Vancouver's Dowco Triumph Street Pipe Band is celebrating its 40th anniversary with the release of its new CD, With Purpose. Joe Leary spent 24 Seconds with pipe major David Hilder and Ian Casselman, the drummer for Marianas Trench, who produced the album.

24: How does the drummer of one of Canada's most popular rock bands hook up with a pipe band?

IC: Stupidity and general insanity. Actually I used to play in pipe bands for most of my youth. I think I started when I was about like six or eight and then played until my early twenties. I actually played with David in a band for a couple of years and now, he runs his own pipe band, which in my opinion is better and more competitive. That's why I'm working with them.

24: Did you always harbour a desire to at some point return to your roots?

IC: I always loved it but it requires an insane amount of work to be in a pipe band of this caliber and I can't do both with my other career. I'd like to do some producing and engineering with a lot of different stuff and if I wasn't in Marianas Trench I would try and be in this pipe band.

24: Pipes are somewhat under-utilized in music and often under-appreciated. What do you hope to accomplish with this project and hooking up with Ian?

DH: This project has been on the books for a long time and we wanted to capture the moment in time with where we're at with our pipe band. Ian just has such a different approach to the musical end. A lot of times in pipe bands we get bogged down with competitiveness and quite frankly get nitpicky with regards to how well something is placed as opposed to just listening to the music. We have a very similar musical approach when it comes to the pipe-band world. Our lead drummer, Andre Tessier, asked Ian to come out and have a listen to the drum corps some months ago and we started talking about the fact that we wanted to do an album. It just morphed from there.

IC: They asked me some general questions about what studio did I think would work and how they would go about recording it and I gave them some advice. I think they just thought it might be an idea to bring me onboard, which remains to be seen whether it was or wasn't. I always wanted to get back into it and I have a huge passion for it. I love it and my most fun years as a kid was doing this. Dave Ogilvie and Dean Maher; the guys who mixed this project at Hipposonic - I just love those guys.

24: What do you hope to achieve with this project when all is said and done?

IC: I don't think that the pipe world is a closed scene necessarily, but I don't think they seek out other producers and mixers. They stick to people who have been involved in the recording of pipe bands for a while. Bringing in some fresh ears, I hope we make something that is sonically superior to other pipe band recordings to truly capture what they're really about.

24: As for the pipe band, the age range is from 13 to 52. Has everybody bought in and did they enjoy the whole recording experience?

DH: We're a big family and this has been a really exciting year. We brought up in September that we were going to do an album and everybody bought in fully. Through the four days of recording, all 38 people had a great experience.

We have copies of With Purpose to give away. The winners will be selected from new followers to @24hoursvan and @reallyjoeleary.