The Weakerthans Were Consumed by Live DVD, Finally Writing New Music

Fresh off the recent release of their first-ever live CD/DVD, 'Live At The Burton Cummings Theatre,' the Weakerthans are finally ready to focus on writing material for the follow-up to 2007's acclaimed 'Reunion Tour.'

"We were surprisingly really consumed with this live project for the last year," says guitarist Stephen Carroll. "It was a bit of a beast. I thought, 'Wow, we're going to make a live record! That's what we'll do this year! It's going to fun and easy!' And it turned into a ball of twine with no end."

Plans to write new Weakerthans material were continually shelved as the live project demanded more and more of the band's time. "None of us had ever mixed anything in 5.1 surround sound before. None of us even have 5.1 stereo systems. That's where things started to go sideways for us," laughs Carroll.
"Then we discovered no one in Winnipeg is really capable of doing 5.1 mixes. Thankfully, our sound engineer is a genius, and he set up his own 5.1 studio and it turned out great.

With 'Live At The Burton Cummings Theatre' finally out on CD and DVD courtesy of Epitaph subsidiary ANTI-, the band is almost ready to start writing for a new record. Almost.

"There's also a documentary on the way," adds Carroll. "That's being finished up right now."

With a camera crew following their entire 2009 tour, including the Winnipeg show documented on Live, the band are now wrapping up production on a full-length documentary culled from footage from their extensive touring over the last year. Between that and their brand-new live album and accompanying DVD (mixed in 5.1 surround sound, natch), things have been pretty busy for the Weakerthans. But they've put off touring in 2010 on hold to focus on writing.

"All of that live stuff put everything, in terms of working on new songs, to the side for a while. Now we've just said, 'Okay we're not going to do any dates this year, and we're going to try to make another record.'"