Mother Mother Find Their 'Eureka!' Moment

The release of Vancouver quintet Mother Mother's third album 'Eureka!' is just around the corner and though the record is highly anticipated, the band members aren't all that worried about delivering the goods.

"I guess in a certain circle it makes sense that it's anticipated," singer-guitarist Ryan Guldemond tells Spinner. "When people publish those types of remarks or statements, they're speaking from their own niche and their own insular crowd -- like everything that's grandiose in the press, we take it with a grain of salt."

That same calm, cool and collected attitude likely responsible for their first single, 'The Stand,' which wasn't even considered for the album until it was in post-production.

"I'd kind of been working on the lyrics, or more the poem, for some time, but never as anything I held in very high esteem. It was just this thing that was happening for fun.

"Then when we were trying to get music together for the record, I drew upon those words and put it to some music and used it as kind of a vehicle to create a really fun, rhythmic song with lots of production value. The demo took a second, and it turned out to be this big song. It's nice when the big songs are the ones that you don't labour over; they happen in a moment."

And that "big song" has the stature it does largely because of Mother Mother's move towards a more synth-heavy repertoire.

Watch Mother Mother Perform 'The Stand' Live
"We always want to create more sound as we go along, and we started out so stripped down," says Guldemond.

"With 'O My Heart,' we kind of had to emulate that record with synths. We had to emulate the string parts, and the horns, and all that rich chamber orchestration with electronic instruments, because it wasn't very practical to be bringing out symphonies and stuff on the road. It was in that process that those tools became more of the band's sound. So when we made this record, that's where we were, that's what we had in our arsenal."

And it's Guldemond himself who produced their songs this time around, although he's no stranger to that role (he produced Hannah Georgas' latest effort, 'This is Good,' among others).

"We wanted to make these artistic, aesthetic decisions ourselves on this record," says the Vancouverite. "We didn't want to go searching for a producer who would fit -- maybe if there was that person sending us flowers, begging us to hire him or her, it might have been different. But it seemed like if we needed a producer, we would have to find that person, and that just seemed unnecessary since we could do it in-house."

That's not to say Mother Mother are only interested in working amongst themselves. Festivals are also a good fit for the band (they met newest member Jasmin Parkin at one, in fact), and they'll be playing both CMW and SXSW this year.

"When you're just touring your own show, you can feel like you're just reliving this very insular and self-absorbed presentation of yourself," says Guldemond. "So when you come into festivals you're kind of slammed into the chaos of all these bands doing a similar thing and trying to get ahead.

"But they all have a unique way of presenting themselves. It's refreshing; it kind of wakes you up a little bit."

Mother Mother play the Phoenix Concert Theatre March 9 as part of CMW.