Ahead of Eastside Arts Festival, Young Friend talks indie evolution and touring Canada
Vancouver-based Drew Tarves takes his music out of the bedroom and across the country
Drew Tarves. Photo by Zachary Vague
As part of the Eastside Arts Festival, Young Friend plays the Rickshaw Theatre on July 25 at 8 pm
THE CURRENT POLITICAL CLIMATE in the United States doesn’t offer much in the way of positive implications, but there has at least been a silver lining for Canadians. An unprecedented spike in tensions between the two countries has, if nothing else, ignited a bit of much-needed national pride north of the 49th parallel.
For Vancouver-based musician Drew Tarves, a decision to restrict his live performing to this side of the border led to a recent month-long string of all-Canadian tour dates. This meant that, in addition to the expected urban centres like Montreal, Calgary, and Winnipeg, Tarves took his musical project Young Friend to a few places that many other touring acts might pass through but never stop to play. Think Fernie, B.C.; Red Deer, Alberta; and Swift Current, Saskatchewan.
“I had never toured Canada before,” a fresh-off-the-road Tarves tells Stir. “I’ve played in Toronto before this and I’ve played in Vancouver a bunch, but had never really gone to most of these cities. It kind of just felt like the right move, the right time to do it. And I’m super glad we did.”
Tarves says the trip gave him the opportunity to connect with some very appreciative fans. “They’re very grateful, and almost everybody that we met was like, ‘Please come back as soon as you can, we want to have a lot more live music here.’
“We had some people travel for quite a few of our shows, actually,” he notes. “It was really cool to see. There was a handful of folks who came to three or four different shows and would just sort of follow along, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. That’s a dream that I’ve had since I started making music.”
Tarves seems happy to play the role of musical ambassador for the West Coast, where, at the age of 24, he’s already a relatively seasoned veteran. Young Friend’s first self-released recording, 2019’s yours kindly EP, showcased a bedroom-pop style replete with lo-fi beats, looping instrumental parts, and Tarves’s rap- and R&B-inflected vocals.
As charming a debut as it is, it seems a world away from the latest Young Friend release, motorcycle sound effects, which iconic local label Nettwerk released this spring. Boasting a much more organic and fully realized sonic footprint, the album finds Tarves exploring summer-playlist-worthy indie rock (“golden rule”, “loose”) and rootsy folk-pop (“soft light”, “stranger”), and even tip-toeing into country (“the real deal”).
“The biggest influence on the change, more than anything else, has just been learning more about my instruments,” Tarves says of Young Friend’s musical evolution. “I feel like my songwriting process has changed a lot. Before, it was a lot of loops and I was playing guitar and piano, but it wasn’t my strongest suit, so I felt pretty restricted by that. But I feel like after years of playing a little bit more, and learning a lot more, my process has evolved and it’s a lot more influenced by what I play on guitar instead of just having something to say and putting it over a loop.”
Young Friend’s recording process has changed a lot too, to which Tarves gives much of the credit to a California-based producer and musician who has worked with the likes of Jawny and Finneas O’Connell, among others.
“It used to be just me in my bedroom making the songs, and now I work with this producer named David Marinelli,” Tarves says. “It’s not totally unorthodox, but we like to just go to different places and set up our own little studio; so, bring whatever gear we can and make a little makeshift studio in whatever space we’re in. We did most of the recording from the album either in his place in Pasadena, or we went to this little cabin on the Sunshine Coast and recorded a lot of songs there—just a couple of different mikes, some synths, a bunch of guitars, and the drive to make something cool with so little.”
Tarves has taken that approach to heart; he even found time to do some recording on his recent cross-country tour, during a brief bit of downtime between gigs in Red Deer and Regina. The songs on motorcycle sound effects followed a distinct arc, with a narrator (who may or may not be Tarves himself) first revelling in the freedom of no-strings-attached situationships before realizing that he might want something more serious, only to discover a deep-seated worry that he may not actually be “boyfriend material”.
As to whether this turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy for said narrator, that will remain an open question. Tarves has no plans to write motorcycle sound effects chapter 2 anytime soon.
“I think that the next batch of songs is going to be so different from this,” he tells Stir. “I’m trying really hard right now to not write songs about romance. I’m trying to find other things that inspire me and write about different interactions that I’ve had with people and stories about my friends and my family and beautiful things that I see, and maybe not write so much about love and relationships, because I feel like I do that a lot and I’m trying to push myself a little bit right now to try something new.”
If all goes according to plan, fans from Fernie to Guelph and all points in between won’t have to wait too long to hear the results of Tarves’s efforts.
“I’m cracking away on the next record,” he says. “I want to try and get some headway over the next few months. I’m really excited to be making more music right now, and I’m feeling very inspired. I’m just trying to take advantage of that while I can.” 
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