HAWKING are our hardworking, alt-rock pals from Vancouver, and last month they released their debut LP Diverge. Known for touring fervently across Canada and North America, HAWKING is ready to conquer and grow this year. We sat down to discuss the latest album and the life of a frequently touring band. Check out what they had to say below and give their music video "Broken Glass" a gander underneath the interview!

Diverge, your debut LP, was released April 7th and you began your over six week album release tour immediately following. How did all of the shows go for you?

Pretty kickass. I think Denver, LA and Ottawa were some of the best dates. There’s always a few weird nights here and there, especially when it’s your first time getting to know a city and what the vibe is like in their music scene, but it’s a learning curve like everything else. We got to see so many longtime fans and make so many new ones. It was rewarding as heck.

You're a band known to be incredibly driven and frequently touring, how you stay motivated on some of the harder days on your longer runs?

Iced coffee, burritos, practicing our music (it’s surprising how many bands don’t actually do this on tour), writing new music, and individually doing things we enjoy to give ourselves room to breathe.

What are your favorite cities to tour?

Ottawa and Montreal really take the cake for Canada these days, our shows there always feel so dialed and the crowd really gets us. Plus Montreal is easily one of the most beautiful cities in North America. For the USA, Portland and the Bay Area seem to have the right vibe for what we do, but we haven’t hit the US as hard as Canada quite yet so we’ve got open minds for sure. Looking forward to experiencing more of it!

Where did you find the inspiration for Diverge? Piggybacking off of that, what was the creative process like for this album?

Diverge is such a good, tight mess — a really special kind of mess to us. It was just us trying to be musically technical/progressive but also aggressively pop-sensible, and wanting to see where that would get us and how people would react. It’s quite a vast gap in audiences to bridge when you think about it: the people who listen to Prog versus the people who tend to appreciate Pop elements. We were just curious and tenacious, now we’re proud and stoked.

What has been the most rewarding part of releasing Diverge thus far?

So far I think the best part of the journey with this record has been getting to know our audience and what attracts them to our sound. It’s never what we expect, and we’re always impressed with the character of our fans when we get to talking to them. It’s a really special feeling when you hold a deep respect for your listeners.

What do you hope to accomplish during the remaining year?

Touring more this fall. More tour. Plus de tour. Tour is bueno. Summer is for festivals, one-off gigs, writing and demoing all the ideas we came up with on tour.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Go check out Diverge and tell us your favorite track! Follow our socials if you want to keep up with us. Or just tweet our dads maybe. Also, shoutout to Gorilla Glue for keeping us alive on tour. Those guys are cool cats and we couldn’t have done it without them. Peace!