Meet The New Royal Sons

I should preface this post with a short geographical lesson for my non-Canadian friends who decide to read this most recent musical rant.

Right or wrong, Canada has two internationally-known music "hubs" so to speak. These being Toronto and Montreal. If you were to draw a line from British Columbia on the West Coast and Nova Scotia on the East Cost, these two areas would fall in the centre. It's the most densely populated area in the country, and any band will attest to this, the most fertile grounds to tour in. While there are far more interesting things happening outside these two "meccas" in my opinion, it is the nature of the beast that most bands at one point or another will migrate to one or both of these places either permanently or temporarily.

One area of the country that I fell in love with last year during my first ever trip out there was the East Coast. A collection of smallish provinces where some of the people with the largest hearts you'll ever meet live. They're a breed of down-home lovely people, those East Coasters, and it's no wonder their music is equally lovely.

With native bands and artists like Sloan, Mat Mayes and El Torpedo, Joel Plaskett and a slew of others, the region is not short on talent.

One of my favorite bands du jour hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia. A snappy, happy five-man-band called Their Majesties.


According to guitarist/vocalist Andrew Erskine, the band first came together while he and Daniel Girard and Brian O'Reilly (both guitars, keys and vocals respectively) were in high school. "One summer Brian got an acoustic guitar and we decided we should start a band based on that. None of us had any real experience," he says. "We played songs, they were generally pretty bad."

With bassist Panos Giannoulis and their original drummer they were known as The Porcelain Gods. A cheeky thing, I think, to name your band after a synonym for the crapper. "Pretty terrible band name," says Erskine. "But we thought it was cool at first. we didn’t know what it meant. we were young, we were innocent. then we found out what it meant and we made a few changes."

One being the addition of current drummer Niall Skinner, and then the name change to Their Majesties. What inspired the choice?

"We liked the idea of having something pompous in the name. Not seriously, like nothing serious about it, but we always thought it would be kind of funny to hear 'please welcome to the stage their majesties.', " Explains Erskine. "But it also secretly fuels our massive egos."

Here I should explain that Erskine speaks with an unmistakably East Coast dry witt; subtly sarcastic and articulately funny. Much like the sound of Their Majesties. Lands Where Tales Are Tall is the band's 10-song collection of uniformly catchy and exuberant songs. It always tows the line between retro rock and suburban white-boy soul, quite successfully. The songs resonate with complexity that never seems haughty or over-produced.

It's almost an amazing feat, however, that the album was even finished. Fraught with bizarre misfortunes, including the near cutting-off of Daniel's finger while he was also working in a grocery store at the time.

Before heading to Ontario this month for their current tour the band was once again in the studio and I'm pleased to report, no digits were harmed in the recording of this new material.

The band puts on a hell of a live show, I recently saw them play at The Drake Hotel in Toronto and will most definitely be bringing more people along to check out their next Residency Gig at the swank Toronto spot.

For those of you who might be in the area and desire to experience the large, inspiring adjectives that describe Their Majesties' live performance first hand... Check them out here:

Mar 9th, 07 - Brantford, ON @ The Ford Plant w/ The Meligrove Band, Brent Randall and His Pinecones, Laura Peek and the Winning Hearts
Mar 11th, 07 - Toronto, ON @ Whippersnapper Gallery ALL AGES allcaps.ca showcase w/ Brent Randall and His Pinecones, Laura Peek and the Winning Hearts
Mar 12th, 07 - Toronto, ON @ The Drake Hotel
Mar 14th, 07 - Montreal, QC @ The Green Room w/ Brent Randall and His Pinecones, The Just Barelys
Mar 16th, 07 - Sudbury, ON @ The Townehouse w/ BA Johnston, Statues
Mar 17th, 07 - North Bay, ON @ Evolution w/ BA Johnston, Cottonfoot, Statues
Mar 19th, 07 - Toronto, ON @ The Drake Hotel
Mar 22nd, 07 - Peterborough, ON @ The Montreal House w/ BA Johnston, Statues, The Sweet Homewreckers
Mar 23rd, 07 - Guelph, ON @ The Albion Hotel w/ BA Johnston, Statues
Mar 29th, 07 - Toronto, ON @ The Drake Hotel

In the mean time check these tracks out...

Emergency Band Meeting
Highspeed
Wayside
+ Myspace

And because I was so excited by the lovely Mme Amy's post earlier this week about yet another band of Halifax-bred boys I adore... here is a little extra treat and personal favorite:

Coax Me

- CA