The Strangers having fun with first album
Six-song EP written, performed by talented rock group
A group of five Corner Brook youngsters is making sure rock ’n’ roll isn’t going away anytime soon.
As one of the newest rock bands, and perhaps the youngest, in Corner Brook, The Strangers is garnering plenty of attention, especially since the release of their first album last August.
With prodigious talent, a commitment to songwriting and a strong sense of fun playing music together, The Strangers are a rock band on the rise.
The young group is comprised of Logan Kelly (vocals, electric guitar), Joseph Michael (lead guitar), Jordan Murley (acoustic guitar), Zack George (bass) and Alister MacDonnell (drums).
The boys, ages 12 to 15, first started playing together about a year and a half ago as students of the band program at Gary Bennett Music.
Scott Sheppard has been teaching the band program for four years. Typically, he says, groups will form and learn to play cover versions. What distinguished this group of precocious youngsters is they wanted to write and play their own music.
They learned to play one song together, Nirvana’s About a Girl and from there it snowballed.
“We played one song and we all thought we were really good, so we kept playing together,” says Joseph. “And eventually we made our own songs.”
The lads kept practising, getting together once a week just to jam and enjoy the experience of playing together.
“It’s really cool to see how well we work together,” says Alister. “It’s just a lot of fun to play.”
With hard work and fast improvement, it wasn’t long thereafter, just last summer, that they entered Phil Churchill’s Ginger Beard House Studio in Corner
Brook to record their first album.
“It’s really just fun,” says Joseph. “It’s just the fact that we can write music the way we want to.”
The result was a six-song
EP, Dark Days, featuring all original songs, released last year on Spotify and YouTube. The album reveals a chemistry and professionalism that belies the tender ages of its musicians.
Joseph derives a lot of his musical ideas from listening to alternative rock.
He identifies artists such as Mac DeMarco and The Strokes as influences. The DeMarco influence, especially, can be heard in the jangle pop stylings of his guitar work.
Sheppard says Alister, a Beatles fan, brings a Ringo Starr flare to his drumming, while Jordan is into modern indie rock and Zack brings more unusual ideas from bands like Primus and from lo-fi music.
While Joseph writes most of the music, Logan and Alister provide most of the lyrics.
“It’s just whatever we’re feeling,” says Alister on their lyrical content.
A lot of the songs deal with the experiences of growing up as adolescents. For example, Sheppard says one song,
Game of Cards, deals with expectations surrounding school grades.
With Churchill producing and showing them the ropes of studio recording, it was also a great learning experience for the boys.
Sheppard mixed the tracks and was present for moral support and direction. He was proud to see what they were able to create.
“These guys are just so pumped to write music and be creative in this particular way,” says Sheppard. “It’s been so rewarding for me to be a part of it. I’m stoked about the album that we made and I’m stoked we’re getting attention.”
For the group, it’s satisfying to know they’ve created something people are starting to take an interest in.
“At first it was just pretty cool to see people just commenting on YouTube ... and now we’re doing interviews, going on radio and I just find it’s really cool, overall,” says Alister. “And that we got to create these songs and that people like them.”
While live performances have been limited due to the pandemic, The Strangers did play their first live show last summer, performing songs from their EP for a Gary Bennett Music recital at the Palace in Corner Brook.
They will be back on stage this spring as they are booked to play the Trails Tales and Tunes Festival in Norris Point on May 21.
“That’s a festival I gig at but now these kids are getting that experience,” says Sheppard. “So, it’s really cool.”
Three new songs were also complete when they spoke to West Coast Wire and more ideas were in the works, with the hopes they can eventually put out a full-length LP.
The boys have dreams of becoming “semi-popular,” in Zack’s words, and to one day maybe even go on tour.
Readers can support the band by listening to their album, Dark Days, on YouTube or Spotify, leaving a like or comment, and subscribing to their profile pages.
To stay up to date on the band, The Strangers can be followed on Instagram: @thestrangerstheband.