Quarantine Diaries: Wild Rivers Are Recording New Music In A Secluded Ontario Cabin

As the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic continues to rock the music industry, the Recording Academy reached out to a few musicians to see how they were spending their days indoors. Today, Toronto folk-pop troupe Wild Rivers share their Quarantine Diary. Wild Rivers' brand-new video "Thinking 'Bout Love"—which was shot pre-quarantine with San Diego's Voices Of Our City Choir—is out today. Watch it exclusively on GRAMMY.com below.

[9:15 a.m.] We all live about 20 minutes from each other in Toronto, and today we're heading up north to Khalid's family cottage for a week to rehearse and record some songs. We're finally starting to get back into the swing of things and figuring out ways we can make music remotely with our producers in upstate New York and Los Angeles. Julien is our resident coffee expert, so he treats us to his specially brewed java, following a meticulous set of steps that rivals Walter White.

[9:34 a.m.] Everyone's excited to get out of the city and work on some music. One by one, we hop in the van and fill each other in on our weeks. On the way we chat and listen to some podcasts, some of our favourites are "Broken Record," "The Daily" and "And The Writer Is." Today we opted for an episode of "Reply All," and then the new HAIM record that we're all loving. We debate passionately on whether or not this is their best album.

[11:34 a.m.] We arrive at the Yassein cabin in an area of Ontario called the Kawarthas. It's right on the lake, and also has an empty garage which makes for a perfect jam space. We unload the gear and settle into the cottage. During quarantine, we've been writing and recording some new songs, as well as working on our next album. We started recording in upstate New York in March but had to scoot back to Canada when COVID started to get really serious. We had gotten about halfway through the record and are only now starting to pick it back up. We're figuring out ways to work remotely and record some components on our own. Between the four of us, we have everything we need, and it's been fun to dive deeper into the recording process and figure out how to do things ourselves. Before we rehearse, we set up some recording gear on the kitchen table and we record a few overdubs and vocal harmonies for our producer.

[1 p.m.] VOOC Choir Practice: On Fridays our friends at Voices of Our City Choir have their weekly virtual rehearsal. We hop on Zoom and catch up with the choir members. Voices of Our City choir is a San Diego-based choir, composed of individuals who are experiencing homelessness. Their mission is to create hope and community through music and educate the public about what it’s like to be homeless. They’ve had an exciting few months, auditioning for "America’s Got Talent" and getting given the "Golden Buzzer" (a fast pass to the live show) by host Terry Crews! We were connected with the Choir last year while we were living in Los Angeles, and we traveled down to San Diego to attend their weekly rehearsal. We were amazed by the beautiful stories of everyone in the group, not to mention their incredible voices. Since then, we're happy to call them friends and partners, and wherever possible, we make it a priority to help raise awareness and donations in support of their efforts. And we even convinced them to sing a song with us—"Thinking 'Bout Love”—off of our new EP. Working with the choir has been one of the most meaningful and moving things we’ve ever done as a band.

[2:20 p.m.] We take a break and take a dip in the lake. While we’re out of the city we try to enjoy the outdoors a little bit before we get down to rehearsing. We recently got a camera for the band and Andrew is experimenting with exciting angles.

[3:48 p.m.] We head out to the garage to start jamming. Today, we're rehearsing the songs from our EP that came out in May, Songs To Break Up To. We're getting ready to film a live concert (no audience!), and we’ve never really played these songs outside of the studio. I guess we better learn our own material, right? We've been using this extra time to step up our live show, thinking about new arrangements, as well as the overall presentation. We're incorporating some synths into our live show which has been fun, like the Prophet 7 and the OP-1. When one person gets a new piece of gear, we all get pretty excited to try it out. Khal just bought a Gretsch baritone guitar off Craigslist that we all love.

[6:16 p.m.] Julien makes us some fancy drinks. You may notice a pattern.

[7 p.m.] BBQ: Summer weather doesn't last very long in Canada, so we like to take advantage of being able to barbecue and eat outside. We head to the deck and prepare some salmon and grilled vegetables for dinner with a bottle of wine. Our dinner soundtrack: Paul Simon (self-titled, parka album), the latest 1975 album, and an artist named Christian Lee Hutson who plays guitar for some of our favourite artists.

[8 p.m.] After dinner, we do the dishes while listening to music and planning out the rest of the week. On our list: a few Zoom performances for radio stations; a video call with our management team; mix revisions for our next single; tracking some vocals for a song we’re working on; and rehearsals for the upcoming live concert taping. We also clean up some recordings we did earlier in the day.

[8:30-9 p.m.] It’s still light out, so we decide to play a round of spikeball—a group favourite and the perfect sport for a four-person band. We take it quite seriously and have a complex tournament system involving every combination of teams. We can’t tell if it’s great for band morale or if it’s slowly tearing us apart. We play a few rounds before the mosquitos start to come out. Quick jump in the lake before we head inside.

[9 p.m.-11 p.m.] We head back into the garage to rehearse a little more. Productivity wanes as the night goes on. Khal half-jokingly starts playing "Soak Up The Sun" by Sheryl Crow and we end up jamming that for a half hour. We’ve been joking for years about playing a show under a pseudonym (our working band name is "Tame Streams." Get it?). We’re slowly developing a repertoire of guilty pleasure songs (think Blink-182, David Archuleta, Creed).

[11:30 p.m.] We've gotten a few songs into a pretty good place. Definitely starting to shake off the rust not really playing together in months. The rehearsal has degenerated into a full improv jam and we decide to call it for the night. We start a fire by the water and enjoy the quiet of the lake. Reminiscing on tour stories, we daydream about traveling the world once we’re able to tour again. Playing these new songs together has inspired us. In the distance we hear a loon call (a Canadian staple) and discuss sampling it for our next album. After the fire dies, we head in to watch a flick and get ready for bed.

[1:25 a.m.] We go with Pete Davidson's The King of Staten Island, which we chose as a funny easy watch but was deceptively complex. We all enjoyed it though, and had some big laughs. Some of us—Devan—are notorious for never being able to stay awake when we watch a movie. This time nobody made it through. Khalid woke up to the group sleeping and took some photo evidence. Our days aren’t always this much fun, but this one was pretty awesome.

If you wish to support our efforts to assist music professionals in need, learn more about the Recording Academy's and MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund.

If you are a member of the music industry in need of assistance, visit the MusiCares website.

Quarantine Diaries: Wild Rivers Are Recording New Music In A Secluded Ontario Cabin

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