In the roots and country world it seems lately that bluegrass is the new black.
The resurgence of the genre has seen the music used as a prominent fixture in several films and television series. It has also put several artists on the map and to the top of the charts.
One Canadian bluegrass group who are quickly rising is Toronto’s The Slocan Ramblers.
“It’s kind of everywhere these days and even bands that aren’t bluegrass are marketing themselves as bluegrass,” said band member Adrian Gross with a bit of a laugh. “It went from being like the least cool thing possible to the coolest thing all of sudden.”
The sound of a busy road and Gross’s band members could be heard in the back ground as he phoned after just leaving a festival in Saskatchewan, which he described as having a lot of “good times and good jams.”
The Slocan Ramblers includes Gross on mandolin, Frank Evans on banjo, Darryl Poulsen on guitar and Alastair Whitehead on bass. They formed three-and-a-half years ago in Toronto and started by playing a tiny bar every Tuesday night called The Cloak and Dagger.
Gross pointed out that there is a huge bluegrass scene in Toronto with a lot of great young players – a scene he said is great to be a part of. He said he has friends from Alberta and B.C. who have come out to Toronto to play.
“There are about six weekly bluegrass gigs you can go see every day. It is definitely the biggest one in Canada from what I’ve seen. It’s unreal,” Gross said.
Gross said he grew up playing all sorts of music and went on to describe his love of acoustic guitar, blues, folk and jazz – something he ended up studying at music school.
He said the high level of musicianship and improvisation of jazz is something he saw in bluegrass and those aspects drew him to the genre that he described as “beautiful.”
“I love that for a band without drums, we make a lot of noise. The whole bluegrass sound is drummerless, but there is tons of groove,” he said. “It is really high energy exciting music. It has this rock and roll energy in bluegrass for sure. When you see a good bluegrass band – it’s pretty fiery.”
In 2012, The Slocan Ramblers self-released their debut album Shaking Down the Acorns and have been touring all over Canada ever since.
The album received positive reviews from The Huffington Post, Sing Out! magazine and Penguin Eggs. They were listed as the best new artist at the 2013 Toronto Jazz Fest and even received a shout out from Hockey Night in Canada star Don Cherry.
Gross said they have been writing and arranging new material and plan to enter the studio to record a new album in the fall.
“There is going to be a lot more original material. As we tour, we write a lot and we arrange a lot of stuff and we are kind of getting it all ready,” he said. “When we go back home, we should be ready to get in there and fire off a bunch of music.”
You can catch The Slocan Ramblers at Legacy Guitar and Coffee House Aug. 29. For more info on the band visit slocanramblers.com.
