For the 4th time, Arkells win Juno for best group

For the fourth time, Hamilton rockers Arkells have won the best group award at the Junos.

Award winners were announced Friday night and the win for Arkells ties them with Nickleback for the second most best band/best group awards in the 50-year history of the Canadian music awards.

Also up for the award were Half Moon Run, Loud Luxury, The Glorious Sons and The Reklaws. Here's a list of all the 2021 award winners.

It's been a busy last little while for the Hamilton band. Last week they released their new track All Roads which combines the turbulence and unpredictable nature of life with the warmth of a homecoming for what the band calls its "hopeful summer jam."

Frontman Max Kerman says the tune, which dropped last week, is all about how life can take someone in countless different directions. All the while, he said, they feel a visceral, constant draw. 

"I think eventually, no matter how far we travel, we're always looking to find something that's comforting and to have a sense of where we come from or something that feels like home," he said. 

"That could be a person, that could be a physical place, that could be a thing that you keep in your pocket. It can be a lot of things." 

The music video features sweeping drone footage of Devil's Punchbowl, a local conservation area with a pair of waterfalls along the Niagara Escarpment. 

As the video opens, the band members cruise in a '93 Miata along winding Ridge Road at sunrise, and the reverb in Kerman's voice is reminiscent of live concerts. He says the song delivers a "nighttime, summer driving" energy. 

The lyrics, he said, follow a consistent message in Arkells songs — the connection to the people in life that pick you up when you're in a jam and come find you when you're lost. 

"All roads will lead me back to you," Kerman sings. 

The band's best tracks, he said, find ways to speak to different people, all the while nailing down specific, intimate details. 

In singing "I'm Irish with my goodbyes," Kerman said with a laugh, he puts a piece of himself in the story.

Collaborating on personal pieces since age 17

All Roads started with an instrumental demo from guitarist Mike DeAngelis. While people can get "superstitious" about their songwriting, Kerman said the band tries to stay open to write the most exciting melody.

It's something he urges young artists to do — to stay open in "every possible sense."

"It just felt much different than something I would have thought of if I was sitting at a guitar or piano," he said.

The creative process is also different, Kerman noted, when you're working on deeply personal pieces with people you met when you were just 17-years-old. 

It's why some bands don't last, he said — you're young, creating material close to the heart and it's easy for things to go awry. 

"I think the success of our band is rooted in a respect for one another and also recognizing that everybody brings a different skill set to the operation," he said. 

The preciousness of songwriting

Kerman says he sees the act of songwriting as a puzzle — an adventure of confronting challenges and exploring instrumentations. He treasures each moment, from lyrical breakthroughs to fiddling away with a keyboard or drum fill. 

He knows it can be hard to let go. 

"Obviously you want the music to come out, and you want people to connect with it and you want to be able to play it live. But just the process that I think I'm most precious about is the whole journey up to the point where you release the song," he said.

"There's a million little moments that happen as you're working on a song that are really intimate and really meaningful."

The challenges and joys of golden hour

Director of All Roads Mark Myers was recently at the helm of two other pandemic-era music videos for the band. 

You Can Get It  involved a green screen Wheel of Fortune-style game featuring K. Flay, and Pub Crawl pulled inspiration from Home Alone's cardboard cutouts crafted by Kevin McCallister. 

Kerman said this video started as a simple, one-shot idea, but built to an "intense process."

The flight path for the drone — piloted by Misha Herschorn — was mapped out to get three minutes of interesting, dynamic visuals. 

While the skeleton crew shot it at golden hour on Thursday, a week before the video planned to come out, the tricky attempt to get the light and shots just right meant waking up for a re-shoot at 5 a.m. on Tuesday. 

2021 Juno Awards

Arkells say their next album will come out this year.

Kerman will present this weekend at the 2021 Juno Awards. Arkells are taking home the award for group of the year — a category they've won three times before in 2012, 2015 and 2019. 

Presented by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Junos are on Sunday, June 6 at 8 p.m. ET. People can watch on CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music and on CBCMusic.ca/junos.