TBA/News
Two Hours Traffic Motor Towards Stardom
By Steve McLean
Two Hours Traffic
Two Hours Traffic may not yet be a household name, but the group's 2007 Little Jabs breakthrough album helped the quartet poke its head up out of Prince Edward Island's red clay and become noticed across Canada. Now the band is ready to put a stronger claim on its home turf, and hopefully internationally, with the release of Territory.
Two Hours Traffic originally formed in Charlottetown as a duo featuring singer/guitarist Liam Corcoran and guitarist Alec O'Hanley. They were in school studying Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet, whose prologue features the phrase "two hours traffic," when they adopted the name. The moniker stuck after adding bassist Andrew MacDonald and drummer Derek Ellis, who helped them record the April Storm EP in 2003.
The record caught the attention of former Thrush Hermit member and solo artist/Emergency frontman Joel Plaskett, who offered to produce Two Hours Traffic's self-titled full-length debut. That relationship has continued through 2006's Isolator EP, Little Jabs and now Territory.
"With each record we do, we're a little more comfortable working with one another and we're not scared to jump in and make suggestions and butt heads a little bit," says Corcoran. "I think everyone feels that it's the strongest thing we've done yet, and I think Joel feels that way as well."
Little Jabs received an East Coast Music Award for best pop recording and was one of 10 finalists for last year's Polaris Music Prize, which is awarded to Canada's best album according to a national panel of music journalists, but it isn't a stretch to say that Territory surpasses it in quality. While the former featured infectious, feel-good pop tracks like "Jezebel," "Backseat Sweetheart" and "Stuck For The Summer" (used as the theme song for MTV U.S. show Camp'd Out), the latter takes those concepts to a more fully realized point.
"We've always been pop songwriters, I think, but we've honed our tastes a lot more," says Corcoran of the group's progression. "We know things we like and have a better sense of what we're going for."
"We want interesting, edgy songwriting, but we still want to be accessible and want everyone to be able to enjoy it."
A video for Territory's "Happiness Burns" is available on Two Hours Traffic's website (www.twohourstraffic.com), and the band members are hoping they can co-ordinate schedules to make another clip with noted Canadian documentarian Ron Mann (Tales Of The Rat Fink, Know Your Mushrooms), who made his music video directing debut with "Jezebel."
"It's one of the cooler relationships that we've struck up and we'd like to keep going with it if possible," says Corcoran.
Two Hours Traffic played more than 200 shows in support of Little Jabs and will tour across Canada through the early autumn in support of Territory. The opening act for the shows will be The Danks, who released Are You Afraid Of The Danks? earlier this summer. It's a good pairing since the two bands share both a similar musical style and O'Hanley and MacDonald.
The group members will again have to take time off from their other jobs to tour, as Two Hours Traffic's record sales haven't yet caught up with the critical acclaim – and bills still have to be paid.
"Some people are surprised that we still have day jobs," Corcoran reveals." They think that we might have a lot of money or something.
"But Alec and I are substitute teachers, and Andy and I both work at Mark's Work Warehouse, and Derek does construction."
If Territory is as successful as it should be, those jobs should hopefully become a thing of the past and Two Hours Traffic's members can focus full-time on their music and continue making career strides in an area that means much more to them than selling jeans or operating power tools ever will.