Although most bands from Canada’s east coast tend to fall into the traditional music category or some variation of the rock music scene, Charlottetown’s Boxer The Horse stand out in a positive sense.
Drawing influences from ’60s-era British Invasion bands like The Kinks, the band is seeing their simple, catchy pop songs quickly garnering them a national audience.
Boxer The Horse was in Moncton last night for a show with Hey Rosetta! at the Oxygen.
Boxer The Horse’s guitarist-vocalist Jeremy Gaudet tells The Times & Transcript that the days of their band members balancing obtaining a university education with the lure of a career in rock n’ roll are coming to an end.
“Our new bass player Christian has graduated while I am going to be done as of December,” Gaudet says. “Our other two members will be done in April though so we are all kind of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel now.”
Now this isn’t to say that Gaudet or any of his band mates have attempted to forego education in the name of music. He admits the thought has crossed their minds on numerous occasions in the past.
“The temptation has totally been there to pursue music full-time,” he admits. “There have been many times that we are saddled with insane amounts of school work and you wonder to yourself ‘Why am I doing this?’
“But now with school wrapping up for all of us, our only plan is to push playing music full-time as much as we can. We don’t have any solidified plans at this point relating to perhaps relocating to another city or what our touring plans will be or anything like that.
I think there will be a few different things to consider, however we don’t really feel pressured to make a choice any time soon.”
The group’s latest record Would You Please brims with the eager energy of youth; a veritable “retro” sounding record by a completely modern group. Produced by Two Hours Traffic member Alec O’Hanley, Gaudet says that he and band mates Christian Ledwell, Andrew Wood and Isaac Neily weren’t quite sure what to anticipate from O’Hanley’s involvement in making Would You Please, but were ultimately pleased with how the record turned out.
“Alec brought more of a pop sensibility to these songs than what we were used to. We were initially hesitant to make anything in the way of changes but the suggestions he offered really helped to enhance the final product,” Gaudet says.
With a recent slot opening for critically acclaimed indie-rock sweethearts The New Pornographers, one can’t help but feel bigger things could be in store for these humble Islanders. If only they can leave that pesky school work behind for good.
Article published in November 26, 2010 edition of the Times & Transcript