Holding the physical pressing of Ken Yates’ third full-length effort, *Quiet Talkers*, there is a weight to it that belies its title. It is a record born of a specific, suffocating tension. When Yates first hit the scene with 2016’s *Huntsville*, he was the darling of the Canadian Folk Music Awards, walking away with Songwriter of the Year and New Artist of the Year honours. But that was a different era. Reunited with producer Jim Bryson, Yates has pivoted. He has traded the safe, campfire-adjacent acoustic strums for something darker, more electric and decidedly more anxious.
The timing of the release was, by any traditional metric, a disaster. Dropping an album in the middle of a global shutdown is the sort of industry nightmare that keeps publicists awake at night. But Yates is a London-born songwriter who seems to thrive in the margins. He is the observer, the guy in the corner of the room taking notes while everyone else is shouting to be heard.
We caught up with Yates to dissect the new record and the bizarre irony of launching a career milestone while the world was essentially closed for business.
“It’s been all right, all things considered,” Yates says when asked how he’s navigating the pandemic era. “I had to cancel a lot of tour dates in May, over 30 shows. That was tough at first, but you know what, it hasn’t been so bad. I have a new album coming out and so I have some music to release and I’ve been able to sell a lot of albums just from orders from home and sending them out by mail. It’s a weird time to be releasing an album, but it’s been pretty good so far. So in a strange way, it’s actually a good time to put out music because everybody is at home and looking for new music to listen to.”
There is a pragmatism in that outlook that most artists lack. While the industry was busy mourning the loss of the traditional tour cycle, Yates was licking stamps and heading to the post office. It is a return to the DIY ethos that the digital age supposedly killed. But there is no denying the disconnect between the intimacy of the record and the isolation of the listener.
“It is pretty strange,” Yates admits regarding the quarantine release. “I’ve started diving into the online shows and was a bit hesitant to do them at first, but I’ve actually found them to be pretty fun and you can see all of your audience connecting with each other and that’s been a great experience for me.”
The pivot to livestreaming was a desperate move for most, a digital busking session that often felt hollow. Yet, for a songwriter whose work relies on the "quiet talker" persona, the smallness of a phone screen actually serves the material. It mimics the bedroom-confessional vibe of the tracks.
Still, the financial reality of the entertainment industry remains grim. Without the merch table and the door split, the roadmap for a professional musician is a series of dead ends. Yates is acutely aware that the "normal" career path has been bulldozed.
“The hard thing for me right now is just knowing when we’ll be able to play shows again and whether I should be trying to book shows for the fall, next year, or next summer,” Yates says. “There’s a lot of uncertainty right now. Basically, I’m just waiting to book any tours until I have an idea of when we might be able to get on the road again. In the meantime, I’ve been putting a lot of my energy into this new album and playing online shows for my audience, which I think will become the new normal in doing these online shows. I’m just trying to be productive and keep writing songs. My guess is that I’ll probably end up writing a new album pretty soon after releasing this new one coming out on the 22nd.”
That kind of creative output is a survival mechanism. For Yates, the initial shock of the lockdown eventually gave way to a rigid, almost blue-collar approach to songwriting. It is a discipline that separates the hobbyists from the lifers.
“It took a while to settle into a new routine,” he explains. “I’m used to being at home and writing at home, but everything was just so crazy for those first few weeks when we went into quarantine. I’m actually getting the creative juices flowing again. But now I feel like I’m hitting a sweet spot and I have a routine every day and I’ve been writing a lot. I will have a new album written pretty soon, by the summer.”
It’s a weird time to be releasing an album, but it’s been pretty good so far. So in a strange way, it’s actually a good time to put out music because everybody is at home and looking for new music to listen to.
One of the standout moments on *Quiet Talkers* is the single "Evangeline". It is a track that almost didn't make the cut, a victim of the artist’s own internal editor. In the studio, the song felt like a lingering ghost from his previous folk-heavy iterations, making it a difficult fit for the new, more textured sonic palette Bryson was helping him build.
“We recorded 14 songs for the album and I knew I wanted to narrow it down to 11 or 12,” Yates says. “It’s hard to judge your own song on what you think people will like. Evangeline, for me, I was always attached to the song, but when we went into the studio to record it, it catered itself more to just a solo song. It didn’t quite fit with a lot of the other songs on the album, so it felt like an odd man out in terms of where my song writing was going, but I always kept coming back to it. I played that song a lot live and people seem to react to it well, so I just put it on the back of the record as track 10. I thought if people might find it and they might like it and if they do that’s great, which has been the case. We put it out as a single and it seems to be one of the more popular songs I’ve released so far. I’m blown away by that, but I’m glad I decided to put it on.”
It is a common trap for songwriters: overvaluing the "new" sound while discounting the raw, foundational stuff that actually connects with a human pulse. "Evangeline" provides a necessary reprieve from the album's otherwise heavy, introspective weight.
“Well, it’s definitely one of the more positive songs I’ve written,” Yates notes. “The whole album is pretty dark, I would say generally, but this one’s a more positive message and it’s about reaching out to somebody. I thought of it as an encouraging love letter to somebody almost, and just to persevere, which I think is probably hitting a chord right now with everything that’s going on.”
The rollout of the album followed a modern, data-driven strategy. Working with Tone Tree in Nashville, Yates opted for the "waterfall" release method, dropping singles like breadcrumbs to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the Spotify algorithm. It is a far cry from the old-school "drop the record and pray" approach.
“That was the plan,” Yates says. “I’ve been working with a company in Nashville called Tone Tree, and what they like to do is a release a single every month leading up to the album release and their idea was to release five singles before the album, one every month. This was a new strategy for me, because it seemed like a long process leading up to the album release, but it’s been good actually. Because then you allow each single to have a life on Spotify and try to get the playlisting and it’s been great. Every single has gotten more and more buildup and it’s given nice anticipation for the actual full album to come out.”
Visually, the album has been accompanied by some strikingly low-fi imagery. The video for "Surviving is Easy" utilizes vintage cartoon footage that feels both nostalgic and deeply unsettling when paired with Yates’ somber delivery. It is a clever use of public domain assets that creates a high-concept feel on a shoestring budget.
“I can’t say I am [a fan of cartoons], no, but I was looking for older type cartoony footage for that song,” Yates says. “I don’t know why I had it in my head that it would be cool to use. I found this old, I think it’s a Tom and Jerry cartoon that was public domain and it actually fit the song really well, so I thought I’d use it.”
Finding that specific visual rhythm was not an overnight success. “I actually had a few videos for that single before I found that one. I spent quite a bit of time digging for something that would work. But once I found that cartoon, I was like, ‘Wow, this actually worked really well with the song.’”
The shift in sound on *Quiet Talkers* is the real story here. Yates has moved away from the "Americana" label that critics love to slap on anyone with an acoustic guitar. There is more grit here, more electric hum and more space. It feels like an artist finally making the music he actually listens to, rather than the music he thinks he is supposed to make.
“It’s definitely less of a folk album,” Yates observes. “My first two albums were more acoustic based, more folky Americana, where this one’s a bit more contemporary sounding, a lot more full band stuff. That’s always the music I’ve personally listened to. Going into this record, I wanted to experiment more with playing electric guitar, doing more songs with a full band, catering more to my own musical interests. Whereas in the past I just didn’t want to step on the songs. I wanted to keep them acoustic based and not over produce them too much.”
The title *Quiet Talkers* serves as a manifesto for the introverted. In an industry that demands constant self-promotion and "loud" branding, Yates is making a case for the power of the subtext.
“Well, it’s funny. You don’t really go into it with a specific message wanting to say, but once the album was made and I looked at the overall theme of it, all the songs are, in my mind, thoughts from the quietest person in the room, which is why I called it the Quiet Talkers. I think my song writing comes from the point of view of the observer, and so all those songs are from the point of view of a wallflower.”
This wallflower perspective is reinforced by the stark, black and white aesthetic of the album’s promotion. It is a visual cue that tells the listener exactly what to expect: no frills, no distractions and a lot of grey area.
“A lot of it was subconscious probably, but the mood of the record, as I say, a lot of it is kind of dark, a little introspective and the black and white caters to that.”
Despite his time in Toronto and the US, Yates remains a product of the London, Ontario music scene. It is a city that has transformed from a sleepy hub into a legitimate cultural centre, largely due to the exodus of artists from the prohibitively expensive Toronto market.
“I think so,” Yates says of the changing scene. “I haven’t lived in London for almost 10 years now, so I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of the music scene there, but it does seem like it’s grown quite a bit and a good place to be now, especially with Toronto being so expensive to live in. I think a lot of musicians are moving to smaller towns and it does appear that the city has taken more pride in its music scene and supported it a bit more, which I like to see. Obviously there’s some really great venues there, Aeolian Hall I love playing. It’s one of my favorite venues anywhere and they’ve grown a lot in the past few years, so it looks like it’s heading in a great direction.”
London provided the "safe bubble" required for a songwriter like Yates to find his footing. It is a community that allows for failure and growth without the crushing pressure of a major metropolitan spotlight.
“London’s a good place to grow up,” Yates concludes. “You have your own little space to grow as a musician and an artist. I grew up playing in bands there and then I left around 18, went to school in the US, started touring in the US, and then started touring different parts of Canada. But London has always been really supportive of me. Some of my best shows have been in London and it was a great, great community to try to find my voice in, like a nice safe bubble.”
With *Quiet Talkers*, Yates has officially burst that bubble. He is no longer just a "folk" artist from the Forest City; he is a songwriter operating at a high technical level, navigating a fractured industry with a quiet, steady hand. And if the world is finally ready to listen, he has plenty to say—he’s just not going to shout it.
