Leaving the Working Class Life for Rock ‘n’ Roll

Indie Rock Band ‘The Glorious Sons’ Tours Canada to Resurrect Rock ‘n’ Roll

Fringe ArtsLeigha Vegh — Published October 14, 2014

Indie rock band The Glorious Sons have dropped a new album, The Union, an acknowledgment of the members’ labour-intensive jobs before the band’s formation.  

“We know the working-class and the middle-class family of Western culture. We thought we would be doing a disservice to ourselves to not carry those themes on our album,” explained Brett Emmons.  

Brett worked with his younger brother Jay in contracting, while Adam Paquette was a city worker and Chris Huot a plumber before their recording contract was signed.

Jay invited Brett to leave Halifax—where he had dropped out of school and was performing locally—and come join the rest of the band in Kingston, Ont.  

“My younger brother Jay offered me a place in the band because he knew I was going through some hard times and [thus] Glorious Sons was formed,” he said.  

While joining the band has brought success, there have still been some challenges associated with their rise to fame.  

“The biggest challenge at first is being on tour.  Once you get past the first three weeks, you realize that you wouldn’t rather be doing anything else in the world.  You adapt to the lifestyle and learn to love it,” Brett said.  

“Although, I know for a lot of people touring is also a challenge because you’re away from your family,” he added.  

The silver lining for Brett is the reward associated with leaving the working-class lifestyle and embarking on the journey of being a professional musician.  

“The challenge of touring is very easy to overcome once you realize that you could be at home, [which isn’t] as fun as being a rock ‘n’ roller,” Brett said.

The band will be the opening act for Airborne. The Australian rock band chose The Glorious Sons to tour with them, rather than the reverse.

“The way they said it was, they wanted somebody to go on tour with [them] that looked like they could have a barbeque with,” Brett joked.  

The Glorious Sons are also currently signed to Blackbox Music, whom they chose out of a variety of offers from recording labels.  They have been signed for over a year after an interview they had with them one day before a performance in Toronto.

The members of the band have learned valuable lessons they say have added to their success.  

“We matured as songwriters.  In my lyrics, I learned how to tie themes together rather than just sing about something like a broken heart,” Brett said.

On a more personal note, the songwriter shared that producing music is not just about catering to the crowd, but more importantly about being genuine with audience members and oneself as an artist.   

“I just want to keep on making honest music and hope the people like it, but I want to keep on making honest music for myself,” he said.  

Despite their bad-boy appearance, the quintet shows a soft spot in its song “Heavy.”

The lyrics of the song speak about the importance of valuing one’s own well-being, which was an important topic after Brett’s personal experience with betrayal.

“A few people in my life betrayed my trust, which upset me,” Brett said with a heavy sigh.

“I wrote the line, ‘you ain’t a comrade or a friend, I’m not a brother, I’m just a means to an end.’  It’s basically about cutting the negative influences in your life to better yourself and make sure that you’re happy,” he explained.  

The Glorious Sons, opening for Airborne // Oct. 16 // Corona Theatre (2490 Notre-Dame St. W.) // 8 p.m. // $25 advance, $27 door