The Great Lake Swimmers play beautiful, folky-sounding music. However, don't be surprised when you talk to Tony Dekker and you find out he's as punk rock as anyone could be. Makr corresponded with Tony, "the main dude", to find out what's going on. Damn, I should have asked which Great Lakes he's actually been swimming in...

How did the Great Lake Swimmers come into being? What were you up to before this all started? GLS was basically a solo project to begin with. I crossed paths with some talented Torontonians who were like-minded and they added some flavour to the acoustic songs I had written. It feels more like a band these days, albeit an ever-changing one. These musicians in question (W. Kofman, Sandro Perri, Nick Zubeck, Erik Arneson, Almog David, Colin Huebert... band members in varying capacities) I met through playing solo shows and through mutual friends when I moved here from London, Ontario. I went to school there for literature, but I grew up and lived in the Niagara region until I was 19. I was writing and playing in bands there since I was 16 or so, while living on my parents' farm.

Your album was recorded in an abandoned silo. How did you hook that up? I knew about an old silo on an abandoned farm in my hometown of Wainfleet and sort of became obsessed with the idea of recording songs in there. At first it was like guerilla-style recording, very secretive, until one night the owner of the property showed up and asked us just what the hell we were doing on his land. It turns out that he was the father of a childhood friend of mine, so we were allowed to continue. Small rural towns have hundreds of eyes that you don't even know are watching you. He was particularly rattled by the fact that we had brought in a gas-powered generator and stayed out there until very late at night, most nights.

Is Toronto an important place to you? I still feel that there's a lot about Toronto that I don't know '“ I guess I still haven't quite shaken seeing the city through the lens of a tourist yet. I really miss the quietness of small towns, but Toronto has so much going for it musically speaking that I feel it's where I'm supposed to be right now. I have a more regular band here now, who are fantastic to play with, and I like working with the fine folks at the weewerk art space; I like how the music and art worlds overlap through them. So yes, I would say that Toronto is an important place to me right now. Like the old saying goes, you can't drop a piano out of a window in Toronto without hitting a musician, and I'm thrilled to have this particular piano hovering precariously over me.

Your songs have a very subtle brilliance to them. Who has influenced you as a songwriter? I was very young when I heard old-time country coming across the AM radio of my dad's truck, but I don't mean to romanticize that. I sort of grew up on punk music (as a belief moreso than as a genre) in my formative music-playing years, and graduated into extreme music and the more challenging aspects of noise through my university years, and I think that some of that ethic, especially the DIY one, has stuck with me. The rediscovery of country music, particularly of the 1960's and everything before that, however, was also an important turning point for me. As a whole, I feel a strong connection towards it in that they were able to express themselves in a clear, honest, and straight-forward way, but in simple, parabolic terms. On top of that, there is a certain connection with/respect for nature and rural life and its attitudes that I feel informs much of my song writing. Country and folk music is really the original "outsider" music, if you stop to think about it. In the end, it's all just music, and I guess it strikes some people; others, not so much. I write music from my heart and it's something I'm compelled to do more than something I choose to do. I am constantly surprised and yet warmed that people make connections with it.