The Rural Alberta Advantage

BY SHANNA SIVAKUMAR

The Rural Alberta Advantage is a Canadian indie-rock band based in Toronto, Ontario that formed in 2005. The band consists of an incredibly talented trio led by lead vocalist and guitar player Nils Edenloff, bassist, keys, and backing vocalist Amy Cole, and drummer Paul Banwatt. You can see them in Minneapolis on March 23rd of this year at First Avenue to celebrate their fifth studio album, “The Rise & The Fall”.

How did the band form?

Nils: [laughs] Well, we kind of, uhh met at an open mic night back in the day. We’ve been together since, probably, what is it, 2005? Paul: Roughly. N: Roughly. But yeah, we were all hosting an open mic night here in Toronto, and then, well, the place closed down, and no one was showing up to it, so, it’s not us, I guess. But we were just kind of playing together and friends would come to see us and that led to shows here and there, and yeah, one thing led to another and we just got louder and more aggressive, I guess [chuckles] since our open mic days.

How did the name, The Rural Alberta Advantage, come about?

N: So, I was writing a lot of songs about— I’m originally from Alberta— the province I grew up in after moving here to Toronto, and a lot of songs that we were kind of when we first started playing were these songs about Alberta and tied to home. And I was talking with my brother, he was hanging out at our cabin down in southern Alberta and was asking how my weekend was, and he said he was hanging out with some friends, kind of exploring the rural “Alberta Advantage”. And [the term] “explore the Alberta Advantage” was kind of the provincial slogan in Alberta for the longest time in my youth. So yeah, it was kind of a play on that. And it just sort of fit well with the music we were writing.

How would you describe your sound?

P: I think... it’s like a combination of indie rock, folk, uh... some electronic influences, and then kind of just a mish- mash of styles. I dunno, we don’t like to put ourselves in too much of a box so I guess indie rock is the closest one we can think of [laughs]. Amy: There’s like, new ones [genres], like stomp and holler. It’s like some new, like— 2010s— like Mumford and Sons... there’s like a bit of that, but more with electro- influences and a bunch of different stuff. N: It’s also interesting how people describe it. Like yeah, punk-country or something like that [laughs], which you don’t really hear, but you know, I guess it’s good to not be in an easy-to-define box.

What does the creative process behind a song look like?

N: Every song is different, you know. We’ve had ones that just kind of organically form in the space of the three of us playing together. But a lot of times, you know, I might bring the... kernel of an idea and we kind of work on it and build something around that and then we kind of then change our mind and tear it down and build it back up again. Just keeping this inner process of reworking songs. So everyone’s involved in the process and we all feel very engaged in the end product.

What is the inspiration behind this album, “The Rise & The Fall”?

N: We were working on [this album] all through the pandemic. We kind of, initially started working on stuff before the pandemic. It’s hard to define where the songs kinda come from or what they touch on. But I feel like a lot of it’s just sort of, you know, about relationships and people that maybe you’re far removed from and stuff like that, I guess.

I read that something a fan said also helped inspire this album, is that true?

N: Yeah, I think someone at St. John’s mentioned that. I think it’s sort of like, you don’t realize— when you’re making an album or writing songs— how it’s going to affect people or how far away people are gonna be touched by your music. Yeah, I think being cut off from people in the pandemic gives you an appreciation for, you know, the closeness you can have with people despite being far away. A lot of songs revolve around that to a certain degree, I guess.

What makes this album different from your previous releases?

A: Well, I think a lot of it is, like, we’ve been talking about— through the pandemic, we sort of had to— we were kind of forced to approach our creative process and our building of the songs that we talked about in a different way than before. And it’s thanks to the development of new technology like Zoom, like for a couple songs— we even tried to practice over online and at our [respective] houses a couple times and it was a disaster [laughs]. We couldn’t— the timing— like we tried but it didn’t work. But what it did help with, was when we were, you know, building our different parts of the song once Nils would come in with an idea, we could all sort of, demo our own things onto the software we’re working on. We’d be trading files back and forth and sort of developing these things remotely, which we are not used to. Normally, we think it’s critical to both be together when we’re working on something— in the same room— and then road test the song live, before we go record them. In this case, we couldn’t do either of those things. So in that way, that made the record different, just from a “constructing the record itself” process. And I do think you can hear it in the music— I think you can hear us all appreciating what we bring to the music— there’s space for everything. We’ve always tried to not put too much on a song, but in this [album] especially, every part that’s there is there because we all believe in it and think it’s special and I think the songs really work because of that. N: Also, I think one of the things we realized during the pandemic, is that despite [the fact] that all of us had the chance to go and work on our parts, it gave us this real appreciation— that something special happens when the three of us get together that maybe we didn’t realize before. But when we were all isolated, it was hard for those inspirational moments to happen. So it definitely gave us an appreciation for what the three of us all bring to the table and create together as one.

What can we look forward to at your Minneapolis show in March?

P: I mean, Minneapolis in particular is a really special place for us to play because it’s one of the first U.S. cities that really showed us a lot of love. It makes us feel really special coming there and it’s never changed. It’s always been this, like, really amazing feeling playing for people and getting support from the incredible local radio stations, so yeah. Coming to Minneapolis is always one that we see on the calendar and get excited about. And so we always try to play a little extra special show when we’re over there because of that.