“If you win your fantasy baseball league will it make you a better guy?” This tongue-in-cheek lyric is among many questions musician Andrew Smith poses with his incredibly earnest alt-country debut album Spent, released June 20.
Inspired by old-school country like Johnny Cash, and contemporary genre-benders MJ Lenderman and Wednesday, Spent marries country elements with the likeness of midwest emo, punk, and rock. On the record, Smith reconciles with his departure from his hometown of Bonavista, and manages existential monotony while developing friendships and relationships in the city.
Smith met his crew a few years ago while working at Fred’s Records in downtown St. John’s, a likely place to befriend musically-inclined folks to be in a band. Like many now-pronounced local acts, Andrew Smith Band’s first show was at Lawnya Vawnya, 3 years ago. In a full circle moment, the band played the festival again this year just a few weeks before Spent dropped, offering festival attendees a sneak-peek of the incoming record which has been well-loved since its release.
The band also put off two celebratory album release shows. The first at St. John’s music scene hub Peter Easton, complete with a cake, a handmade quilt backdrop for the stage, and supported by some of Smith’s personal favourite acts Ultra Far, Bread Clip, and Owen Finn Band. Fred’s Records saw a free, all-ages show the following day.
Mixing genres, collaboration & finding a ‘sound’
Outside of traditional Newfoundland folk music, and more mainstream rock acts tinged with country elements, you don’t see a lot of experimental alt-country in St. John’s. It’s a hard genre to find here, despite its growing popularity in broader music spheres across North America. Smith however, has cracked the code with Spent, introducing a new spin on the classic genre to the city’s expansive roster of talented artists.
“You definitely don’t get a lot of punk and country mixed in Newfoundland,” Smith said. “When I think of country, there’s different ways of looking at it. There’s more of the folkier side of it that you might see. That it’s kind of gone to the mainstream style now.”
“Otherwise in the local scene there isn’t a whole lot of it. I think it’s just that it didn’t happen on purpose for us.”
All 6 members of Andrew Smith Band hail from different musical backgrounds genre-wise. Lead singer Smith and steel player Lucas Rose are affectionate towards country, drummer Jacob Cherwick and guitarist Liam Ryan have expansive backgrounds playing punk, and math rock, while guitarist and bassist Brayden House and Maria Peddle have experience playing shoegaze and indie rock, among other genres.
This combination of genres lends itself beautifully to the creation of an experimental alt-country record, giving Spent quiet country-ish lulls contrasted with intricate, loud guitar and emo influences, a great mix of genres for people looking to expand their horizons.
Grants for the arts
Smith cited being the recipient of an emerging artist grant from Arts NL as a large contributing factor for producing his first LP exactly the way he wanted to. This grant tangibly gives back to the local music community, supplying new artists with the monetary means to create their debut projects, seeing their visions come to life without significant financial limitations.
This is especially significant since Newfoundland is largely isolated from the rest of Canada, greatly limiting opportunities for musicians.
“There are a lot of loud moments to the album, but there are also a couple really soft and quiet moments that I feel like we were able to do justice to in the recording process,” he said
“We’re not a huge band, we’re not making a whole lot of money,” Smith commented.
“It’s not like we had a whole lot there to record with. When we got the grant, we were really able to supplement it and record the vocals really nicely and record the guitars, the acoustic instruments, the fiddle and the banjo …the way that we wanted to.”
Smith and his band were able to create vinyl as well, giving fans an opportunity to financially support the band by purchasing a record and fulfilling a lifelong dream of Smith’s – to have his music on vinyl.
Music & community
Smith says the band has come a long way since their debut 3 years ago. All the songs on Spent were written around that time, but he says that as his friendships with his bandmates have progressed, the group’s closeness lends itself well to creating art.
“This album probably could have been done two years ago, but I thought about once something’s done…the fact that it’s permanent and that it you can’t change…I guess I didn’t realize at the time that I was scared of it, but I definitely was,” the band’s frontman said.
“These songs were written like three to four years ago, I would have just been finishing university at that point. So I was still like going home lot. I was still, you know, my summers were spent, my weekends were spent and stuff like that. Just going home to see my friends and my family.”
Letting the record ruminate for a while, and revisiting it repeatedly with bandmates and friends alike has shaped the album into what it is now – a robustly relatable record that is largely about time spent with friendship and community. The album’s reception has been fantastic so far, with many local music fans and old friends reaching out to Smith with nothing but praise.
For Smith, “spent” appears to not denote its typical meaning of being used up or burnt out, rather, time well spent with people and places that matter to him.
Listen to Spent here. Or if you’d rather see it live, catch Andrew Smith Band this Saturday July 19th at the Ship Pub, along with out-of-towners Pillea, a power pop outfit from Toronto, and The McMillan’s Camp Boys, a bluegrass duo from Nova Scotia. $15 at the door and 19+.
