Fans help Stanfields spread message

N.S. folk rockers release Stay the Blazes Home

Just like the song says in his band’s new viral video, the Stanfields’ Jon Landry is staying the blazes home.

“I stepped outside for the first time in three weeks, just about an hour ago,” says the Halifax frontman for the folkrock quintet. “Man, it was weird.”

Released a week ago after a frenzied weekend of selfisolated home recording and video making, the impromptu single has become an online sensation, inspired by the remark made by an adamant Nova Scotia Premier Stephen Mcneil on April 3.

When Landry’s wife Shannon leaned over and suggested the phrase would make a pretty good song, complete with an impression of Stompin’ Tom Connors singing it, the light bulb went on over the musician’s head.

A few days later, the Stanfields had a new song and video, which has since raised more than $3,000 for Feed Nova Scotia through paywhat-you-can downloads, and earned the band an appearance on CBC-TV’S The National.

“It’s been great, because we’ve seen all kinds of people we deal with in the industry on a regular basis just rallying around the message,” says Landry from a home studio he calls his war room.

“It’s a super-important one for all of us. A few days ago, we did a call-out for people who watched the video to submit their own footage for a crowd-sourced version. So we had a ton of responses over the weekend, and lemme tell you, there are some doozies in there.”

Just like he did with the original Stay the Blazes Home clip, Stanfields bassist Dillan Tate has been burning the midnight oil to edit together dozens of submitted files to create an entirely new video made by the Stanfields’ fans from their own corners of self-isolation.

Landry says he’s seen footage of DJS, puppet shows, and an edited clip from CTV’S local 1980s broadcast kitchen party Up Home Tonight, with altered footage of host and well-known fiddler Gordon Stobbe appearing to hold up the Stay the Blazes Home artwork.

“Gordon is saying ‘You’ve been asking for it, and now it’s finally here! Our album recording!’ It’s so funny,” chuckles Landry. “So much stuff is coming from out of the woodwork around the East Coast and across Canada, and even some people in Bavaria sent something in.”

Originally, the Stanfields were planning to be out on the road right now promoting the current album Classic Fadeout, so having a project like this helps temper the mutual disappointment the members are all feeling right now.

“We did have a whole spring tour go down, and summer’s not looking all that great either, to be honest with you,” says Landry. “Festivals are dropping like flies, but besides the disappointment that aspect of things is kind of secondary.

“For us to create, even isolated in the cloud like we’re doing, it’s giving us some purpose, first and foremost.”

However you might feel about premier Mcneil’s words, and how quickly they became the meme of the day, Landry says the message remains important, and the fact that its being turned into songs and T-shirts to raise money for charity “is so Nova Scotian it hurts.”

The charge Landry and his cohorts have received from making something on the spur of the moment, and seeing it spread so far and wide, will likely inspire additional Stanfields projects in the weeks to come, as the members contribute individually from their own homes.

“Look at this Ultimate Online Nova Scotia Kitchen Party group on Facebook, it’s an inspiration to see how much music means to people,” says Landry, citing the page where where he first posted his initial acoustic performance of Stay the Blazes Home. “And they’ve got more than 250,000 members, after it just popped up three weeks ago.

“I’m looking at that and thinking that if you ever wanted to know how much music means to people, things like that Facebook group are a pretty strong indicator of the value of music. It’s beyond dollars and cents, it’s the intangible stuff that adds value to life, and is more than just the sum of its parts.”

For us to create, even isolated in the cloud like we’re doing, it’s giving us some purpose, first and foremost. Jon Landry

Nova Scotia folk-rock band the Stanfields is releasing a second video for its viral hit Stay the Blazes Home, with clips submitted by creative fans from self-isolation.