Walking into the Colosseum at Caesars Windsor, you can feel the history of high-stakes entertainment pressing against the velvet. It is a room built for spectacle, a venue that demands a certain level of polished chaos. For Walk Off The Earth, returning to this stage on Nov. 7, followed by a stop at Kitchener’s Centre in the Square on Nov. 8, carries a weight that transcends a standard tour stop. This isn't just about the viral loops or the multi-instrumental gymnastics anymore. It is about survival.
The band spent much of 2019 navigating a void. The sudden passing of Mike “Beard Guy” Taylor in late 2018 didn't just remove a keyboardist; it pulled the rug out from under the band’s structural integrity. Taylor was the anchor. While the rest of the group bounced between instruments like caffeinated pinballs, Mike was the stoic centre. Moving forward was a choice fraught with internal debate, but the band eventually realized that silence was the only thing Mike wouldn't have wanted.
I caught up with Joel Cassady, the band’s rhythmic engine, to talk about the logistics of grief and the mechanics of staying relevant in an algorithm-driven industry. We started with the geography of the tour, specifically the return to the 519 area code.
“You know it. It’s a beautiful room. We love coming out there,” Cassady says, referring to the Windsor stop. “I mean, honestly, any chance to do the home province is an honour for us. We’ve been so fortunate to get a chance to obviously have the global stage available to us and go to the furthest reaches of the Earth here, but all the more reason for us to really cherish our time at home and our chance to play to the hometown crowd.”
And that hometown crowd is a different beast. In Europe or Asia, Walk Off The Earth is a Canadian curiosity, a viral export. In Ontario, they are the local kids who made good by playing a single guitar with 10 hands. But the grind of the road hasn't slowed their digital output. Even while trekking across continents this past summer, the band’s YouTube channel remained a relentless content farm.
I asked Cassady if the band has reached a point where the digital "content" outweighs the traditional album cycle. His answer suggests a band that understands the modern landscape better than most label executives.
“Interesting question. I don’t know. I think it’s just so important for us to have the full kind of multimedia approach and attack happening at all times that each thing is equally important,” Cassady says. “I mean, we’re under no illusion that we really wouldn’t have this platform that we’ve been able to earn for ourselves here without, of course, that initial kind of big viral YouTube reach back in 2012. Of course, we’ve been able to hold on to a lot of that by continuing to sort of nurture that, right? I mean, we need to keep the YouTube stuff happening. We love doing the covers, we love keeping that world going, but we need to.”
The "need" he speaks of is the reality of the attention economy. You don't just release an album and disappear for two years anymore. Not if you want to keep the lights on.
“We’ve been able to have success with the originals as well, which is a total dream come true for us. It’s kind of a two-prong, or even more prong, two, three, four, five-prong attack, whatever it is,” Cassady explains. “It’s all really important to us. It’s all really valuable. It’s all really fulfilling to us. It’s more a matter of just making sure we’re working our asses off every day and making sure we’re keeping everyone happy. Some fans of ours are more into the covers than the originals. That’s okay. Some people are more into the originals than the covers. That’s great. Some people love the short film stuff we’re doing or the sort of almost skit-based comedic stuff we’re doing. It’s all good.”
One of those recent diversions was the "Fifth Avenue" drum video, a piece of content that felt like a nod to the technical nerds who follow Cassady’s specific contributions to the collective. It was less about the gimmick and more about the chops.
“That was just us, just again, just talking about the kind of things that we hadn’t done, or we get a lot of requests, of course, at all times from fans,” Cassady says. “A lot of folks are into the drum stuff. Just again, based by virtue of us needing to kind of nurture other things that people want to see, we hadn’t really done a whole lot of dedicated drum stuff. The opportunity came up to do a few things and that was on the list and it ended up working out great. The response to that has been great.”
It is easy to forget that this band has been at this for over a decade. The "Gotye" cover that broke the internet feels like a lifetime ago in internet years. When I pointed out that the 10-year anniversary of their YouTube inception was looming, Cassady had to do some mental math.
“Almost, yeah. Well, it’s been almost eight years since the big video. The five people, one guitar video took off in 2012 so we’re coming up on about seven years plus since then, I mean, we’re closing in on a decade,” he says. “The band has been going obviously 10 plus years beyond that, but yeah, since everything kind of went crazy, it’s been getting close to eight years, but yeah, we’re getting there. We’re coming up on the decade.”
It really helped us kind of sit down and really tap into that part of us that was hurting at that time and continues to and really find our ways through via music. I think that as artists, as musicians, we have the ability to do that sometimes. This one was definitely one of the most important that’s ever been available to us.
But staying at the top of the feed requires a level of digital immersion that can be suffocating. There is a fine line between being a musician and being a full-time social media manager. I wondered how much of his actual life is swallowed by the screen.
“Quite a bit. It’s interesting, it comes in waves, especially the way that when we’re living in this world, and this is obviously a big part of our livelihood and stuff,” Cassady admits. “People ask us all the time, ‘What are your favourite channels,’ and all that stuff. Of course, we have our favourites and all that sort of thing, but I think it’s also important we’ve learned to find that middle as well, to unplug sometimes and really check out stuff that isn’t rooted in social media and YouTube just for that reason, because we do live in it so much when it comes to work. It’s about finding that kind of middle, that work-life balance I guess you could say, but make no mistake, it occupies a great deal of our time and our effort and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The band’s ability to pivot remains their greatest asset. Take their cover of "Old Town Road." While every other artist was doing a straight acoustic version, WOTE went into the kitchen. They used bells. They used literal garbage. It was a masterclass in creative deconstruction.
“Of course,” Cassady says when I mention the inevitability of them covering that track. “I wish I had the perfect answer for this. It’s so funny when this comes up. Honestly, it’s about, for us anyway, not overthinking it. When we realized that song was taking over the world, we were out there, I just said ‘There’s really something to this. Let’s try and see what comes naturally here.’ Literally, and this has happened a couple of times, opened up the utensil drawer, saw what was in the kitchen, basically went into the garage and grabbed a few boxes of screws and stuff and made a whole beat and got the kind of core to beat there.”
But the secret sauce in that video wasn't just the screws. It was the Schulmerich bells. These aren't your grandmother’s dinner bells; they are massive, orchestral instruments that require a specialized touch.
“Then we have these amazing bells that a company called Schulmerich sent to us,” Cassady says. “They’re these beautiful orchestral bells that we found a way to sort of work into the whole thing and provide the tonality. Honestly, it came together rather quickly. It’s funny how it happens like that, how it just kind of all comes together naturally. We’ve had a couple of times where we’ve wanted it to go that way. We had to really pause ourselves and sort of re-imagine it or revamp it along the way, but more often than not, things just kind of fall together when you don’t overthink it like that. We’ve got a lot of good luck when it comes to that sort of thing.”
The visual of those bells is striking, but don't expect to see the full set on stage at Caesars. The logistics of touring with heavy-duty orchestral gear is a nightmare the band isn't quite ready to tackle.
“We already have so much gear with us on the road,” Cassady notes. “I mean, people are requesting that song and stuff and other things we’ve done with the bells and it’s like people don’t realize our truck we bring with us is jam-packed full of all the crazy gear that we try to bring and incorporate into our live show. Maybe one day, maybe if we have the ability to kick it up another notch and bring another truck with us, we’ll bring the bells out, but they’re so heavy. It’s crazy.”
And yet, despite the technical wizardry and the viral hits, the shadow of Mike Taylor looms large. In the "Old Town Road" video, there’s a subtle tribute—Mike’s face on a white mug. It was a small gesture that carried massive weight for the fans.
“You nailed it. It’s been incredibly tough to say the absolute least and I think we get a lot of comfort out of realizing that we know that he would want us to carry on in his absence,” Cassady says. “We hope, we feel indeed that we’re doing enough to bring him with us and to carry him with us. For a while this year we were doing this tribute where we cut together this video of him performing Bohemian Rhapsody, which was a big part of our show in the past couple of years, and allowed the audience to have their moments there.”
The live show now incorporates Mike through technology, but it’s done with a sensitivity that avoids being macabre. It’s a digital séance.
“I mean, then we actually came back out. We have video screens on stage with us now, so it actually allows us to run this video and allow people to have that moment with Mike on the screen, and then us to come out and actually join in and perform with the recording of him, alongside him, almost like we’re still able to collaborate with him, which has been a very happy moment,” Cassady says.
The emotional peak of this new era is undoubtedly "Mike’s Song," a track that will appear on the new album dropping late October. Writing it was an act of communal therapy for the remaining members.
“That, and of course writing the original song, Mike’s Song, which is going to be on the new album coming out late October, that was a very cathartic process and sort of a natural thing for us to get in a room and say, ‘You know what? What’s the best way for us to honour this great man?’ Of course, it’s going to be through music, right? That came together pretty quickly and pretty naturally and we’re very proud of that,” Cassady says. “We hope that we’re doing it now. It’s hard because he was such a great, incredible person and just unbelievable character. I think it’s easy for us to think that we’re not doing enough to carry him with us, but at the same time, a lot of people have made us feel better by saying that all the effort we have made is really touching. Yeah, I just hope we’re doing enough to honour him because he was an amazing guy.”
The song is a departure from their usual high-energy fare. It is raw, stripped back and painfully honest. I asked if the writing process was as difficult as it sounds.
“You know what? On the catharsis note, it was tough, of course, but I think it really did allow the four of us to kind of help get through this,” Cassady reflects. “It really helped us kind of sit down and really tap into that part of us that was hurting at that time and continues to and really find our ways through via music. I think that as artists, as musicians, we have the ability to do that sometimes. This one was definitely one of the most important that’s ever been available to us.”
The band’s identity is built on the concept of the multi-instrumentalist. Everyone plays everything. It’s an impressive feat, but as a critic, you have to wonder if it’s a gimmick that masks a lack of specialization. Cassady is remarkably humble about their collective skill set.
“We make sure to say a lot of the time that the whole phrase Jack of all trades, master of none, that sort of epitomizes this group,” he says. “I mean, people think that we’re like virtuosos at every instrument. We really try to encourage people to realize and actually make their own attempts to pick up certain instruments. There’s a lot to be said for just kind of picking up something and just going for it, just figuring out a part and going for it, which is really how we do it a lot of the time.”
There are, however, limits. You won't see Cassady picking up a saxophone anytime soon.
“I’m sort of less strong when it comes to things like brass and woodwinds and that, but then of course, someone like Marshall who actually played brass all through high school, he comes in there. Where certain members' weaknesses are in certain areas, someone else is always able to step it up and come through there,” Cassady says.
This democratic approach to musicianship is what makes Walk Off The Earth more than just a cover band. They are a DIY collective that managed to scale. They represent a specific kind of Canadian ingenuity—the ability to make a lot out of very little.
“We’ve been pretty lucky when it comes to wanting to play every single instrument in the world and for the most part, being able to, in some way, make that happen, but again, we’re not trying to be experts,” Cassady concludes. “We’re just trying to have a good time and sort of help people realize that you can do it too. You can pick up an instrument and just sort of figure it out. Even if you’re playing it the wrong way or you’re not classically trained or formally trained, that’s okay.”
As they head into Windsor and Kitchener, the band isn't just playing for the fans; they are playing for Mike. And they are playing to prove that even when you lose your foundation, you can still build something beautiful if you’ve got enough friends—and a few boxes of screws.
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