Halifax alt-rockers The Town Heroes bring their expanded lineup to Fredericton this week for a show at The Tipsy Muse Café.
Matt Carter
The Town Heroes. Are they a duo? A quartet? Are they internet pranksters? You could answer yes to all of these questions, but you’d only be scratching the surface.
If you’re not familiar with the band or their music, you may remember them from the hilarious viral video they shared just over a year ago, pairing Canadian figure skaters Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s performance at the 2018 Winter Olympics with a touch of rural Nova Scotian commentary complete with all the slang and colloquialisms you’d expect to hear in some village out back of Antigonish County. But there’s a lot more to the band Mike Ryan and Bruce Gillis started in 2012 than just a few good laughs.
Initial formed as a duo, The Town Heroes’ have been continuously developing their 90’s alt-rock inspired sound, taking things beyond the confines of the guitar/drums combo that got things started.
After touring internationally as a two-piece supporting three full-length albums on their own, Ryan and Gillis expanded the group’s lineup to its present format as a quartet with the addition of Victoria Cameron (bass/vocals) and Aaron Green (guitar/vocals). This lineup made its studio debut with the release of Everything (will be fine when we get to where we think we’re going) in August of 2018.
Explaining the group’s shift from a two-piece to a four-piece, Ryan writes, “The new songs we’ve been working on felt like they needed more. We felt like playing them as two people didn’t do them justice. As a two-piece, we only had three things to rely on: guitar, drums and vocals. Those limitations crafted our sound to some extent, but we felt like things were progressing in a different direction, something the two of us couldn’t tackle on our own.”
Makes sense.
Over the past year, The Town Heroes have done a lot of playing around the east coast as well as a handful of shows in Germany back in September. Their latest album also earned them a pair of East Coast Music Award nominations for Group Recording of the Year and Songwriter(s) of the Year.
This week the band return to New Brunswick for a show at The Tipsy Muse Café in Fredericton as part of their current east coast tour.
The Town Heroes | April 26 | The Tipsy Muse Café | Fredericton, NB | View Event
