Page 67 - Classic Rock (February 2020)

on the US Modern Rock chart) and S.O.S. (Sawed Off
Shotgun) as if at a stadium show.
Both songs are on Young Beauties And Fools, The
Glorious Sons’ 2017 album, which won Best Rock
Album at 2018’s Juno Awards (Canada’s Grammys).
“Honestly, award shows never really appealed to
me,” says Emmons. “It’s nice to get a tip of the hat
from our fellow countrymen and the people in
the music industry, but it’s gone the way of the
Grammys – they don’t even put the rock award
on during the televised night any more! But I’m
grateful, it does you a lot of good and people do
find your music through it.”
Back in 2001, Emmons was into the first year of
his English Literature degree at the University Of
Halifax. He says he was there mainly to appease his
parents. He really wanted to be a musician, and felt
unsettled. When he began experiencing panic
attacks, he quit and returned home to Kingston to
join the Glorious Sons, formed by his elder brother,
Rising Sons: (l-r) Adam Paquette, guitarist Jay. And that’s another way the Emmons
Josh Hewson, Chris Koster, Brett,
Jay Emmons, Chris Huot. boys buck rock‘n’roll tradition – they’ve been best
friends all their lives.
“Jay wants to bring a cohesive piece of art
ive years ago, the Glorious Sons made the decision forward,” Brett says, “so he plays for the song. I tend to be the
to not sound like a band from the 1970s. From creative leader, and when it comes to business I don’t touch the
their beloved home town of Kingston on the damn thing, I leave that to Jay. People talk about us having
north shore of Lake Ontario, they’d watched as catchy music and depressing lyrics. And that’s natural – he
F countless young bands got their retro, Deep comes up with these singable melodies, and I write the lyrics.
Purple groove on, and so resolved to give their own music It’s a good dynamic.”
a 21st century heartbeat. While their 2014 debut The Union attracted plenty of guys to
“For me the rock genre needs to talk about now,” singer Brett their shows, after Young Beauties And Fools Emmons noticed a lot
Emmons tells Classic Rock, “and exploit some of the stuff they more female fans catching on to the band. “I’d gone through
didn’t have in the seventies. Modern tech can really break a song more life experiences, the songs were more introspective and
wide open, you can let your imagination run wild and be free.” sensitive, and it drew a female audience in,” he says. “The Union
The Canadian quintet’s superb third album, A War On was a little more meat-and-potatoes, and maybe women can
Everything is full of catchy tunes with a classic rock punch and smell the bullshit more than guys.”
a present-day sheen, among them One More Summer (a toxic love At their best, his lyrics reflect the music’s blend of new and
affair set to a crunchy bass/organ riff) and the sleekly produced old tropes, throwing back to the storytelling, blue-collar poetry
Kingdom In My Heart. Fans of Rival Sons and local colour of a Bruce Springsteen
and The Black Keys will latch on to Wild record, but broaching 21st-century
Eyes’ modern verse, but on the chorus concerns. The biographical Panic Attack
Emmons channels Jagger circa Sticky “Rock needs to talk hit No.1 in the US Mainstream Rock
Fingers, yelling a timeless: ‘The colour on your about now, and Chart. Kick Them Wicked Things is about
lips is the same as the blood on my hands/These the hopelessness Emmons sees in his
wild eyes are yours’. exploit some of the peers who go to college, come out saddled
The Glorious Sons have supported with debt and also drastically reduced
the Rolling Stones twice since forming stuff they didn’t have prospects of employment. “That’s my love
in 2001, just two gigs among hundreds in the seventies.” letter to Canadiana,” says its writer.
across North America and beyond. Classic “I know plenty of people working in a bar
Rock watched the band in action at Brett Emmons after college, trying to pay off their debt
London’s Scala late last year, supporting for a degree that’s worth nothing. It’s
Ohio blues rockers Welshly Arms. On record the Sons are a tough place to be, and people wonder why rates of depression
slick and anthemic, while live there’s a danger to them, their and anxiety are so high, and why mental health is so bad.”
performances teetering on the brink, the energy threatening It’s interesting to think that Emmons – a compelling and
to push it over the edge, but they claw it back, thrillingly. complicated Son – was something of a jock as a kid, playing
Emmons, for one, has struggled with the whole touring baseball and boxing (a skill that hasn’t left him; Everything Is
thing. “You tend to overdo it when you’re excited and young Alright’s line ‘I punched a man on his wedding night’ refers to an
and don’t know how to tour,” he says. “I took a break from actual event). He also spent too many red-eyed hours alone
drinking last year. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but I certainly had playing videogames obsessively. And if he initially got into
a drinking problem. It’s easy to get swept up and find yourself music to impress the girls, he has discovered something more
a prisoner to a lifestyle. We do still party, but we’ve matured profound altogether.
– have a drink before the show, but not ten drinks. I’ve been “I have an addictive personality – you get that idea for a song,
there, and it doesn’t make for a good show.” and you can spend twelve hours working on it and it feels like
When chatting, Emmons, 27, is open, softly spoken and can forty-five minutes. You walk around talking to yourself, chain-
smoking cigarettes, and after a series of many miracles you’ve
wax eloquently on the literature of David Foster Wallace and
INSET: JONATHAN WEINER/PRESS the music of one of his heroes, Layne Staley. Live, he channels got something you created in your brain from thin air. Nobody
Staley, Axl Rose, even Kurt Cobain, singing, screaming, hurling
can ever take it away from you.”
himself around the stage and into the front row. The
The Glorious Sons – bringing rock’n’roll back to now.
predominantly young audience chants along to the choruses of
A War On Everything is out now on Black Box Music.
their best-known songs such as Everything Is Alright (a No.1 hit
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