An interview with Alec O'Hanley (TWO HOURS TRAFFIC)

Interview by Sean Sebastian
                                                     

Constantly referred to as one of the most successful independent acts to hail from Canada in recent years, Two Hours Traffic were recently in the country touring their new album Territory. This album marks the band’s third major studio album, under Bumstead Records. However the band’s writing process has remained untouched since their first EP, The April Storm, released in 2003, “[We’re] generally pretty collaborative,” says Alec O’Hanley, guitarist and back-up vocalist, “Usually one of the three of us; myself, Andrew or Liam, will bring a sketch of a song to the group and we’ll all hammer it out from there. We don’t really pigeon hole ourselves to the instrument we play. So there’s healthy discourse,” he adds almost sarcastically, “[The process] can last anywhere from a week to several months”.

Photograph by Scott Munn

The Australian leg of their tour sees them teaming up with Triple J favourites The Jezabels, to play shows at The East Brunswick Club and The Bended Elbow. The two bands met at a Dead Letter Chorus show in 2009, “We had done a little jaunt with Dead Letter Chorus in June. And our manager down here, Jeff Trio, kinda floated their EP around. They showed up at our show in Sydney and we concocted a cultural exchange,” Alec adds with a wry smile.  “And I think it’s panned out rather nicely so far. [They’re] the most polite band we’ve encountered so far”.

The band’s sound lends itself to the sentimentality of popular teen dramas, and the similarity hasn’t gone unnoticed. Their track Limelight featured on an episode of The O.C. in 2006, but the whole ordeal can be quite fruitless, “It can be anti-climactic. I remember our local newspaper back in Prince Edward Island has a piece saying Limelight was gonna be in the O.C. That night we all tuned in and it was just on in the background for like five seconds. You don’t wanna go along with that sort of thing too much,” he says with a laugh.

That said, the soundtrack for The O.C., at the height of its popularity, had a knack for breaking indie acts and this effect can be seen to have touched Two Hours Traffic. Their following album Little Jabs was nominated for the 2008 Polaris Music Award.

But popularity isn’t a quality the band is concerned with, “When Liam and I started the band in high school, we had no idea how long it would persist, or to which heights. We’re still small potatoes in the big scheme of things. We don’t pat ourselves on the back very much”.

Following this tour, Alec plans to knuckle down and start work on the next album, “I’d love to really delve into writing. Get a whole bunch of equipment and bunker down in Prince Edward Island and experiment with the guys. Try to make our masterpiece”.

Alec expects the album to be released later this year.