Arkells ‘excited’ for return to the road in 2022 as vaccines help control COVID

The Hamilton quintet say they are ready for a steady diet of live shows in 2022.

Arkells frontman Max Kerman says he can’t wait to put some tour dates “on the board” as COVID-19 vaccines continue to create safe spaces for the band to reintroduce themselves to a live audience.

“We used to average about 120 shows a year, and the last couple of years we’ve averaged about two. So we’re excited,” Kerman told 900 CHML’s Good Morning Hamilton.

The band’s sixth album, Blink Once, finally came out in late September after being held up by the pandemic. It’s a venture that began with writing sessions throughout 2019 encapsulated through studio recordings that began in the summer of 2019 and stopped by February 2020 with the rise COVID.

“We got about 80 per cent of the record done by February 2020 with the expectation that we’d be kind of wrapping it up and putting it out later in 2020,” Kerman said.

“But of course, the pandemic hit and we wanted to put it on hold for a second because we had these kind of big singalongs that needed an audience.”

Kermin said the decision to put it on hold was made due to a lack of touring amid COVID as the Hamilton band feared the record might “evaporate” without the support of live shows.

With off and on quarantines and lockdowns through 2020, the quintet built Campfire Chords, which began with online video sessions teaching fans to play their songs acoustically and grew to a full-on recording amid demands from fans.

“We were able to do that from home in the safety of our own personal studios. We were sending the sessions around,” Kerman explained.