Interview With Wayward Saints & New Music Video “Pay No Mind”
Wayward Saints is a 5 piece old school rock band from Toronto on a mission to bring the heartfelt spirit of rock back to old and new generations. They just came on to the scene in 2021, and have been working hard to make genuine connections with their new found fans ever since. The band has set up a fan temple, which you can sign up for at www.wayward-saints.com, that gives you a in depth behind the scenes look at what it’s like to be a rock band born during a pandemic, as well as updates and some pretty sweet deals on merch. It’s been so interesting watching how different bands approached music and content creation over the coarse of the last couple years, and I think Wayward Saints are a great example of a band using technology to overcome obstacles and connect with their fans without live shows or in person events. The band has recently released their second music video “Pay No Mind”, and if you’re a classic rock fan, you’re going to love the sound. Their music has that warm nostalgic feeling that rock n roll can bring, but with a new and exciting edge to it. We had the opportunity to interview lead singer Lindsay Coleman about the new song, the fan temple, what they’ve got coming and more! Click below to watch “Pay No Mind” and keep scrolling for our interview with Wayward Saints!
Interview with Wayward Saints
I had the opportunity to sit down and interview you guys in late 2021. As your first year as a band, how was the rest of 2021 for you guys?
Yeah, we last spoke with you in early October. The remainder of 2021 was really busy for us making and releasing our Influences & Inspiration and Live & Loose series. The Influences & Inspiration series was a great experience because it gave us the opportunity to dig into each of our personal music collections and talk about what our individual musical influences are. We actually learned a bit more about each other in the process as well. We kept getting asked the same question about who our influences are, so we thought why not make a bunch of videos. For Live & Loose we wanted to up the ante and go live each week to talk directly to our fans, so we had them vote in advance on what classic rock album we should talk about that week. Live & Loose was a fun way to connect with fans, and it kept us on our toes because we never knew what album we were going to talk about until we went live on Facebook. We also released our second single “Pay No Mind” on Halloween, which was fun for me because that is my birthday.
We’re a couple weeks in, how is 2022 treating you so far?
It’s been good, a little slower than we anticipated due to two of us recovering from surgeries, but we are back to writing to finish the album; and we are shooting our next video for our third single “Got To Give In” in a few weeks.
Can you tell us about your latest single “Pay No Mind?”
“Pay No Mind” was fun to write. Originally the verse riff was intended to be the intro, but there was something about that jangle guitar riff that just grabbed me instantly. I really wanted to play with the offbeat of it vocally to enhance that jangle vibe, and when the guys gave my idea some air, we just ran with it. Aaron our drummer instantly caught on to the swagger, and just like that the intro became the verse. The rest of the song really came together quite quickly. Lyrically, “Pay No Mind” was more introspective when I was writing vs. our first single “In The Wild”. I really wanted to speak to the confidence you need to ignore the fearful voices we all have our heads ya know? Kind of shining a light on how we can trick ourselves into negative patterns if we choose to listen more to our insecurities, rather than simply paying no mind to them.
What was one of your favourite moments from creating the music video for “Pay No Mind?”
Some of the best moments of making that video are actually in a full behind the scenes video version we released after the official video. We posted that in our free Fan Temple for members of the temple exclusively. We shot the video in my living room after a long day of photoshoots at three different locations, so we were pretty silly by the time we started shooting. There were a lot of laughs that night, but I think Aaron really stole the show. We wanted to show a less serious side and just have fun with it. Overall, with a very limited budget, I think we accomplished our goal fairly well.
You guys have set up a “Wayward Saints Fan Temple” where fans who sign up get a ton of awesome content and a behind the scenes look at the band. What inspired the idea and what has the reaction been from fans so far?
We wanted to create a free space for fans to get our favorite content, as well as exclusive content and offers we do not post publicly all in one place. The pandemic has really changed the game for the music industry, and initially the idea was to look at this as an opportunity to have time to create content in a space for fans to enjoy at home until we can get on stage regularly. We also wanted to give fans a place to get to know who we really are outside of shooting music videos and hopefully playing live soon. We have been getting great feedback from fans, and since it has been going so well, we are committed to continually providing exclusive content and offers for the Fan Temple. You can learn more about the Wayward Saints Fan Temple here: https://www.wayward-saints.com/fan-temple-about
Especially over the last two years bands have been finding new approaches to connect with their fans, whether that be through email, zoom, discord etc. How do you think this will affect bands in the future, even when we don’t have to worry about social distancing?
I think in many ways it has been hard for most bands who normally rely on touring financially. Though it’s been really great to see many bands getting creative as you mentioned, and we have personally found it to be very rewarding. We have the extra time to connect directly with our fans regularly, and have been learning a lot about what kinds of experiences they are looking for. Pre and post social distancing, I think the more ways you can engage with your fans the better, and you can fine tune where and how they want to truly connect with you. So regardless of social distancing, I think now more than ever there are many creative ways to learn more from your fans to create art and experiences they will want to be a part of long term. I am also really excited to see the extra energy on stage, that I am sure all this waiting has caused, when we can all get back out there in person again.
Wayward Saints was born during a global pandemic, how do you think that fact has affected you as a band?
We were very sceptical of how well our approach with social media and our website being the only place to launch from would work out. We didn’t know if it would be an advantage or disadvantage, as we have yet to play a live show; but honestly it has been great to have this extra time to connect with people who are truly digging what we are about. Don’t get me wrong we would prefer our main focus to be playing live, but since we are still finishing the album, releasing singles and content to interact with fans in the meantime has been great for us!
You’ve recorded three singles with Siegfried Meier at Beach Road Studios in Goderich, Ontario, and mixed all three with Ross Hayes Citrullo at RHC Music in Toronto, Ontario; which means you’ve got one left in the barrel! Can you tell us about Wayward Saints upcoming single “Got To Give In”?
Working with Siegfried and Ross for the first three singles was an incredible experience, both are excellent at what they do, and both are really easy to work with.
“Got To Give In” makes us want to get on stage and play it as soon as possible. I feel it has that infectious energy that everyone in the band cannot wait to see people’s reactions live. I really like the message with this track as well. It’s about having the courage to no longer deny what you truly want and believe. Be it obligations or desires with your lover, family, your passions, job, politics, religion it’s really what you make of it. I have always had a hard time watching people struggle with feelings of obligation verse what they truly need, but honestly, I personally struggle with this sometimes myself; so it was cathartic to get these thoughts on paper and into a song I am proud of.
When this all does eventually blow over and Toronto’s music scene is allowed to return in full force, what do you think it’s going to look like?
My hope is that artists in Toronto and the surrounding area will be more open and excited then in the past to collaborate and create their own live music bills to present to venue owners and bookers. It would be more beneficial for everyone. Take rock music as an example. If we put in more effort to collaborate with other rock bands to make a rock only evening, than audiences will know what to expect and stick around longer with a genre-based evening, to not only share fans with other artists on the bill, but also sell more drinks in the process creating more revenue for the venue. It seems simple enough, but if more venues can be more open to these suggestions and try to curate these types of bills on a regular basis themselves; I think we could really have something consistently special and community based again in our city.
You’ve accomplished an incredible amount considering we are in a pandemic and you just launched in September 2021, what can fans expect from Wayward Saints in 2022?
We have our new single and video for “Got To Give In” coming out soon, and we are starting a new series where we are giving a behind the scenes look at our writing process in our free Fan Temple. We don’t have a name for this series yet, but I imagine it will be something like rehearsal reality or something like that. The idea is to provide footage of us in our rehearsal space finishing the album, and give insight to our writing process. We are still working out the details, but I think this will be a fun project for ongoing content that will hopefully be valuable to our fans while we focus on finishing our full-length album. Other than that, we just want to start playing live in person shows as soon as possible.
Do you have any last words for our readers?
We always have a great time connecting with you Jesse, and we really appreciate your continued support. Be on the lookout for our next video for our new single “Got To Give In” coming soon, and check out the free Fan Temple at wayward-saints.com.
