Brodie Dakin

The Runaway Catholics are a seven-piece band led by Brodie Dakin and Shawna Sormin. A couple of weeks ago, Dakin sent me the band's LP Charmed Life, and since the weather's been mild this week, I got the chance to take the album for a stroll. Some listeners compare the band's sound to Belle & Sebastian, The Kinks and I find there is some Yo La Tengo and a little bit of Pixies in there too. But the enigma in the light-hearted song-structure may be due to the interchange of vocalists: Dakin, Sormin and Erin Munroe take turns on lead vocals for different songs. I had a chance to chat with Dakin about Charmed Life and here's what he had to say.

What does the idea of a "charmed life" mean to you? You state that part of your musical style draws from the "charm of Belle & Sebastian," how does "charm" sound in musical form?

I've always been fond of words with double meanings: charmed being both lucky and being a charmful soul. The Charmed Life protagonist in the song is someone who lives life with an effervescent ease but is also realistic to life's troubles. A charmed life in my eyes is someone who has no fear but they aren't reckless. I find the first two Belle & Sebastian albums to be very charming in that the band brought a whimsical grace to Stuart Murdoch's songs. They we're similar to The Velvets, but not as harsh.

I suppose I had that sort of idea when forming the band, in that I was hoping to find musicians that would add their own personal charm to the songs I wrote (to which they most certainly did). I guess charm, in a musical sense is all about the subtleties. Not trying to force people to hear what you're doing and just letting them find what they may enjoy most out of a song. Does that make sense?

Each track on the album comes off lighthearted and delicate-sounding even through the interchange of lead vocals between you, Shawna and Erin. What was your method of song-writing in terms of sharing the lead vocal role with one another?

That seems to be the general consensus I guess, but personally I don't get that as much as others. There are some songs such as "Calliope & Me," "France" and "Heart Melts" that have a gentle air to them but the lyrical intonation in most of the songs is pretty heavy. Somewhat in the vein of Blood on the Tracks or Ladies & Gentleman by Spiritualized. Not that I'm comparing our album to those classics of course, just in the sense of emotional levity. We could rock with the best of them live, something I was quite proud of.

Shawna was originally the only other vocalist singing with me so we just worked out arrangements together in a naive fashion. She's very gifted in coming up with melody lines, as is Erin who joined the band later on. With Erin it ended up being more about working on melody lines with Shawna to which we noticed they had a nice blend as well and seeing which songs she could fit in with me. It was all trial and error for vocal melodies really as I'm sure it is for most people. I was lucky to have found two gifted harmony singers, so to be honest it ended up being pretty easy.

What's next for The Runaway Catholics?

As it stands The Runaway Catholics are fini. We all need to concentrate on solo endeavours basically. Shawna & Erin are both busy with various projects and I'm playing solo shows and will be recording a solo album at some point. We're still working on the artwork for the CD and will be sending it out to unsuspecting ears in the near future.

The music we made is still alive, just not in a live sense. There's a lot of love that was put into the songs and I hope it shows. If there's one thing I've learned since starting this band it's that the future has many secrets. So getting back together sometime down the road may not be out of the realm of possibility. For the time being our little legacy is in the songs we recorded. - Aldrin Taroy