One of the most accomplished and acclaimed Canadian east coast acts, The East Pointers, has begun releasing highly anticipated new music, and demonstrating that they are not willing to simply rest on their musical laurels.
The new single Wintergreen represents an evolution of the band’s cohesiveness and adventurous nature, as they have beefed up their overall sound, without sacrificing their unique blend of the charm of traditional east coast music with an alt-folk – in some cases alt-rock – vibe.
Formed a few years ago by cousins Tim and Koady Chaisson, along with long time pal Jake Charron, The East Pointers have release two lauded albums: their 2015 debut, Secret Victory which garnered them a Juno for Traditional Roots Album of the Year, and What We Leave Behind, which came out in 2017. Along the way the band has won a Canadian Folk Music Award for Ensemble of the Year, East Coast Music Awards, and a number of Music P.E.I. Awards.
Wintergreen was released on July 12 on all digital platforms and is the first taste of what will be coming on The East Pointers new album, Yours to Break, scheduled for release in October, according to Tim Chiasson, an exceptionally talented, prodigious and acclaimed singer/songwriter/fiddler in his own right.
“As a musician, you’re anxious to get your music out there because you want everyone to hear it, but I guess there’s a strategy involved these days. I guess a lot of people are releasing songs before the album comes out. So, our plan is to release one more single before the album comes out. And putting Wintergreen out now is nice so that we can have a fresh song to sing and have for all the summer shows and festivals,” he said.
“We’re a band that plays half instrumental and half vocal songs. I know on our last album [What We Leave Behind, released in 2017] we released a vocal song and an instrumental tune at the same time. For this new one, we released just this one song as a single and I think for the next one we’re planning on releasing an instrumental as well.”
Chaisson is a firm believer in the importance and permanence in releasing music as a collection, so is a big proponent of the full album, even though it seems many tastemakers and prognosticators are signalling its demise in an age of streaming and downloading.
“I think for us, and many other bands, an album captures when you have a complete concept for an album; it captures a moment in time and also where you’re at as musicians and with each other in the band. I feel like if we were to release a continuous stream of singles, it wouldn’t feel right. Although maybe that’s just the conditioning of growing up and listening to albums and albums and albums,” he said.
“Doing just singles, there is not necessarily that sense of completion – something that you want to present to people when you’re touring. I know there are people who are saying that the concept of the album is dead and lots of artists who are happy just releasing singles, but there are also lots of people who are still doing albums, to a certain extent.
“I think it’s great to have that period of time, creatively, captured. And then there is this space you have between albums and you can change, and you can grow. When you go back and write for the next album and go back on the road you may different towns or the same owns, and you would then have something new to present to everyone and say, ‘okay, this is us now. Things have changed.’ And I know this to be true because the direction of this new album is definitely different from out last.”
Wintergreen was co-written with long-time Chaisson pal and collaboration, Colin MacDonald of The Trews, and is indicative of the evolution of The East Pointers as a band.
“We’ve been playing around with the production more on this new album. The first single, Wintergreen, is kind of like taking a step forward in production because our sound has grown live. We definitely use all of our limbs so that all three of us can create as big of a sound as we can as a trio. We experimented with more keyboards because Jake is such an amazing keyboard player, although he’s mostly done guitar on our previous albums. We really want the sound on the record and live to be as big as it can be,” Chaisson explained.
“We did spend a lot more time on this one, writing more songs and more tunes and then spending time narrowing it down to our favourites and what we thought were the best. It’s always better to have more choice.”
Both Chaissons and Charron are about the same age, in their 30s, and are products of the 1990s alt-rock explosion. Combined with their passion for traditional east coast music, this gives The East Pointers a unique sound that truly transcends artificially-constructed genre barriers.
“At the root, we all came together because we have such a love and passion for trad music, and we all grew up playing it. But then we are all children of the 90s and growing up and listening to radio and contemporary music; that’s always been a passion of ours as well. As a songwriter, I listen to Top 40 as much as I would listen to trad music, and I was always like that. I was never close minded to any style of music or any genre, because everybody has something to offer musically. And I have always enjoyed collaborating with people from different worlds, different genres, because some really cool stuff comes out of mixing two genres,” Chaisson, who has co-written with rock, pop, country and traditional artists for much of his career, said.
“I think whenever you have a musical project that has no boundaries, especially with these boys, it’s like ‘anything goes.’ On this new album and a little bit on our last album, we were trying new things. And working with producer [and fellow east coaster Gordie Sampson] who is also in that world as well, it’s naturally to write these sorts of songs, which were almost like pop songs in a way, but maybe their content shows a little bit more of the folk.
“With Wintergreen it was like, ‘lets put the kick drum on here and put these keyboard sounds in as well.’ It wasn’t like we said. ‘oh, that might sound a little too much pop or not trad enough or not folkie enough.’ Everyone likes to generalize and categorize music, myself included, so we are trying to break that mold a little bit, but it still feels like a very cohesive album. Listen, at the end of the day, we don’t want people sitting there analyzing the stuff, we just want people to dance and have a great time at our shows. We want them to feel good.”
Chaisson said Wintergreen started with a tasty banjo lick from Koady which he picked up on and started singing along to, trying to develop a melody.
“And then we sat down with Colin one night and began to chip away at it. We had ideas but we didn’t have a solid concept yet. So, we just worked through that song with him and we eventually pulled it together, all four of us. Lyrically, we were talking about mental health, and Koady is bipolar and we were talking about his experience with that and with other people. And the song is kind of about loving someone through both their highs and their lows and giving people a little bit of hope,” he said.
“It’s probably the most positive song we have ever written. And you know how the wintergreen lasts all year long, like the evergreen trees. It’s basically telling someone who is struggling that they’re going to be okay and that I love you no matter what.”
As much as Chaisson talks of the contemporary bent of some of the songs, the unmistakable core of The East Points is, and most likely always be its traditional east coast roots. The simple authenticity of the traditional elements has meant that the trio has been able to take their show on the road to countries where Celtic music isn’t necessarily top of mind. Yes, they do well in the British Isles, Australia and New Zealand, but The East Pointers regularly play shows in Mexico and South America, continental Europe and even Japan.
“On the east coast of Canada there’s so much Scottish and Irish heritage that music goes back for generations and generations and generations for hundreds of years. I think it’s something in people’s blood that when they hear this music, and even if they’ve never heard it before, they are like, ‘oh my God, I connect with that and I am not even sure why.’ And its music that was always meant for dancing and for helping people get through hard times. Maybe that has something to do with it,” Chaisson opined.
“And there is also a positivity to the instrumental music that we play that we try to translate in our songs as well. We have had so many great opportunities in Japan and Mexico and in Europe as well. I do feel that whenever you are truly playing music from your heart and you really put everything into it and you come by it honestly, maybe that’s what translates when we play live, because its what we get our absolute joy out of. Every single bit that we play in the show is something that came from us, that we truly felt.”
After three shows in the U.S. The East Pointers return to Canada for the Canmore Folk Festival on Aug. 4 before heading back east to home turf on Aug. 10 in Wellington, PEI. The following day the band crosses back over Confederation Bridge for a show in Port Hawkesbury, NS and Aug. 12 in Rollo Bay, Newfoundland, crossing back and forth across the U.S.-Canada border intermittently throughout the rest of August and September.
For full details on tour dates, on upcoming single/album releases and other information, visit http://eastpointers.ca.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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