A Conversation With Morgan Waters

On a damp Toronto afternoon, a lanky, frazelle-haired musician walks into Lakeview restaurant at Ossingon and Dundas. He wears clear ray-ban sunglasses and a purple hoodie beneath an oversized black jacket.

If you don’t know his name yet, it’s Morgan Waters, and he plays bass for a Toronto band called Sweet Thing, another name you should know. Why? Because this band is going to be big—and you, of course, want  in on the fun.

Sweet Thing is music you can dance like a dork to. It’s that catchy tune you just can’t shake. They’re fast, they’re furious, and they’re successful—not despite the fact that they play pop music, but because they play pop music; Sweet Thing is pop music done right. They sound like milkshakes, juke-boxes, and everything else you love about the fifties meets tattoos, and graffiti, and everything punk about the eighties.

I first heard Sweet Thing play four months ago, when they opened the Pheonix Concert Theatre. Before the show, the floor was packed with twenty-somethings securing their spots for the main act. “Who was opening again?” the crowd asked over and again, to which someone would reply, “Some Toronto band.”

That band was Sweet Thing—and that night they stole the show. That night, Sweet Thing executed each song viciously, ferociously — with all of the sweat and fever you’d expect from five dudes in their sexual prime. They were committed, they were confident, and by the time they’d finished their first set, the entire audience knew their name.

Waters took the time to sit down with me at Lakeview restaurant in Toronto to discuss the band, their music, and his latest role as director for the band’s “Lazy Susan” music video.

“We’re just five dudes who make music to entertain” Waters tells me. The “five dudes” he refers to are himself, Alex Winter (guitar) Tyler Kyte (drums) Owen Carrier (lead vocals) and Nick Rose (guitar). Waters moved to Toronto from Victoria, BC to host the CBC children’s show The X, before trying his funny bone on The Morgan Waters Show, a six-minute sketch comedy act. While in Toronto, Waters met Owen Carrier, who had formed Sweet Thing with highschool friend Alex Winter. They hooked up with drummer Tyler Kyte, and guitarist Nick Rose, who were roommates at the time, and the five started playing.

I ask Waters at what point during their formation did the five guys look up at one another and realize that they had something here. “We didn’t,” he replies, “there was no definitive moment for us; we just kept playing.” And play is the keyword here, as much of Sweet Thing’s music is about creative play. These guys never take themselves too seriously, a quality that translates through their witty lyrics and hilarious music videos. “The lyrics for the song ‘Dance Motherfucker’ were kind of an accident.” Waters says, speaking about their hit single. “We were rehearsing, and I thought Owen said  ‘I don’t want to dance motherfucker,’ and we all liked it, so it stuck.”

Despite the band’s commitment to fun and creative play, Waters is a hard worker. On a typical day, he gets up and works like everyone else, only he writes lyrics and composes music while other thirty-year-olds commute to Bay Street cubicles. “You want a pop song to sound effortless, but it’s not” he tells me. “It’s difficult to make something that sounds simple”  Waters says his work ethic is opposite to band member Tyler Kyte, who takes a more laissez-faire approach to his work. “Tyler wants everything to be fun, whereas I think work should be a struggle.”  Waters smirks, “we fight sometimes over it [our work ethic]”. I ask Waters for a juicy anecdote, but he doesn’t want to reveal. “I suppose our differences balance each other out,” he replies civilly.

“And then there’s Alex” Waters continues, who writes a lot of songs and plays guitar, so he brings a kind of soulful component to the band. He’s actually the one who wrote ‘We’re on Fire Tonight’, the only real slow song on the album.”

But the real performer of the quintet is lead singer Owen Carrier, who—I’m convinced—was Frankie Vallie in another life, or at least a member of a barbershop quartet. Owen, or “the ham” as Waters calls him, is sharp, spunky, and his voice packs a punch. What’s more, his over-the-top moves and eccentric gestures leave you with a stitch in your side.

Sweet Thing isn’t simply music you listen to, it’s music you need to watch: you can best appreciate their spunk by seeing Sweet Thing perform live or watching their music videos. The band’s performative nature stems from their background in showbusiness. Aside from Waters, Tyler Kyte and Alex Winter also dabbled in acting prior to forming Sweet Thing (You may remember Tyler Kyte from the after-school special Popular Mechanics for Kids, or Instant Star, a reality-based TV show that Alex took part in for one season)

The band’s showmanship, together with their infectious sound, works: Sweet Thing’s debut album (released August 17th) is climbing Canadian pop charts. The song “Change of Seasons” was picked up by Olive Bridge Entertainment as the theme song for the teen movie “Easy A,” and their Canadian tour promises sold-out audiences across the coast. (The tour begins in Lethbridge, Alberta and rounds out back home in Toronto at Massey Hall March 12th). The band even scored a cameo on the teen seriesDesgrassi.

I ask Waters how he feels about lending his tune for “Easy A.”

Was it good exposure, or did it feel like they were selling out? “I would have to say it was good exposure. More listeners.” he answers, “We’ve never been concerned with ‘selling out’ because we’re not concerned with being ‘hip’ or ‘cool’, we just want people to have as much fun with [the music] as we do.”

Waters’ latest project: directing the video for “Lazy Susan,” the second track off their debut album, which he composed on Garage Band. “Everything else on the album was fast, so we wanted a spinning, kind of Hall & Oats-inspired song” he says. “We spent a lot of time watching Abba videos before taping to get some of the hand gestures down, and we also watched takes from this British comedy show called ‘Look around You’”

“Look Around You” satirizes educational films from the ‘70s and ‘80s, and isn’t too far off from the “Lazy Susan” video, which, says Waters  “is a complete parody of everything a music video is supposed to be.” “Lazy Susan” like most of Sweet Thing’s music, has a quirky narrative element to it, telling a story about a lazy girl (Susan) who hangs around watching soap operas all day.

When I ask Waters about the background story behind Lazy Susan, he says “[Lazy Susan] isn’t based on one girl—or at least not one that I’d be willing to name. We like puns, so, she’s lazy, she’s Susan—it’s reverse engineered around the pun.”

The video captures the essence of the band: performative, funny, full of energy, and just silly enough to remind me not to take life too seriously. What’s next for Waters?  “I want to do everything” he says. With the band’s upcoming tour scheduled and their second album in the works, this Toronto-based boy isn’t stopping; it’s all open waters from here.

Photos by thinkCONTRA

Amanda Cosco
		About the author:
		Amanda Cosco is a freelance writer. The city is her muse.  After completing a master’s degree in English Literature at Ryerson University in Toronto, Amanda packed up her life and moved to the city in pursuit of jazz, sex, and soup. Amanda completed her bachelor of arts at York University, where she had one foot in literary studies and one foot in journalism, earning her a double-major in English and professional writing. Amanda has presented her scholarly work at academic at conferences across Toronto, and her research on the metaphor of hunger in women’s fiction has received over $30,000 in grants and prizes. With her pen name, Lady Medusa, Amanda has left her digital footprints all over the internet. Currently, she’s blogging for several social media websites, and composing her first book of poetry, entitled "Autobiography of Skin. Follow her on Twitter @ladymspeaks
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