“We’re a small town band”

Says Brett Emmons, lead singer of Kingston, Ontario’s The Glorious Sons. The group, which has been together for over a decade now, can be found playing arenas in their homeland of Canada, but carry themselves with a scrappy populist swagger that’s fit for a dive bar.

That attitude, Emmons says, “is just in our bones,” and comes through clearest in their notoriously raucous live shows. Touring regularly and extensively throughout North America – The Glorious Sons are road veterans, as any good rock band should be. They’re currently wrapping up a fruitful 2023, which has seen them perform everywhere from the tiny clubs of America’s deep south to the hockey arenas of their native land. It also yielded the group’s fourth and newest album, the aptly-titled Glory.

The band’s success appears to be one of attrition – living, and writing, and living; performing, connecting, continuing, failing, and continuing again. It’s a path that seems less and less tangible for artists in today’s space, which emphasizes the importance of social media marketability and immediacy – something Emmons thinks is a trend people are “too afraid to step out of.”

In some ways, their appeal is that of a “good old rock band,” which explains why their shows are an all-ages affair. Yet beyond the sleek productions and grabby visuals, there’s something hyper-present about the kind of act The Glorious Sons are. Something so classic, it’s almost counter-culture. And the big rooms are filled when they play, perhaps revealing the decline and revival of rock ‘n’ roll as a false dichotomy of sorts.

There are a lot of places between New York and LA. The Glorious Sons are from one of them, and have played more of them. That, combined with an unrelenting and guileless love for their craft, one could argue, is what sets them apart from many of today’s successful alternative acts.

C-Heads caught up with the brothers and bandmates, Jay and Brett Emmons, at Toronto’s iconic El Mocambo ahead of their intimate album release party for Glory in October.

Words and interview by Andy Gorel

Cover photo by Alexander Sworik.

Andy: You’re an arena rock band up here in Canada kicking off a big tour in a small room tonight. What kind of energy do you pull from a room like this?

Brett: It’s just a completely different show. Going between the two is the real hard part about it, but once you get into the mode of either one, it’s kind of business as usual. A show like this in a tiny room is great because you can actually feel the body heat and the people. You’re close to them. In an arena show, you can’t quite compare the sound of thousands of people singing your songs back to you. The energy is just a lot more grungy and sweaty. It’s a good energy.

Andy: Is there a palpable difference between the energy you have here in Canada versus the states?

Brett: I would say… yeah, for sure. It’s just the size of the rooms.

Jay: Someone asked me the other day if our fans are more intense up here, and I don’t know. I think we’re gonna find that out.

Brett: I don’t think they are more intense, because usually if you’re coming to our show in the States, you’re a gigantic fan.

Andy: Well yeah, that’s the flip side of it. Here you can get the radio fan, whereas in the States there’s no radio.

Brett: Exactly. I think some people might come to the show for something to do up here. Down there, we haven’t had a radio hit since before Covid. So if you’re at the show, you’re coming to sing our songs and be present.

Andy: Being a Canadian rock band, what does that carry for you guys? What does it mean to you?

Brett: I don’t know. I don’t really think of it that way.

Jay: We’re just a band that’s from Canada (laughs).

Brett: I kinda feel like we’re a small town band in a way.

Andy: Well you’re still based in Kingston right?

Brett: Yeah.

Andy: So what does being a small town band mean to you then?

Brett: I just think it’s shaped who we are and how we present ourselves. And what our music means to us and our fans. I think we’re more of a small town band in my eyes than we are a Canadian band. As much pride as I have in our country, I feel like we relate with people in middle America just the same as we relate with people in Manitoba just the same as we relate with people in Northern Ontario. It’s just in our bones and who we are.

Andy: Sure. I’m from a town in Pennsylvania with a few thousand people, so I get it. Have you ever considered moving? LA, Toronto, Nashville, New York…

Brett: Seven or eight years ago I thought of Nashville. It just didn’t work out for one reason or another, but I’m quite happy about that. I never really thought about moving to Los Angeles. Once a year during winter, I get that seasonal depression and am like “Fuck, I would love to just be somewhere else for three months.” But no, I think Jay, sometimes you consider moving a bit? But he’s got more business to do. I’ll let him speak on that.

Jay: I manage a couple bands. I’ve spent the last two Januaries in Nashville, which has been nice.

Andy: Are they American acts? Canadian acts?

Jay: A couple Canadian acts. Brother Elsey is the American act, based out of Nashville, and Boston LevI and Feral Minks in Canada. So I spend a lot of time in Nashville. I’ve considered getting a place there, but I just had a baby. I’ve got a two-year-old, so to take her from all of our family, and this safe place at home, it’s tough.

Andy: Nashville’s changed a lot too in the past few years.

Jay: Yeah, it’s a good spot.

Brett: It’s so young, and bubbling. It’s kind of a nice spot because I feel like not a lot of people have a big ego there.

Andy: You guys are road veterans here in Canada. What’s it like to do a show this small? Maybe this speaks to being a small town band – you guys will do 30-40 shows in Canada on a tour. Maybe my number is a little off.

Brett: Yeah, I think it’s 30 this time.

Jay: The whole tour is 57 shows between America and Canada.

Andy: So if you’re a US artist, or an artist from anywhere else, when you do Canada, you’re probably gonna play three markets. And maybe Ottawa… or Calgary or something. What’s it like doing smaller cities? It’s a uniquely Canadian thing as opposed to the States. If you’re an American band, you wouldn’t be playing a town like Red Deer… let’s say Scranton. You know what I’m getting at?

Brett: But in the States they would play smaller cities too.

Photo by Alexander Sworik.

“I think we’re more of a small town band in my eyes than we are a Canadian band. As much pride as I have in our country, I feel like we relate with people in middle America just the same as we relate with people in Manitoba just the same as we relate with people in Northern Ontario. It’s just in our bones and who we are.”

Andy: I don’t know. I feel like it really doesn’t happen as much.

Jay: Just their small cities are so much bigger.

Andy: I remember seeing Tom Cochrane do a tour a few years ago. He had like Hamilton, Burlington, and Oakville right in a row. I was like, “Dude… I could walk from venue to venue.”

(Brett and Jay laugh)

Andy: Have you ever done Europe?

Brett: We’ve done Europe a bunch, yeah. Three or four times at least.

Andy: Where at?

Jay: We’ve been all through the U.K. We’ve done Paris, Brussels, three of four spots in Germany…

Andy: Yeah Germany loves rock. The payout may be less because of currencies, but I think you guys would rip up Eastern Europe. Like where I’m at in Hungary.

Jay: I would love to visit there.

Andy: It’s amazing. I always say, being from a small town, I get to live in a city, Budapest, that feels like a small town in some ways. But it’s a global capital.

Brett: Isn’t it quite a large population too?

Andy: Yeah it’s like 3 million I think, if you include the metro area. You guys should definitely visit there… or Poland.

Jay: We did Poland. I think it was Warsaw.

Andy: I saw you mix up your setlist a lot each night. What does it take to stay sharp on so many songs as a band? And how do you feel about playing the same exact setlist every night, like many artists do now?

Brett: Well, I know it would be a whole lot easier. Like way easier. But again, when you have a community that travels so much, it just kind of feels like a cop-out to me, for us to do that. The way you do it though, is use the whole soundcheck for rehearsal. Like if there’s an hour and a half of time, we’re playing through it all. Whether that’s changing songs up even, and whatnot… You just stay sharp by using the whole soundcheck – practicing as much as possible. Also, I find there’s a good balance of letting go of little defeats in a set. Say people aren’t as excited about a song – and I’m still learning to get over that, twelve years in – you just keep strolling through. You know? You can’t make a perfect setlist every night if you’re gonna change it up.

Andy: Yeah, that’s fair. A lot of bands I really like that used to mix up their setlist, don’t as much anymore. One that comes to mind is one of my all-time favorite bands, Incubus. A little over 10 years ago I saw them play one night where they dusted off a few songs they hadn’t played in like six years. They did them two nights in a row, and haven’t touched them since. To me that’s exciting. I think fans appreciate you not copping out.

Jay: I think it just makes for a better show.

Brett: It’s part of our identity too.

Andy: Sure. I mean, Dave Matthews does amphitheaters off the back of that concept alone. People go to multiple shows.

Brett: I think how amazing they sound live too (laughs).

Andy: Have you seen them? I haven’t.

Brett: No, only on YouTube.

Andy: Let’s talk about recorded music. Your second album, Young Beauties & Fools, that was the breakout. How did it transform your career? Looking back.

Brett: It transformed it hugely. That’s when we started playing arenas. That’s when we got our first U.S. hit. I feel it just gave us an identity. It gave me an identity as a songwriter. It was a gigantic album for us. We didn’t really know what to do. Lightning kind of just struck, and the rest is history.

Andy: You worked with the Fast Friends production team, right? Tom’s a buddy of mine.

Brett: Yep.

Andy: And you still work with Freddy, correct?

Brett: Yep.

Andy: What does he bring to the band? Seems like he’s the unofficial sixth member at this point?

Brett: Yeah, he is. Me and Fred just really inspire each other. I think that’s the main thing probably. Right, Jay?

Jay: Yeah. I think Fred’s one of the people who’s on Brett’s level creatively and can really inspire him… really feed that fire in Brett. All of a sudden, when they’re in a room together, songs just start flying out. Ideas are just rapid-fire. Before you know it, you’ve got 10-15 songs, and the record’s done in three weeks. Not to say that Brett’s not inspired by the rest of the band, but he and Fred just have a unique chemistry.

Brett: We’ve both got a manic way of making music that bubbles over. It’s just kind of fun. There’s no waiting around.

Andy: So from that first album you did with him, it seems like “My Poor Heart’ has become a staple. What does that bring to your live set?

Brett: Oh, it’s huge. It’s still probably top 3 in my favorites to play. We’ve played it every show since we released it. I’ve never gotten sick of it, and will never get sick of it.

Andy: “Sawed Off Shotgun” was the hit. It’s funny, because I just wrote all these questions pretty quickly this morning and I remembered hearing one time on Spotify, a clip where your management asked you to explain that song, almost as if they were afraid. What was your reaction when you got asked to do that?

Brett: I was just pissed. Yeah. Because, you gotta remember that the culture in the States – which it’s still the same thing, but I think it was blowing up a little more even then, with the gun culture – it was a very hot topic. So I kind of understood why they were worried. But, I don’t know. I just…

“I find there’s a good balance of letting go of little defeats in a set. Say people aren’t as excited about a song – and I’m still learning to get over that, twelve years in – you just keep strolling through. You know? You can’t make a perfect setlist every night if you’re gonna change it up.”

Andy: Well why should you have to defend it? I agree.

Brett: Well yeah, especially because when you listen to the song, it’s not really about that. Just cause there’s a gun in a song, it doesn’t mean you’re writing from a place of mal-intent. It just felt like I knew that song as soon as I heard it. We were all like, “holy fuck.” The hairs stood up on our arms. We knew it was gonna be a thing.

Andy: It kind of had that “Pumped Up Kicks” syndrome.

Brett: Yeah, and there were a bunch of steps trying to convince people, and I was just so tired –

Andy: Really? To put it out you’re saying? Like afraid of backlash?

Brett: Yeah, to put it out as a single and go all in on it. I think there were six or seven months after the album release that we were able to convince everybody, and that’s when our career actually started taking off. I was just screaming on the phone constantly (laughs).

Jay: Was it the second or the third American single? Second one.

Brett: Second American single, and maybe third or fourth Canadian one, because we had “Josie” as the second Canadian one. And then they wanted to put out “Come Down.” They put out “Come Down” in Canada, and “Shotgun” in the U.S. And then “Shotgun” started going up, and they went with it in Canada. It wasn’t until a year after that album had been released that it actually hit number one.

Andy: Slow burn. It was your first big hit. That can be how it goes.

Brett: Yeah.

Andy: I interviewed Metric on Saturday, and I asked them the same question I’m about to ask you guys. Do you feel young artists today have less freedom of expression? For instance, in the 2000s there was so much mainstream music about the Iraq war attacking the president, attacking the establishment. But there’s no mainstream music whatsoever that even comments on something like NATO’s policy in Ukraine.

Brett: (Laughs). Yes, that’s interesting.

Andy: Yeah I think about this all the time. Like the establishment has swallowed it all. Freedom of expression, young artists today, music… Do you have thoughts on any of it?

Brett: Well, I mean. It’s like a Boa constrictor. Things just keep getting more and more restricted. Songs keep getting shorter and shorter. The way you promote them, they have to be little bite-sized things because people’s attention spans are allegedly smaller – which I don’t necessarily believe. I think that’s just people following a trend and too afraid to step out of it.

Andy: Well the album’s already coming back in my opinion.

Brett: Yeah. And listen to that “Rich Men North of Richmond” song. He put out a full song, online, and it blew up. It wasn’t a 15-second snapshot of a song.

Andy: Oh you mean like TikTok.

Brett: Well, yeah. But even on Instagram now, they’re trying to tell you not to put out a full clip. They want 15 seconds. Everything keeps getting smaller and smaller. With the establishment and freedom of expression thing, I think everyone is so afraid to talk about anything because they’re so worried about being on the wrong side, and they know what the repercussions of that mean. If you keep on silencing people, it’s not gonna help art. Art needs to be free. Some of the most famous artists in the history of the world have had wrong opinions and problematic thoughts, but that doesn’t mean 100% of that person was a bad person. Right now we have this kind of all-or-nothing attitude that’s based upon – I feel like – the tastes of the day, because even the opinions change as we go along. But yeah, I think people are afraid.

Andy: I think so too. You mention the all-or-nothing attitude. One artist who comes to my mind is XXXTENTACION. You guys ever listen to him?

Brett: Never listened to him, but I know of him.

Andy: The ? album… I think he was like another Cobain, but more real. He came from such crazier circumstances. He had demons, like a track record of domestic abuse, and so on. But when I think of his music… I thought he was artistically almost a God-like figure, which sounds sacrilegious to say. People love to talk about the bad things he did, and he did appear to be changing, to his credit. But there’s always that footnote. Why can’t we appreciate the good things? Like if someone had a wrong opinion like you said, or did some really bad things… I feel you have to try and appreciate the positive things people do also.

Brett: I think of Tupac in that instance. He’s got a lot of slashes against his name, but the amount of art he put out about women in the black community, sticking up for them. That was a huge thing in the 90s. One of the biggest reasons he exploded was because of a female base that loved hearing a voice talking about them.

Andy: That’s pretty good segue, because I want to move on to A War On Everything. “Closer To The Sky” – what is the sky? Is it God? Faith? More ambiguous?

Brett: It’s pretty ambiguous. I think it’s just about getting out of everyday life, and doing what you can. It’s not too deep, to be honest. I was on a bus, and my best friend was relatively high on Molly. His eyes were like (emotes) this big. A lot of the time back then, I’d be writing, and everyone would be partying around me. I’d just be looking around like, “What am I gonna write about today?” (Laughing) My friend was rubbing my other friend’s foot, chomping at his jaw, and “Closer To The Sky” came out.

“I think of Tupac… He’s got a lot of slashes against his name, but the amount of art he put out about women in the black community, sticking up for them. That was a huge thing in the 90s. One of the biggest reasons he exploded was because of a female base that loved hearing a voice talking about them.”

Andy: It was a focal track of the record, but only appeared briefly in the live set. Doesn’t hit right? What is it? Too production-heavy?

Brett: I never loved the way it came out. I felt it came out as this sleek little pop thing. I felt we drained it of its substance in a way. I like the song still when I put it on, but it just sounds a little bit too clean.

Andy: So first off, I love the record. And I think it’s a great song. But there are a lot of layered guitar harmonies, and some percussive things going on, particularly that clanking sound – things that drive the record that you aren’t going to be able to recreate live.

Brett: Yeah, no. One of the best parts about the song though is the guitar work. Jay, and Koster at the time – they have those two dueling guitars underneath everything in the mix.

Andy: Yes. Those guitars are awesome.

Brett: And it’s so catchy. I loved that. But it just never stuck with me on a meaningful level, or anybody really. Do you still like it Jay?

Jay: I actually haven’t listened to that song in a minute, but I like the song. It came out flat a little bit live. It’s probably worth revisiting, to be honest.

Brett: They’re all worth revisiting because you don’t really have to do it that way. You just have to find the magic in it. I think when you’re not as interested in a song, it’s harder to find out where that magic lies.

Andy: Sometimes it can work to its favor, when you find an alternate approach live, and people like it, like better than the record.

Another song on that album, “The Ongoing Speculation Into the Death of Rock and Roll.” You mention Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, and Tupac. How do those three figures represent the rock and roller to you? Cobain’s obvious.

Brett: Well, Cobain’s pretty obvious.

Andy: So is Tupac actually.

Brett: Yeah Tupac is pretty obvious too. They’re just people who fought against the establishment in a way. I guess Marilyn Monroe didn’t necessarily do that, but she was certainly swallowed by it, and taken advantage of. I don’t necessarily understand the complete circumstances behind her death, but it’s kind of playing on the fact of silencing these great figures. Also, I was trying to show it in the light of rock and roll can be anything. I wanted people to understand that rock and roll isn’t necessarily…

Andy: I don’t think of rock and roll as music.

Brett: Yeah, it’s not just a guitar, no. I would say some of the nu-metal bands nowadays, or whatever you wanna call it, are further away from rock and roll than Tupac ever was. So yeah, that’s what they all represent to me.

Andy: Do you guys know Dominic Fike? Do you listen to him?

Brett: Yeah, a little bit!

Andy: Have you listened to the new Olivia Rodrigo record?

Brett: I have not.

Andy: Ok, so there are some great rock songs on it. By the time this airs, it will be out, but I have an opinion essay I’m publishing this week that looks at how The New York Times recently called Olivia Rodrigo a rock star… She’s not a rock star. She’s like a Disney kid who walked into a major label deal.

(Brett laughs)

Andy: The New York Times ran a story on her less than two years ago promoting vaccines at the White House, like at the press secretary’s podium.

(Brett laughs)

Andy: It’s not like she was waiting tables with four other girls, or dudes, or whatever it may be, to pool their money together to take a risk on a career making rock music.

Brett: Exactly.

Andy: So I don’t think she’s a rock star.

Brett: No (laughs).

Andy: You guys are a – what seems to be becoming rare – example of working-class dudes who found a path to some level of status through rock music. To me that’s what being a rock star generally was – when you look at the greats through history. It seems a little bit more alive maybe in Canada and the U.K. The Arkells also come to mind, they were a band that became big. In the U.S. it feels very dead to me. And also, you guys and The Arkells have been going for well over a decade each. Looking around, what do you see, with that path? Is it dead?

Brett: We’re going to exist on this planet through so many trends. It’s not dead, the trends always come and go. They always call back to each other. I mean if you look at Neil Young in the 80s, his career was dead. And in the 90s it was not. He was way bigger than us, but the plan necessarily isn’t to try and start a movement that catches on immediately and explodes. It’s about continuing forth and finding like-minded people to build a community. Even if you say it seems kind of dead in the States, I would say there are millions of people that disagree with you still.

Photo by Matt Barnes.

“If you keep on silencing people, it’s not gonna help art. Art needs to be free. Some of the most famous artists in the history of the world have had wrong opinions and problematic thoughts, but that doesn’t mean 100% of that person was a bad person. Right now we have this kind of all-or-nothing attitude that’s based upon – I feel like – the tastes of the day.”

Andy: I don’t mean the music. I mean the path… the path being available.

Brett: Oh…

Jay: I think it’s harder. Really, to go out on the road and make $200 a night. You’ve got five guys in your band. You gotta put gas in your vehicle. You gotta get hotels, and eat. You probably gotta get drunk (laughs).

Brett: To sleep.

Andy: And we also talked about being on the “right side” of things now.

Brett: Yeah (laughs). And how as an anti-establishment type of artist – how do you come up, and find like-minded people?

Andy: Yeah, and I’m not a radical person who wants to overthrow the government…

Brett: No me neither.

Andy: It’s just that times feel a bit dire at the moment.

Brett: Yeah, and ask Jay too. Jay, managing bands, you’ve found there aren’t a lot of people who actually want to develop artists anymore.

Jay: Yeah, no.

Brett: People want you to have a single that does well online. And then they put money into you. They’ll maybe get you on a big opening slot. And if you don’t have another single that hits, they’ll drop you. It’s kind of messed up.

Jay: In my opinion, especially rock and roll, which I know, it takes five or ten years to build a career. And it’s not about a TikTok video that turns you into a streaming artist.

Andy: Sure, it’s about community, heads in rooms, and so forth.

Jay: It’s a long slow burn.

Andy: I worked as an A&R Scout in LA during my junior year of college. And I knew it was just VC going in. Like sexy VC – wanting to see something having a result. But I felt pretty frustrated at the whole major label model, at the time at least. I would bring stuff into our pitch meetings, some of which would eventually end up blowing up. I sensed a real leeriness towards development. And not that it was a discredit to the people I was working for, it was just the model we all had to operate within. With new developing artists the thinking generally seemed to be geared towards keeping tabs, or maybe a singles deal. It turned me off from the whole industry.

Brett: It’s certainly a complicated industry (laughs).

Andy: Maybe I shouldn’t have interned at a major label like I always wanted to. Cause then I was like “fuck this, dude.”

(Brett and Jay laugh)

Andy: I always wonder, who are we missing? We’re missing so many great artists by not developing them.

Brett: Oh yeah. And they make everything so complicated, that even when they do develop you, you don’t have a single clue of what’s going on. We’re 10-11 years into this career – and he’s (points to Jay) got a better handle on it – but I still have trouble figuring out all the avenues of money. Like where that’s coming from, who it’s going to, what I’m entitled to. They made it so complicated. I don’t understand.

Andy: (Laughs) Yeah. Are you talking about collecting –

Brett: Royalties!

Andy: I went to school for that stuff and you definitely needed multiple university courses to even understand how intellectual property laws function within music, what the norms are, and who gets paid what.

(Brett and Jay laugh)

Brett: Yeah! Even when you maybe get developed, they’re still getting so much on the backend of that to make sure they’re protected while you slowly might… fail (laughs).

Andy: (Laughing) Alright, let’s move on to the new record Glory. I read through the PR this morning, which said there was some struggle.

Brett: Yeah (laughs).

Andy: You’re laughing (laughs). Was the life of the band threatened at all?

Brett: Uhh, not really. There was certainly some stress, but I don’t think there was any serious threat of us stopping, because, I’m not gonna do anything else.

“…There aren’t a lot of people who actually want to develop artists anymore… Even when you maybe get developed, they’re still getting so much on the backend of that to make sure they’re protected while you slowly might… fail.”

Andy: What was tumultuous about the cycle then?

Brett: Four recording sessions, like more than four recording sessions before real ones that kind of yielded less than stellar results.

Andy: Like recording the same songs over and over?

Brett: No… no cause there were some songs we re-recorded. The ones that were good, they stuck. There were over 40 songs.

Jay: Yeah there are still probably over… 35 songs? But they’re not bad songs. I would say, I don’t think they lived up to what Brett wanted the next project to be. And they didn’t have an identity.

Brett: Well they didn’t have an identity, and it was so hard grappling with an identity when you’re just sitting at home all day.

Andy: When you say 40 songs… are these all recorded as a band? Or were they in pre-production?..

Brett: No, these are recorded.

Andy: When I think of recording 40 full tracks, that’s like fucking forever.

Jay: It was weeks.

Brett: Weeks?

Jay: The better part of months.

Brett: It was four years. (Laughs) Not weeks! It was four years.

Andy: You guys are brothers, right?

Brett: (Laughing) Yeah.

Andy: I read about the song “Cellular,” which is about your late grandfather?

Brett: Yeah.

Andy: I looked at the lyrics. They speak of a character named Odessa who passed away in Florida in 1991. Tell me about that character, and how it’s figurative for your grandfather or other deaths you’ve experienced.

Brett: Well he was just kind of the king of the small town, in a funny way. Everybody used to use his pool to swim in. He was Santa Claus at Christmas. And he was an illegal satellite dealer.

Andy: (Laughing) Satellite?

Brett: Yeah, he’d go to all their houses, and set everybody up.

Andy: A satellite… dish?

Brett: Yeah.

Andy: So not satellites. Like he wasn’t selling the Soviets satellites as a side hustle.

Brett (Laughing) No. He would set them up with illegal satellites, and eat dinner at their house. He used to call the girls Charlie, and the boys Susie. Everybody kind of knew my grandpa. Just two months ago, I was at a party, hanging out with my best friend Brandon. His friend Jordan ended up dating this girl, who was a hockey goalie. She was like, “Yeah I knew your grandfather.” I was like, “Oh yeah?” And she was like, “Yeah, he used to come to all my hockey games.” And he was a hockey goalie. So he was trying to inspire this girl.

Andy: That’s cool. He was a goaltender professionally?

Brett: He was Jacques Plante’s backup. He used to tour all around. He played in the AHL, so he toured around the States. He lived in Minnesota, North Carolina, and then he ended up coming to Thunder Bay… he played for Flin Flon. But I just keep on getting these stories and snapshots from other people about him years later.

Andy: Sounds like he was an iconic guy.

Brett: A truly iconic guy, but in the most modest way. Growing up with him, you never even knew he was iconic. He just used to drive around in his car, smoke cigarettes, and stop by for coffee, laugh a little bit, and… leave. You know?

Andy: I know those kinds of guys, from where I’m from. They hold places together.

Brett: That’s exactly what he was.

Andy: “Cosmic Beam” – talk about that song. What is the “Cosmic Beam?”

Brett: It’s just about my best friend, kind of like a brother of ours. It’s just about how in your 20s, I don’t think you really know how to be a good friend, because you leverage good times over truth. I guess the key to that whole song is, “Don’t let him think that he’s living the dream.” Just one of those ones I wrote about a buddy.

Andy: So going forward, we’ve got a lot of Canadian shows coming up. What feels different this time around? From previous tours through Canada.

Brett: Camaraderie. Before COVID, we’d been on the road for five years, and we were so tired, that everybody kind of had their own little camps. Everyone was kind of angry at each other, because we were worked to the bone, chasing the golden carrot. I think COVID happened, and it took four albums to make this album. So you could understand how long of a process that is, and what it can do to people, and the band, for their stress levels. Right now we just did, probably our most positive tour in the last…

Jay: Maybe ever actually.

“…In your 20s, I don’t think you really know how to be a good friend, because you leverage good times over truth. I guess the key to that whole song is, ‘Don’t let him think that he’s living the dream.'”

Brett: Yeah, it just felt light, and happy. It felt like we were kinda in the early days, when nothing really mattered, and we were just having fun. But it also felt kinda professional – like we’re stepping up. So yeah, Camaraderie I would say is the biggest thing I can feel in the band right now that kind of lifts my spirits.

Jay: It wasn’t without… Like it wasn’t perfect. But the thing is now, we know enough to talk to one another (laughs), where we never used to before. If someone was pissed off, we’d let them be pissed off for a year. There were a couple times where we just sat the whole crew down and said “This is what happened”. Someone owned it, or we called somebody out for their shit.

Brett: Or you take a walk with somebody and talk to them.

Jay: And everybody’s receptive to it. It’s not like, “You can’t say that to me!” It’s like, “Understood. We gotta work together on this.”

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