The Road Heavy,
The Road Heavy is a band whose touring schedule is not about to lighten up any time soon.
The Toronto hard rock five-piece — featuring band members Pat James (guitar), Jules Cardoso (lead vocals), Ryan Blake (guitar), Andre DaSilva (bass), and Jeff Cox (drums) — will return to Maxwell’s in Waterloo next Friday as part of a seven-date Ontario tour opening for former Guns ’N Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke, a true rock and roll veteran whose friendship with Blake pre-dates The Road Heavy’s formation in 2014.
“Him and I go back quite a few years now,” Blake said in a phone interview this week. “I was actually involved in a record he was producing out in Los Angeles about five, six years ago or something, that I played guitar on, and he was the producer on that session and ever since then we just became friends. We both have a love for motorcycles and rock and roll, so we just kind of hit it off. And The Road Heavy, we’re one big family, so we call him up and (say), ‘Hey man, you want to come to Canada, have some fun, play some shows?’ and that’s what we’re doing.”
The band has toured with Clarke before and Blake said going on the road with a man who’s played with everyone from Heart to the MC5 has been a rock and roll education.
“He’s been a mentor to me, personally, as well as everyone in the band for sure. But for me personally, it’s not so much what to do, because the business is so crazy, as you know it’s not really what to do, it’s what not to do,” he said. “Gilby’s just got so much knowledge of this business, I feel blessed to just have a guy like that in our camp.”
Another rock and roll veteran in the band’s corner is Tea Party frontman Jeff Martin, who produced the band’s recent self-titled EP, and who also brought the group out on the road to open a string of Tea Party dates earlier this year.
“He’s family with The Road Heavy. He’s a dear friend of all of ours, and he’s a monster musician,” said Blake. “When you’re in a studio, there’s so much going on that you don’t really think about it, and you don’t really take in until after you listen to it, and Jeff has been a huge help for The Road Heavy in producing us, and bringing us out on tour with The Tea Party was just humongous for us, that was a great, great run back in February and March. And we learned a lot, we really did, and they treated us like gold.”
Recorded at Metalworks Studios in Mississauga and released this March, the band’s self-titled release is the follow up to their debut EP, “Devil’s Grin,” which Blake said was pulled together somewhat hastily prior to the group’s first road trip.
“The first one was really, to be honest with you, it was so rushed. The band was put together, we had the songs, and we had a tour booked before the album was even released, so we had to record something to go out on the road to push. So we did the best we could and made it, and it sounds great, but as you play these songs for a good year, they start to develop. And going into Metalworks with Jeff Martin was just a whole different thing; it was a completely different thing. It was bigger budgets, bigger studios, more equipment, more toys, more layers,” he said.
The group is planning to release some new music this fall but, in keeping with their name, they’ll be back out on the highway for some shows around Christmas, and then leave for their first U.S. tour early in 2018.
“I think it takes a certain breed of people that really love travelling, and that’s definitely us, we love travelling,” Blake said, though he noted that the band’s name did not originate strictly as a metaphor for touring. “It actually comes from my uncle, that’s where the name came from — back in the ’70s, he was in a band called The Road Heavy Blues Band, and I just loved the name. It was a cool name, and it kind of had meaning behind it, with family, and then the double meaning of The Road Heavy — we’re always on the road, always touring, always playing — so it was just a perfect name.”
The Road Heavy with Gilby Clarke Maxwell’s 35 University Ave. E., Waterloo Friday, September 22 Doors at 7:30 p.m. $20 advance 19+ theroadheavy.com