BACKSTAGE PASS: Gentlemen Husbands
April 9, 2009
Photo Credit: James Fox
Written By: BD Marie Hughes
Derrick Ballard – Lead Vox, Guitar
Ryan Hutcheson – Guitar
Jed Atkinson – Bass
Dan Farrell – Drums, Vox
Gentlemen Husbands has been playing the downtown Toronto indie circuit for a while. I’ve known “of” them but finally heard them play for the first time at The Elmo in February. We got together after their Canadian Music Week performance at Clinton’s on Saturday, March 14.2009.
BD: Gentlemen! Stellar performance! Perfect timing for CMW! Can I get seat on an amp or something to chat? (laughing)
GH Rick: Oh yeah, grab a seat! What a riot! People were up dancin’, havin’ a good ol’ time! Feels great to see!
BD: How important is CMW to you? Did that come from your invitation to play last year?
GH Rick: CMW is a pretty exciting time to be in the city. Yeah, last year we really had no idea what a big deal it was. Luckily, someone pulled some strings and we got on a great bill at Lee’s Palace. It was a good time – same with this year!
BD: You guys have been together for quite some time – 6 years? Playing rival bands, and now together. What can you tell us about that process and how you all came together? And gel together?
GH Jed: We’re kinda just gellin’ now…
GH Rick: The boys, Dean, Jegsy and Ryan, have all kinda been in and outta different hardcore bands together since grade 9. I was always in the background, playin’ my acoustic guitar and ridin’ the free pass to shows! (everyone laughs) After a while, they kinda grew out of that scene and wanted to try something different. So we got together around two years ago to play as Gentlemen Husbands.
BD: You have played some amazing venues in Toronto: The Opera House, The Horseshoe, Lee’s Palace, The Reverb, The Elmocombo, The Bovine. Which rickety old joint is your favourite? (laughs) Maybe you better say Clinton’s because I think Sarah Herburger (one of Clinton’s sound engineers) is within earshot!
GH Dan: Our favourite rickety joint isn’t in Toronto! It’s at home in Cobourg! But we really love The Horseshoe here and have also felt quite at home with Gregg at The Bovine!
BD: You say you’ll play big venues, little venues, bars, basements, even your fans’ living rooms. What about an elevator shaft? (deadpan – then everyone laughs)
GH Rick: Oh fuck, we’d do that in a heartbeat! (everyone laughs) The way we see it, the more people you play to, meet and speak with, the more you’re gonna learn.
BD: Your first demo, “Hill 60” was well received. You now have a debut EP called, “Something Along The Lines Of; A Lesson in Unprofessionalism”, which sold at a phenomenal rate in a mere 2 months. How did recording “Hill 60” prepare you for the EP? What challenges did you face, if any? Or what you found different in the process?
GH Ryan: Well, on “Hill 60”, we kinda thought we wanted to play country and would aim at the CMT market. We learned that you can’t break rules in a genre before you know the rules of the genre and none of us are country players by any means! (laughs)
GH Rick: With “Somethin Along The Lines” we were into a folk rock type vibe. Banjo and acoustic guitar. Basically all the songs on that EP began as acoustic strummer type folk songs and were built up from there. I suppose the biggest challenge was tearin’ the songs apart and puttin’ them back together for a full band. Now, we’re kind of going in a different direction again, as a 4 piece, which is kinda a more rock ‘n’ roll feel that we all feel suits us a lot better.
BD: You describe your music as “more than something a little bit country, a little bit rock n roll”. Now, I’m not going to ask you what are your music influences or what’s your favourite fucking colour, ok? (laughing) Rather, what musicians do you admire and why? I mean, you’ve played with some of the city’s finest bands – Ten Second Epic, Attack in Black, Lucero, Down With Webster, Ill Scarlett, Casey Baker and the Buffalo Sinners – that’s a real genre mix!
GH Jed: Yeah, for sure, probably because we love, literally, every style of music. So, naturally, we wanna play with bands outside of our scene.
GH Dan: Right now… Buddy Rich, Louis Bellson , Baby Dadds, Gene Krupa , Shelly Manne. Jazz drummers. But I used to really be into the heavier stuff.
GH Jed: I dig Jim Croce, Paul Simon, seriously Chronic 2001 (Dre) is one of my favourite albums of all time!
GH Rick: I’ve been drivin’ around crankin’ Bruce Springsteen – all I can find by him. Generally, I’m listenin’ to lyrics and vocal melodies and phrasing more than the music.
GH Ryan: I was a huge 80′s metal fan – Winger, Maiden, Malmsteen and so on. Then got really into hardcore and, after high school, I swear, for a year or more, all I listened to was pop! (laughing) Huuuuge JT and Usher fan! Now, I’m really hard into CMT but also like a lot of indie folk stuff – Bon Iver, Ray Lamontagne – that kinda thing.
BD: You’ve received some radio play – The Star 93.3 fm – you did a live interview and performance with them. What did you play? Personally, I’m hooked on “Tapanga”. (smiles) What else is happening for Gentlemen Husbands on the radio air waves?
GH Ryan: We played some more acoustic-based tunes – an old one called “Summertime”. Then “The Learning” and “19” which are on “Something Along The Lines…” Lately, we haven’t been pushing too much for radio time. We get played on CBC radio a bit and, every once in a while, on some college stations. We really want to hone our songwriting skills and find ourselves, not to mention get some better recordings done – which we’re in the process of right now. Maybe, in 2010, push a little more in that direction.
BD: You’re available on iTunes, Amazon, Napster, and just about every other digital retailer. What other ways are you, Gentlemen Husbands, getting your music out there? What’s in the future?
GH Ryan: Well, in one word “Free”!
GH Rick: (laughs) Yeah, we’ve always liked getting things for free and figured that the rest of the world probably does too! It’s not about money at this stage. So we figured that putting it out there for free is, without a doubt, the best way to get heard. We have a new 3 song EP comin’ out. We will be givin’ that away at shows and it will be up for free download as soon as it is finished. Other than that, we’re just trying to promote our shows, keep building a larger fan base and make some friends along the way!
www.myspace.com/GentlemenHusbands
