by Melinda Cheevers
Sloan is the quintessential Canadian band.
With more than 20 years under their belts, the rockers – like the East Coast they come from – draw from a wide variety of influences to create their own unique and distinct sound. It’s hard to compare them to others, although some may try, they truly are in a class of their own.
Perhaps that’s why, more than 20 years later, the band is still rocking out together with no signs of stopping any time soon. In fact, this fall the foursome, comprised of Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Andrew Scott and Patrick Pentland is planning on releasing their 11th full-length album, Commonwealth.
Coming out in September, Ferguson said this record will be a departure from their previous releases — it’s going to be a double album with each of the band members getting their own “side”.
“It’s essentially four mini solo albums in one,” he explained. The concept is not an entirely novel one for the band. In fact, everyone in the band writes and sings the songs on their previous releases too. This time, they just took that concept a bit further. “It’s definitely different. This one took a little longer to make than the others. We sort of jump from one singer to the next.”
He said while in the past, they’ve managed to each contribute their own songs while maintaining an overall sense of cohesion; fans might notice a marked difference this time around. The overall album, though, will still be quintessentially Sloan, and in the end quintessentially Canadian.
“The one thing that always ties our albums – and songs – together, are the harmonies,” he said. “Our particular blend of vocal is very similar and that’s definitely a uniting factor.”
While the band is hard at work trying to learn one another’s songs, Ferguson said they probably won’t be performing any of the new tracks when they take the stage at Springlicious this Saturday night. Instead, he said fans can expect them to play most of their big hits from their extensive back catalogues. Songs like “Underwhelmed”, “Coax Me”, “The Other Man”, “The Good In Everyone” and more.
“When you’re playing an outdoor show, a festival, like that you’re sort of playing to a mixed bag,” he said. “In a small intimate venue, there’s a better chance that you’re playing to a crowd of dedicated fans. At an outdoor festival there’s the chance that some of the people there don’t know many of your songs.”
He can’t imagine there will be many people at the show who haven’t heard of Sloan, though.
“We’ve always had a good time in playing in Niagara,” he said, noting they’ve played the area between Niagara Falls through Toronto many times throughout their career – including several appearances at the Friendship Festival in Fort Erie, which attracted some of their Buffalo fans. “I’m sure some of them will be coming over for this show, too.”
--taken from: Niagara This Week
