Vancouver quartet says it’s a great time to be an indie band on the live music circuit in Canada
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There are a lot of stories about musicians coming together in a band and having instant chemistry. Many of these are myths. But Colin Brumelle says Honeybear, The Band found its groove from the get-go.
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The Vancouver roots and soul quartet releases its second album, The Cure, at the Hollywood Theatre next week. The show looks to be another sellout.
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Since forming in 2023, the group has amassed more than 7 million Spotify streams, gained 175,000 monthly listeners and toured across Canada playing events from Barnside Harvest Festival and Vancouver Jazz Festival, to Toronto’s legendary The Horseshoe Tavern. The band was recently named Roots Music Canada’s New Discovery of the Year.
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“Ian Beaty, the bass player and lead singer, and I have known each other since we were kids and played together in a band called Green Room that toured across Canada,” said Brumelle. “I went to San Francisco, had a career in software and only got back into playing music in 2020. It surprises no one more than me that we’ve done as well as we have in the time we’ve been around.”
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The guitarist is up front about the fact that the band deals in a kind of sonic nostalgia. Pedalling a sound that mines the ’60s soul sides of artists such as Sam & Dave with roots acts like Los Lobos could make Honeybear, The Band just another bar band.
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What makes the difference is Beaty’s voice. He is blessed with a set of pipes that makes songs like the single Paying It Forward pop out of the speakers. From the synchronized finger snaps to the liquid guitar licks, the track just oozes style.
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“Ian’s voice makes people feel things really deeply,” said Brumelle. “In many ways, I think the reason behind the band was to get my best friend and his incredible instrument up in front of as many people on as many stages as I can convince people to put us on.”
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The rest of the band is rounded out with scene veterans Tim Watson on drums and percussion and multi-instrumentalist Mike Kenney on keyboards. As the longtime organist at Rogers Arena playing at Canucks games, Kenney has probably played in front of more sold-out crowds than any musician in the venue’s history.
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“It’s hard to meet anyone that hasn’t been in a band with Mike, he’s everywhere,” said Brumelle. “Everyone thinks the Canucks’ organ job was somehow funny, but think about when the puck drops and how much pressure comes with being right on time, and it’s pretty serious. He’s so good on so many instruments that I usually refer to myself as the second best guitarist.”
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Brumelle’s utter devotion to the playing style and sound of the late Booker T & The MG’s member Steve Cropper is another factor in Honeybear, The Band’s sound that makes the band sound so sweet on album and stage. Writing duties are shared between him and Beaty and he says the songs come fast and furious.
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“Seriously, we have so many songs in the bag that it is a challenge to decide which ones fit sonically together in sequence on an album,” he said. “I think we are lucky that Ian and I know each other so well that we can really express our opinions on one another’s ideas with no filters. The Cure has songs that were road-tested and others were done straight in the studio.”
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Recorded with Jeff Zipp at Light Machine and John Raham at Afterlife Studios, The Cure features a who’s who of additional musicians ranging from pedal steel ace Scott Smith and background singers Dawn Pemberton and Colleen Rennison to a full horn section. Saxophonist Jerry Cook often joins the group in concert.
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What makes Brumelle feel that this could be a golden age for indie acts is the way that bands like his are able to build a career across Canada by meeting the market where it is rather than trying to go from festival gigs in Vancouver to the same across the country.
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“We don’t have a label, an agent or anything but our mailing list and social media enable us to pack enough shows in, say, Ontario that it’s affordable to fly out there and play them and fly back,” he said. “It’s such a big change from the cross-country grind and all the gatekeepers you used to have to deal with when Ian and I started.”
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Next up for the band is a planned West Coast tour of the U.S. before the group heads to Europe in March.
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