New 12 months’s Eve marks the tip of 1 12 months and the start of one other, and what higher method to have fun the beginning of a brand new 12 months than with reside music from nice Canadian musicians?

Held at Barrie City Corridor, the annual Downtown Countdown options ice skating, household occasions, fireworks, and naturally, reside music. This 12 months, attendees can greet the brand new 12 months with the nationally acknowledged group of Sloan and Grant Boyer.

Earlier than happening stage tonight, I had the chance to ask a couple of questions from Sloan to Jay Ferguson and Grant Boyer.

RV: Jay, you have got over 30 years of expertise as a bunch, how do you retain the inventive course of recent?

JF: For me, the inventive strategy of songwriting stays recent, conserving an curiosity not solely in music but additionally within the songwriting and recording course of. I am nonetheless discovering new music (or extra typically outdated music) that provides me concepts or conjures up a brand new method to songwriting or music typically. Everybody in our group principally writes by themselves. We aren’t a bunch that comes collectively to give you new concepts, so for me the inventive course of sheds gentle on listening to different inspiring artists.

RV: And Grant, the Grant Boyer Band is a comparatively new formation. What do you hope to attain and create with the group?

GB: All of us play collectively in several cowl teams. So despite the fact that it is a newer venture, it does not really feel like ranging from scratch.

As a bunch, we wish to hold placing out good songs, enjoying them reside to the rising crowd, and reaching their streaming objectives.

RV: Sloan’s final album, Steady, your thirteenth as a bunch, and one other distinctive contribution to the Sloan legacy. What’s it about your music that retains individuals coming again for extra?

JF: I do not assume it is a query I must reply. What’s the well-known John Lennon quote when requested why he thought the Beatles have been so widespread? “I do not know. Had I identified, we might have shaped one other group and been their supervisor.” It is actually arduous to say. I am positive individuals get pleasure from the best way all or sure members write songs, or perhaps they simply get pleasure from seeing us reside and listening to their favourite songs. I feel we provide high quality music, so I am grateful that persons are nonetheless in any case this time.

RV: Grant has described latest albums as “edgy alt-rock with a touch of humor.” How do you create this steadiness? Is that this what followers can anticipate from a future function movie?

GB: Laughter is usually all we now have. Laughing after we’re comfortable is a superb feeling, and laughing after we’re not comfortable helps us really feel higher.

I began writing offended punk songs as a child. I nearly all the time really feel drawn to it after I sit down to put in writing lyrics, however more often than not all I can do is snigger on the issues that permit me down. If I’ll say it, the least I can do is give the listener one thing to snigger about alongside the best way by prolonging the loopy, ridiculous elements.

Sure, I principally consider my 2022 singles as an excellent mixture of unhappy and humorous.

RV: As artists touring Canada from coast to coast, how do you join and enliven audiences from such an eclectic spectrum of ensembles?

JF: I feel we do the identical wherever we go and play the perfect present we will.

GB: Music is a common language. It is like math however enjoyable. While you’re all in the identical place, experiencing the identical sounds, on the identical tempo, it does not matter who you might be, the place you are from, or what you are doing. Error.

On the subject of making distinctive connections from place to put, I feel our songs typically do some heavy lifting, reaching a number of genres. This actually helped us.

RV: What do you assume makes a live performance memorable? Which collection do you have got left?

JF: I feel it helps to have a memorable live performance, normally an important and enthusiastic viewers (whats up, Barrie) or an uncommon place or venue. Positively, the chaotic, crammed smaller venue reveals of the early ’90s are etched in my thoughts. Once we performed for the primary time in Tokyo Navy blue We went on tour in 1998, and it is undoubtedly a top-five live performance expertise when the sold-out viewers sings our songs again to us. True, some dangerous reveals are additionally very memorable, for instance after we are knocked off the stage with a beer can by a unstable viewers. But typically probably the most memorable reveals are the reveals that present the keenness of the viewers and we reply to it.

GB: A good group with sturdy vocals. This a lot.

Every little thing else is okay – the stage present, the lights, the screens, the video – however with sauce. It actually improves the general expertise, however is nothing with out the primary two.

Normally, when requested about my favourite live performance, I say Rage In opposition to the Machine (1999) at Maple Leaf Gardens. There are various different issues I can consider however Rage takes the cake if I can solely choose one.

RV: It was introduced on Barrie’s New 12 months’s Eve Downtown Countdown that you’re going to be sharing the invoice. What can viewers anticipate and what does that imply to you?

JF: Once we do festive-type reveals outdoor or at such New 12 months’s Eve concert events, we normally play our best-known songs. These occasions usher in a bigger viewers than would hearken to us at an everyday live performance (right here we’ll play a extra eclectic mixture of songs from our catalog), so we typically attempt to keep on with songs that persons are more likely to acknowledge. Hopefully, that is what individuals will wish to see and anticipate.

GB: We love Sloan. Sharing your scenes means the world to us.

Our NYE set strikes shortly between songs, so we’ll be zipping up a ton of stuff from the upcoming album, a model new melody that hasn’t been recorded but, and naturally some materials launched in 2022.

We’re so excited to say whats up once more, Barrie, comfortable holidays and comfortable new 12 months.

RV: What does 2023 have for you?

JF: Through the pandemic, we principally simply did outside summer season reveals and only a few indoor concert events. With every thing unfolding additional, we’ll spend 2023 selling our new album in Canada and the USA. Steady. We have spent plenty of time re-releases outdated Sloan albums over the past 10 years, so extra archival work might be on the horizon.

GB: Our first ’23 present is a solo acoustic set on the Wintersong Music Pageant in Stouffville, Ont. on January 20. I am internet hosting a singer-songwriter evening at Barrie on January 21. (From social media for particulars.) Summer season festivals and excursions are additionally held. Bulletins are available in early 2023. A brand new EP might be launched in mid-2023. My greatest work so far.
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Barrie’s Downtown Countdown is free and extra details about the occasion will be discovered. Here.

Click on to go to Sloan’s official web site Here.

Click on to go to Grant Boyer’s official web site Here.