Animals on parade — Chris vanderLaan’s Animal Names, along with Baby Control, play two Calgary shows this weekend

After a successful run as the guitarist for a number of local bands (The Buzzing Bees, Slow Kids Playing Fast, The Day After Tomorrow Band), Chris vanderLaan packed his amps and moved to Vancouver. Now that he’s gathered a musical caravan sizable enough to unleash a sonic storm upon the country, vanderLaan is bringing Animal Names and Baby Control to Calgary for a pair of shows this weekend.
            Fast Forward: How does it feel to return to your hometown after moving west?
            vanderLaan: I’ve spent the last three years working, eating pizza, drinking Slurpees and playing music. Is that what the Prodigal Son spent his time doing? I can’t recall the story that well.
            Both of your bands have new albums, and the differences between the two seem enormous. Baby Control’s Best War sounds like lo-fi early ’90s grunge rock, whereas Animal Names’ Ballet Bones has more of a modern pop sound. Do the bands share any similarities?
            Both bands write pop songs; we just come at the music in different ways. I think obnoxiously loud sounds can be just as appealing as quiet ones. I don’t differentiate between playing a xylophone and banging a guitar against an amp, as long as the result sounds good. Both bands use similar dynamics, too — to different degrees.
            Can you describe how you crafted Best War? Were you listening to old grunge rock at the time?
            I don’t know what everyone else was using for reference, but, for me, it was (Nirvana’s) In Utero and Fairy God Fighters by Party of Helicopters, arguably two of the best records ever. Some of the songs on our album are actually quite old — Dann Tompkins, Zoë Verkuylen and I started playing together almost three years ago. It was a really slow process because Zoë was always away with work, and our neighbours kept calling the police every time we tried to practise. Things started to click when Mark Colavecchia joined the band and we found a space where the cops stopped interrupting us. It’s by far the most co-operative songwriting process I’ve ever been a part of. Our songs are quite calculated. They sound exactly the way we want them to.
            Is this different from your songwriting process in Animal Names?
            Animal Names now makes up songs in much the same way that Baby Control does. At first, though, I had a number of songs that I’d been working on by myself after moving to Vancouver. I spent about a year recruiting new people to perfect them and record enough other songs to make an album. I’m very glad to see that what started as a vanity project for me has turned into a functioning band. I recommend it for anyone that wants to be in a band with their most talented friends but is too shy to ask. Just ask them to help with an album you’re working on and then cast spells on them so that they show up once or twice a week to start working on new songs.
            What are you looking forward to most about returning home?
            It is exciting to be coming to Calgary to play. I’ve never actually been to the Hifi Club or EMMEDIA. I would feel more nostalgic if the shows were at the Night Gallery or Carpenters Union Hall, but it will be fun to drive down the same streets in a different junky van. I’m looking forward to going to Buddha’s Veggie and Veggie House before the shows. Afterwards, I predict I’ll sit in my parents’ basement with my bandmates and make them watch the video of the time my sister and I were on that old game show Kidstreet.