Country cavaliers The Divorcees nab ECMA nomination

When a tiny, tranquil fishing island was torn asunder by vigilante justice and soured drug deals a few short years ago the entire province was shaken – not only from the shock of such traumatic events, but from the underlying tensions that sparked them and finally demanded our full attention.

Those events also inspired The Boys, a standout track on the Divorcees’ Last of the Free Men – a 2010 East Coast Music Award country recording of the year nominee – leaving the band to strum their guitar strings and finger their frets fiercely in the hopes of capturing the essence of all that madness. They were fighting to form the very rhythms of those tensions that wrenched Grand Manan Island, to clinch the very sound of how bonds can be forged stronger after they’ve been strained.

The old cliché “what’s in a name” is just something else for the Divorcees to buck against – the country cavaliers, who hail from the Hub City area, take that band name not as a title but a mantra, a single word to sum up their weathered, rip-roaring nature.

“It is no nonsense, get right down to it, old school outlaw country,” said lead singer and guitarist Alex Madsen of the ditties and dirges Brock Gallant, Denis ‘Turtle’ Arsenault, Danny Roy, and Jason’ J Byrd’ Nicholson have doled out over the years, before elaborating slightly on the searing circumstances that inspired them and the very name they go by.

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Andrew Hunter and the Gatherers gain momentum after ECMA nomination

Normally the cool clear water only laps gently against this shore, but for the moment every drop of it seems to churn and crash in wave upon endless wave. Andrew Hunter tries to crest one of those swelling walls of water, crouching closer to his board, every muscle tense in the hope of keeping balance. But in a literal blink of an eye his lids seal shut and he blindly topples to the frigid depths below.

“This is the best time of year to surf here in Atlantic Canada because all the storms make huge waves, but it’s so cold it can freeze your eyes right shut,” he said, adding that particular open water tumble inspired one of his first and favourite tunes, Old Man Winter. “After years of just loving it in Hawaii, it was quite an adjustment moving back here, and (the) difficulties of the Maritimes, (and) winter surfing definitely helped me write that, which is one of my best songs.”

But before he had to make that adjustment, the Hawaiian sand and surf gave birth to more than Hunters’ love of hanging ten – the island paradise’s mellow, bare necessities philosophy is ingrained in everything from the 2010 ECMA nominee’s stripped down sound to his band’s very name.

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http://herenb.canadaeast.com/music/article/899928