Last September, when Patrick Watson went to Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, to play the Festival de musique émergente, he also filmed the first of his ‘backyard’ videos, one of a series set to accompany his new album Adventures In Your Own Backyard, released yesterday.

The video, which you can see above, stars Watson and Rouyn-Noranda fixture Conrad Morasse, the founder of the town’s iconic all-day, every day poutine/pizza/hot dog spot, Chez Morasse, and he tells Watson not only about his early days running the business and making less than $10 a day, but of the isolated mining town’s history.

“I’m hoping to find the special people in a neighbourhood,” Watson told AUX in an interview last week in Toronto. He says the making of the first video was a bit more difficult than they anticipated, but they hope to quicken the pace of production now that they’ll be heading on the road.

Adventures In Your Own Backyard was created in Watson’s own home studio, a change from his previous worldly recording jaunts. Watson says not only is it a great-sounding space that allowed him to spend time with his two children in the mornings before long studio days, but also ensured the band wasn’t pressured to get something out for the sake of it.

“Our approach was, when we have 12 good songs, we’ll release it,” Watson says. “You shouldn’t release something if it’s not a sure shot. There’s a lot of music out there, a lot of recordings. Adding to that storm of recordings is not going to help you out. It’s better to have less, and better quality, than have it lost in the mass of information.”

“It’s absolutely impossible to keep up,” he continues. Indeed Watson has never been concerned with forcing his classical background into more accessible moulds, though his ambitious arrangements often present themselves as the pared-down melodic, harmonic core of classical compositions. On Adventures, the band pulls back even more; there’s more space, and less concern for inventing or pushing. Instead, emotion is the guide.

Watson says that, even though his classical background is a different so-called musical language, it didn’t change the fundamental aim of this or any record. “[You have to] make something that touches you.”