites” are constantly changing, but there are always constants. I’ve probably played David Bowie’s Low more than any other album in my life. It feels like he and Brian Eno went into Hansa Studio in Berlin with one side worth of songs that had pop sensibilities and then just had fun making a side of weird experimental pieces. What's really impressive about it, though, is how well it holds together as a cohesive album. I don’t think Tony Visconti gets enough credit for his production on that album. Low has a distinct sound and atmosphere that he facilitated, and I think it plays through on some convoluted narrative arc. Or maybe I’ve just created one for it over the years of listening to it on repeat. But that’s what makes great art—the way it embeds itself into your life and becomes a personal touchstone.
What's your favourite local haunt?
There’s this coffee shop right by where I live called Gene Coffee I go to a lot. It’s very much a neighborhood hub and embodies a sense of community that my neighborhood has managed to hold onto over the years. They have killer coffee.
I also recently played this cool little space called Take Your Time (also close to where I live). It had a house party vibe I loved, and the sound was surprisingly good! I love that Vancouver still has independent venues that allow local artists space to perform and grow.
What's your strangest experience while performing live?
Years ago when I was singing for Tankhog, we were on tour with Skinny Puppy, and we played The Ritz in New York. The Skinny Puppy/Tankhog tour was an odd pairing, and their fans weren’t always receptive to our brand of drunken abrasive rock. This was particularly true in New York, where there were thousands of diehard Skinny Puppy fans and the violent hatred they felt towards us was palpable. I’d never felt such intense vitriol expressed directly at me—people were trying to get on stage and physically attack us. Once we realized there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop us, that wall of hatred felt exhilarating. It was like that line in the PIL song “Rise," anger truly is an energy, and we fed off it—antagonizing them further by playing KISS covers. It felt incredibly freeing.
If I were pursuing anything other than music, it would be…
Maybe a librarian? I love books, and libraries feel sacred to me. Or maybe I could be that guy who lives in a little hunting cabin in the woods with a dog and do whatever that guy does. But I’d probably own a banjo or something if I was that guy.
What are some of your favorite aspects of being a musician in Vancouver?
Making music and art in this city isn’t easy. Living here is expensive, and supporting the arts certainly isn’t at the top of the city’s mandate, but I’ve always found a strong sense of community in Vancouver and a wide circle of talented people who make it work. I think to make music here and survive, people need to be innovative, so the ones who stay are particularly resilient and resourceful.
If you weren’t playing music in Vancouver, where would you be?
I’ve lived in so many different cities. From New York to Montreal to Tallahassee—when I moved back to Vancouver, I felt a real desire to create a sense of home for myself. I needed a feeling of stability. Drifting—I was always leaving some place or getting ready to leave some place. Everything felt temporary and fleeting, so I made a decision to find a sense of permanence within myself. Sunday Morning is a documentation of that—a musical and lyrical arc of me trying figure out where the fuck I belong and how to sit still long enough to create that central idea of home. A grounding point—both physically and in a spiritual sense.
Any sage advice for young musicians?
Make the music you love to make, even if nobody likes it.
Produced and mixed by Jamey Koch (The Tragically Hip, Copyright) at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, with additional production by Felix Fung, “Carry the Sky” boasts a remarkable lineup of players: Kevin Rose on guitars, Chris Gestrin on piano and keyboards, Koch handling bass, additional guitars, and backing vocals, with Share Dada on drums and Lone Willow adding ghostly harmonies. The chemistry is both intimate and cinematic, elevating Wilson’s trademark vocal presence into something widescreen and deeply affecting. “Jamey also knew Christian well and had himself experienced recent familial loss,” Wilson adds. “He had an innate and intimate knowledge of exactly how to present this song and did such a beautiful job.” The Warehouse Studio itself carries legendary weight. Built into the oldest brick building in Vancouver’s Gastown district, it was rescued and restored by Canadian rock icon Bryan Adams and painstakingly converted into a world class recording space. Over the past few decades, it has hosted an astonishing roster of major artists across genres, earning a reputation as one of the country’s most prestigious and creatively charged studios. Sunday Morning’s choice to record here places “Carry the Sky” firmly within the tradition of ambitious, high impact Canadian recordings.