Arkells frontman Max Kerman is pictured in Toronto on April 8, 2025.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
Go back to the beginning. That’s what nine-time Juno winners the Arkells did – both literally and sonically – on their latest album, Between Us.
It’s a return and a revolution for the five-piece ensemble. The photo shoot for the album cover took place in the rooftop park above Jackson Square, a popular Hamilton haunt and the name of the band’s 2008 debut. The recording process for their new album, available now, was reminiscent of the band’s early days: five friends in a room making music. Sure, singer Max Kerman is still crooning about love and calling out Champagne socialists, but 18 years later, the tone is more reflective.
Ahead of the Canadian leg of their 2026 tour, set to begin in May, The Globe and Mail spoke with Kerman about reimagining the live music experience and seeking connection in a fragmented world.
Between Us album coverpelle cass/Supplied
Is your Junos performance a preview of what folks can expect to see on tour this spring and summer?
There won’t be any stationary bikes on stage, but I do like a theatrical show with the odd gag or bit. I think that’s what has always made the band interesting to me. If we just stood there on stage, playing our songs, I would have quit a long time ago.
Your performance of Ride captured the childlike joy of aimlessly riding your bike around town on a steamy summer day. Was the goal of the song to call back to simpler times?
Maybe. I’ve been thinking about the concept of freedom, and how that feeling is something anyone can have. Sometimes just riding your bike home after visiting a friend’s house, detouring through a park, can be the greatest feeling on Earth. I’m really interested in things that anybody can have that make life full and rich: sunshine, a public park, a bicycle, strong friendships. We live in a very status-driven culture and I want to reject that as much as I can. It’s never brought any real happiness to me, or anybody else for that matter.
On the Between Us tour, you’re experimenting with “city takeovers” where you’ll play small, mid-sized and larger venues over the span of a few nights in cities including Vancouver and Toronto. Is that in service to your fanbase?
Playing smaller venues allows us to have a direct line to our audience. We played a surprise show in Sarnia recently and someone said their favourite songs were Two Hearts and Universe Talking. Those tracks are on the new album, so no one had heard them yet. But they made such an impression because we were in a room with 150 people in it. When you’re in a smaller venue, the singer is looking right at you. There’s so much value in that.
You’ve really mastered the art of hosting secret shows at unlikely venues, including laundromats, ice cream parlours, hotel rooms and even Toronto’s Union Station.
I think this effort actually speaks to the theme of the record Between Us, which asks: How can we ground ourselves in 2026? We spend so much time staring at our phones and feeling helpless about the world and things we can’t control. One antidote is doing things in real life, in your own neighbourhood and looking at people in their physical form, not what they’re presenting on a screen through social media.
Where to next?
Almost anything goes at this point. We played a show in my parents’ neighbour’s garage on Tuesday. Mike, our guitarist, remembered that I used to rehearse there with my high-school band.
Between Us is the band’s ninth album. How did the process differ this time around?
Blink Once came out in 2021, followed by Blink Twice in 2022 and Laundry Pile in 2023. Those records were made in a fragmented way. Sometimes we’d be recording, but then there’d be another lockdown and we’d have to send music to each other virtually. This time, I think the band wanted to do it the way we did with the first few records, where it was the five of us in a room, workshopping arrangements and labouring over lyrics, and then going into a studio with an indie rock producer who would get the most out of us as a band. And that’s exactly what we did.
Some artists, like Harry Styles, say they avoid trying to recreate the magic of past albums because they don’t want to copy themselves – create something lesser than, perhaps. Can you relate?
Of course. The second anything feels too familiar, we all lose interest. When we were recording Desire’s Got Some Questions for the new album, our producer John Congleton said it kind of sounded like Imagine Barcelona, which we had just recorded. So we showed him an original piano demo of the track, which was much more stripped back. He said, “This is the version.” It’s so much more interesting to push yourself and see what new thing you can create.
This interview has been edited and condensed.