The Wardens discuss new album "Sold Out at the Ironwood"

ROB MURRAY: I’m joined today by Scott Ward, Ray Schmidt, and Bradley Bischoff, better known as local band The Wardens. We are here to talk about your brand new album that you’ve just released called Sold Out at the Ironwood. If you count your first EP back in 2013, this will be your fourth release. When you guys got together to share stories about your time in the warden service and write songs about them, did you ever imagine, or was it the goal, to produce multiple albums, have North American tours, a dedicated fan base? I mean, did you anticipate you’d be where you are now?

BRADLEY BISCHOFF: We were focused on world domination in the music business!

RAY SCHMIDT: Yeah, to be honest, we didn’t even think of putting out the first CD. When we first started playing our shows at the Tunnel Mountain Campground, people would come up to us and ask us if we had a CD and we were like, why would we make a CD? It just didn’t even cross our minds.

SCOTT WARD: We learned a lot in the ensuing years, for sure.

BB: Even after the first few shows we knew we had something that nobody else did, and that was a real motivator for the trio.

RM: This takes is to your brand new release, Sold out at the Ironwood. What can you tell us about this release? What have you learned in the ensuing years that you applied to the recording and writing of this album?

BB: I think it really got our song writing to the next level. With those three other albums under our belt, it got our instrumentation to the next level. We were tighter playing as a unit.

SW: The arrangements too. We’ve learned a lot as far as taking the basic structure of a song that one of us had written and all working together as a group to work on making more complex arrangements. That’s been a big step forward.

RM: I definitely hear that in the instrumentation and vocal harmonies, there’s a lot of growth there from previous albums. Four albums in, how do you continue to come up with interesting stories about the warden service, the National Parks, and that sort of thing. Is there an end to that kind of mine of material, or are there still more stories to tell?

BB: I think there are definitely more stories to tell. Our careers that we’ve had have provided us with an endless amount of material to mine.

SW: Some of the songs aren’t fully Parks songs. As you’ll hear on Half Mile Honeymoon they’re still about the land, so we have branched out a little bit, although our core central theme is still related to our personal experiences working as wardens.

RS: I’m still working in the outfit so there are still stories that are happening. I’m getting to the point where I’ve been working there long enough where I can actually reflect on some of the things that have already happened. I think some of that distance is why Brad and Scott are in a really nice position where they’re sort of looking back at all of these stories and can bring them forward. It’s taken me a little bit longer to get to that point where I can look back. That’s sort of the other addition to this album – each of us has contributed to the songwriting. Also, I think the warden service is all about the oral tradition and passing these stories along. That’s what’s really neat about the project in general. We’re taking the stories that exist amongst our peers and putting them down, and there’ll be essentially here as long as the planet’s here.

RM: A big part of The Wardens as a band is your live shows. You have a real great multimedia presentation. COVID-19 must be really tough for a band like yours.

SW: I think it’s tough for every band. I feel more story for a lot of our friends we’ve met along the way that are making a total living off their music, and their really hurting.

BB: It was almost a year ago. We were on a really nice tour in Montana, playing all those really big rooms, those big theaters, in Conrad, Deer Lodge, Anaconda, Fort Benton, Thompson Falls. Then the wheels just came off everything and we had to hustle back to Alberta. We didn’t know if we were going to be able to get home. We haven’t turned a wheel since then.

RS: This album has been a really nice way to kind of extend that a little bit. I really have come to miss the live shows. At first it was like, okay, we’ll take a break and that’s fine. Then we started realizing this is going to go on for a long time. As we’re going through the process of the album and especially releasing this album out to the world, it’s like, wow, we really do have something. People are really interested in this. That sort of makes me miss it more because I know that our fans are missing the music just as much. Music is such a huge part of our culture. We sort of take it for granted, but I think there’s so much we need to get back to when things aren’t as quite as strict as they are now.

RM: We’re going to play a song from the new album called a Half Mile Honeymoon. What’s the story behind this one?

RS: I spent a lot of time out in the prairies in my early twenties, sort of exploring some of the oral traditions of the people out there, some of the prairie settlers, and a lot of the people that were left were the women. A lot of the men had already passed, the ones that had gone through the depression. One of the stories that came across was where you can find love. and their world was pretty small even though the prairies are so huge. Sometimes you found love on the other side of the fence line. That’s sort of what this song is about, how love is a simple thing no matter how big or small your world is.

RM: Sold Out at the Ironwood, it’s the new album from The Wardens. Where can people hear this one?

RS: You can find our music on any of the popular streaming sites. You can pick up a hard copy up at Alpine Book Peddlers in Canmore. Go to our website. Check us out on Facebook and Instagram as well.