Well folks, today is officially the day. The long journey that started in the fall of 2015 comes to its conclusion today, January 25, 2019, with the release of our new EP “My Fault”. I’m not sure what to make of it all now as I write this on an overcast winter’s afternoon in London. It seems like a lifetime has passed and yet listening to it now as the vinyl spins on the turntable behind me, it feels like no time has passed at all.
I’ll take you back, if you will indulge me, to somewhere around October, 2015. We’re planning the launch of “Rue-St-Louis”. Perhaps we’re finally a “band” in the sense of 5-people pulling in the same direction. And yet, the sense of kinship we plumbed over a July heatwave in a make-shift, barn-loft studio is waning. We’ve all returned to our respective lives. I, for my part have a 1-year old baby that’s robbing my wife and I of our sleep and our youths; Ben’s doesn’t know it but he’s about to get married and bring a son into the world; Kenton’s living in Quebec and the only one of us trying to make an honest go at music with more projects on the hop than most people have socks; and Nic, well, let’s say Nic’s always been the Seventh Duff, Surly. Céline? She was the only one that sensed something was amiss.
We get to launch day. We play one of our best shows. The crowd is great. The sound is great. We sell a bunch of merch, and start packing up the gear on a high. Then, one by one, everyone drifts away: first the friends, fans and well-wishers then, one by one, the band until it’s just Céline and me down at the Lord William, half-pissed on celebratory beers in front of a mountain of late night nachos asking ourselves, “what the hell just happened”? For it was abundantly clear from our barstools that we weren’t a band, not five people rowing a bathtub but five individuals with their own shit to deal with and maybe two who gave a bit more of a fuck.
So yeah, that was out last show as the first great incarnation as FOATW. But this of course isn’t the end or you wouldn’t be reading this. You see, the other thing that happened that fall was that we got a letter from the Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Québec awarding us a very generous songwriting grant. So what do you do when you’ve just released a record? You quit gigging, quit promoting (because, let’s be honest, that’s the most loathesome part) and get back into the studio of course.
And that, friends, is what we did.
I’d like to say that the re
st of the tale is smooth sailing to sunny uplands. I’d like to say that, but that would be a lie. It was rough sailing on turbulent waters in a less than seaworthy craft. And yet, we brought it to shore as today’s release bears testament. If the worth of a record is measured in the extent of the struggle to make it, then this will likely go down as our best to date. But I’ll leave you to judge that for yourself.
Meanwhile, over the next weeks, I’m going to tell the story of how this all came about and share some of the perspective of what this project means to us. Because, as I’m discovering with age and seasoning, music isn’t measured in likes, streams or dollars but in the connection you might be lucky enough to make with a few good people.
So let’s connect.
Oh yeah, and go stream My Fault on your favourite streaming platform and plant a big like, follow or heart beside the band and music (algorithms like that and whether we care to acknowledge it or not, we are all of us in their clutches 🙂
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