When we spoke with The Bros. Landreth in November, they were easily Canada’s best kept secret. Their debut album Let It Lie, a bluesy record that beautifully balances soulful harmonies and heart-stirring rock, was available, but only in Canada. Though it’s been a few short months, they’ve been traveling extensively, spanning much of the U.S. Let It Lie released in the states at the end of January, and the group was nominated for a Juno Award for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year. Not only is praise for the album high, but fans of their work include some pretty impressive names in themselves – like Bonnie Raitt.
How did Bonnie Raitt find out about you guys?
It’s… surreal. No big deal. Just Bonnie Raitt. We were playing at a festival in Winnipeg and we were the first act on the main stage. She was headlining that night and she showed up early to catch us at the urging of some mutual friends. I can’t possibly impart on you what a big influence she’s been on us. We grew up listening to Bonnie Raitt’s music always – from as young as I can remember her music played in the house. As we grew up into musicians and our musical tastes, we always had Bonnie Raitt records on, we’ve explored her catalog all throughout, I mean a huge influence, a massive favorite, and now we count her as a friend and a fan and that never ceases to amaze me. Us. It’s cool.
Congratulations on your Juno nomination! What was that like?
It was pretty tremendous. It’s a very moving thing for us. As Canadians we’ve been watching the awards since we were little and then of course as working musicians we became more and more aware of them, so it’s a pretty wonderful acknowledgment and we’re very honored to be amongst those nominated. There’s some incredible, incredible acts that are nominated this year so to be included amongst some of those names is pretty cool.
Let It Lie is now out in the U.S. How has the release experience been?
This is the third time we’ve put out the record. We did it the first time entirely DIY so completely ourselves and really just released it to our immediate family and close friends effectively *laughs* then we hooked up with a Canadian distributor and did a re-release properly across Canada, and now we’ve done this with Slate Creek Records, which feels leaps and bounds grander. It’s been very exciting and very cool to have an opportunity to really do it right. I mean, the record just came out last week, we’ve been on the road doing press and radio, playing shows supporting it. We’ll really start to feel it in the months to come as it sort of sinks in, gets out there, hopefully stars to proliferate in the world and the states specifically. It’s a very exciting time in a young band’s life!
When we first spoke, you mentioned that the record comprised almost all of your written songs so far. Especially given that this is the third release, you’ve been living with this music for quite a while. Are you looking forward to getting back to writing more?
A cool thing happened – our roster changed a little bit this summer, so we had an opportunity when Ariel [Posen, guitar] joined the band he brought in a really fresh new voice to the band, so we had an opportunity to reinvest ourselves in the music. He brought an incredible wealth of musicality and really kinda kicked our ass and forced us to dig in and step it up and notch. That’s been really cool ‘cuz suddenly the songs are new again, the instrumentation’s a little different so we had to approach them a little bit differently. He started playing lap steel, and that brought in a whole different texture.
So we’ve been living with these songs for a long time. The meaning of them changes as we play them, and the approach to them has changed and evolved, which is really cool. We’ve had them for a while. we’ve been able to be creative about how we can stretch the life out of them. And it doesn’t feel like that, it doesn’t feel forced, but it’s kind of fun to have to release our record three times and it’s just kind of a fun way to mark the progression of the band, so it’s been a lot of fun. We are definitely looking forward to hunkering down and writing more music.
I think writing wise too, we’re all in slightly different places in our minds and I think it’ll give some fresh perspective. I mean, when a lot of these songs were written I was heartbroken, but now I’m in love so who knows how that’s gonna turn out. All the guys are getting married, so our life story’s changed. We’re looking forward to working together and doing some cowrites. It was just the two of us [Dave and Joey Landreth, on the first album] with distractions from other friends – very helpful distractions. We’ll see how it progresses. We’ve actually yet to do a group write with the four of us so it’ll be fun to see what comes. I’m a fan of Ariel’s writing, he’s written with another band and it’s just beautiful music, so it’ll be a nice contribution, and Ryan and Dave and I have done some writing and know what we’re capable of, so it’ll be really interesting to do some writing as a group.