All the naysayers claiming that rock music is dead need to open their ears – as well as their minds – and take a listen to some of the great Canadian bands on the ascent, including the incredibly potent, gritty, bombastic and badass duo known as The Standstills.
Comprised of vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Jonny Fox and skillful, powerhouse drummer Renee Couture, for a decade the band has carved out a reputation as an incredible live act, with a scintillating stage show, topped off by incendiary music that is at once a throwback to the great classic rock of the 1970s, but with a very modern, alternative twist. It is a sound unlike any other band on the circuit, and one that has garnered The Standstills great critical acclaim, a burgeoning fan base and touring opportunities with the likes of The Tea Party, Sebastian Bach, Pop Evil, Billy Talent, Seether, and The Lazys. Most recently, they played a slew of shows with Monster Truck, making for an exceptional one-two dusky, Canuck hard rock punch.
Badlands is the band’s third full-length album, but the first released by their label eOne, and also the first to be released internationally. Their first two records, The Human Element (2010) and Pushing Electric (2013) were released independently but created a buzz worthy of a record label deal. Their EP, From the Devil’s Porch came out in 2015 and was a compelling and memorable statement of a band that was definitely going to be making noise – both literally and metaphorically – for years to come. It earned Fox and Couture the award for Nest New Rock Group at the 2016 Canadian Radio Music Awards, with the single Orleans reaching #4 on Active Rock Radio charts in Canada.
Badlands burst out of the gates thanks to the popularity of the monumental first single, Wild, which is illustrative of the band’s confident, sandpaper-like grittiness, combined with powerful, crunching chords and Couture’s rhythmic mastery.
It was a long time coming, though, as nearly four years elapsed between From the Devil’s Porch and Badlands. The unpredictable nature of the music business in recent years played the biggest part in delaying the release of Badlands, even though the music had been in the can for quite some time. But timing is everything, and the overwhelmingly positive critical and positive response since the record’s release a few weeks ago is evidence that it was worth the wait for all concerned.
“When we released our EP [From the Devil’s Porch] that was our first introduction to the industry and to fans and our first release since singing with eOne Entertainment, so it was still pretty fresh. We released the single Orleans and I don’t think the label knew or thought that it was going to have as much traction as it did. For us, we always believe in everything we do to the fullest and we knew it was going to be great. We knew once we released it, that it would blow up. I don’t think anybody else had anticipated that it was going to do as well as it did. And during that time, we needed to get more things into place for the next release, because for that next release we wanted to take it to an international level. And that next release is this new album,” said Fox, in the middle of the band’s recent tour with Monster Truck.
“That process involves a lot of moving parts. We had to secure certain partnerships within our agents and also secure partnerships with eOne internationally. There was a lot of performing and showcases and meeting vice-presidents and stuff for U.S. companies and also meeting the contacts for Europe and whatnot. All that takes time. At the same time, both our label and agency went through major transitions. The label eOne was absorbed by Chris Taylor and Last Gang, so we had to wait until all of that settled and everybody got grounded on that level. And then our agent Ralph James was with The Agency Group and that changed to UTA which is an American company, and they went through a transition to become APA. What it all really comes down to was we were being patient with the team and the players that we had committed to prior to all these changes on the business side.
“We didn’t want the release of Badlands to be sloppy. We wanted to be prepared going into to this release. We were trying to be smart about it. We have seen too many bands and too many acts just get lost and their releases not getting any attention and that ultimately ends up being the reason so many bands break up and just end it. We don’t want that. We’re in it for the long haul, we want to continue to be creative and create more music, create more albums and continue to perform live. With this release we wanted to be prepared to ramp things up when the music takes hold and we start getting offers for bigger and better tours.”
As well, Fox said he and Couture wanted to take their time with the creative side of the ledger as well, to ensure the music The Standstills were releasing on this epic, international debut release was their best, and also music that helped define their sound and put them above the crowd for the record-buying/streaming public.
“When we set aside time to do the album, we didn’t rush it. We spent a lot of time thinking about what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it, and how we were going to define ourselves artistically in creating the album as well. We used that time wisely and when we did go into the studio, we executed everything that we wanted to do. Once it was done, even though there was the option to go in and tweak it because of the long delay, we tried to make sure that wasn’t the case. We tried to be patient and thorough while we were in the studio and did all the adjustments while we were there. We made sure it was all done and that we were sure we were happy with everything we had done at that time, because next time there may not be any extra time to do tweaks and changes,” said Fox.
The sound of The Standstills as portrayed on Badlands has deep resonance with a bygone era of western motion pictures, with more than a casual nod to the Sergio Leone ‘spaghetti westerns’ of the late 1960s, which launched Clint Eastwood to superstardom, but also introduced the world to the work of composer extraordinaire Ennio Morricone, who created the iconic theme songs and soundtracks for films like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars and more. Fox and Couture have imbued their music, their look and their overall vibe with that same cool, swaggering western style for a melange that is instantly recognizable, but wholly unique.
“This isn’t really what you could call country music. We’re not huge fans of country music, although there is certain country music that we do like. What we like doing is an older style from those Sergio Leone films. There is a certain style to them, visually, the way the characters are portrayed, the sets, the colour palate. And then you top that off with the amazing score by Ennio Morricone and there’s this incredibly vivid and unique style that was so unlike anything else you would see in movies at the time. That’s what we want to portray in our music,” Fox said.
“The way a camera would pan and look at something in those films, that’s kind of the way we would look at a rhythm, but not trying to overthink it too much and trying to just let it happen naturally. I think when it comes down to our artistic approach, or what we were trying to achieve, is playability. The original creation has to be something that pops for us, ‘oh that’s really cool, let’s see if we can build something off of this.’ It’s always an organic approach of getting in and hammering out some riffs and then working on these simple initial ideas and just building on them to make something that we’re very excited about. Beyond that, we work the songs until we feel that they are ready to be recorded. In the recording sessions what we trying to look at is having the songs have something very special that will keep people listening back. We want it so that it’s never just once through, or twice through or three times through – we want it so that every time you go back to a song, there’s something else that pops a bit, and a lot of that involves sort of the ear candy that we add during the production and mixing.”
This process involved producer James Robertson, who also worked with The Standstills on From the Devil’s Porch, but also more self production, as well as the involvement of Nashville-based producer/engineer Eddie Spear.
Fox had been working on the framework and some of the components of what would become Wild, but it took a visit to his cousin, Neil Sanderson, the drummer for Three Days Grace, to help distill what is now undoubtedly going to be a concert favourite tune for many years to come.
“We were hanging out and I was showing him the song that Renee and I had been working on and he loved it and we actually got together and shaped it a bit more. We drank some wine and had a little fun in his home studio and kind of took the track a little further. And then I brought it back to Renee and finished the song off. That was a very different process, because we didn’t do anything like that with anything else on the album. It’s usually just the two of us, but it was cool working with Neil a bit,” he said.
“And we wanted it to be kind of sexy and dangerous, like what rock and roll should be. We were a little inspired by [Warren Zevon’s hit] Werewolves of London. We dig that tune and added a little bit of its flavour in there, just for fun. That was the way the tune came out. It was a little bit more aggressive than originally planned, which was more Neil’s influence. And quite simply it’s about being a wild animal; it’s about sex but being a wild animal and just seeking that other wild animal across the room and making that connection and just letting everything go.”
Another single, Black Hill Creek is more about finding an isolated place to go and escape from the world.
“That’s actually about a cottage that my grandfather built in the early 1950s in the Ottawa Valley. Throughout my whole life my family has gone there. I have three older brothers so there’s nowhere my parents could take us because we were four crazy boys all two years apart, so often we would just go up there in the summers for a couple of weeks. And that manifested into a place where, now I can go to recharge and unwind. I feel that everyone needs something like that, whether it’s a cottage or a coffee shop even – a place that you f***ing need to take you away from everything at some point so you don’t have to think about anything but just enjoying the moment,” Fox said, adding that Shaker Down is the most overtly ‘Outlaw cowboy-ish’ of all the tunes on the album.
“What we did was tried to marry the two ideas of what it’s like to be an up and coming band on the scene and the stories of legends like Jesse James robbing trains and banks. I tried to put ourselves in the position of being backstage before going on and hearing the roar and rumble of the crowd, and how that’s like them hiding out in the woods on horseback and hearing the train come down the rails, because that’s kind of how it feels to us.”
Both on record, but especially live, there is a sense of manic energy and even a little danger at every show by The Standstills. It’s unbridled, uninhibited rock music the way it used to be made – infused with a rebellious spirit, untamed energy, wild abandon and an undisputed sexual charge.
“We just tried to make it exciting. I think there’s so much rock and roll that just feels way too manufactured and way too safe. And to me and Renee, that’s not rock and roll. Rock and roll should feel like it’s going to go off the rails. It should feel like anything can f***ing happen at any moment – no one knows, it could be spontaneous combustion,” Fox said.
The Standstills are playing a gig alongside Danko Jones, Adam Gontier and Skye Wallace during Canadian Music Week on May 11, and are then scheduled to perform at the Tall Creek Mud & Music Festival on June 30 in Nevis, Alberta, before an opening slot for Nickelback in Rimouski, Quebec at Les Grandes Fetes Telus on July 20.
For more tour dates as they are announced, to order a copy of Badlands and other info on The Standstills, visit www.thestandstills.com.
- 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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