When the members of James And Blackburn met in 2008, they were just three young guys working in the food and beverage industry on Elgin Street – then they started jamming.
Three and a half years later, they’re getting buzz for their first full-length album.
“When you first get together you don’t really think you’re going to start a band,” says 25-year-old drummer Sebastien Button. “You play around because that’s what musicians do.”
But as songs started to take on structure, Button says he became more engaged in the project. He quit his band at the time to focus on joining up with guitarist and vocalist Owen Edwards, 21, and bassist Landon Kotchapaw, 21.
Button had met Kotchapaw at Johnny Farina, an Italian restaurant on Elgin Street, where they both worked as cooks. Edwards, Kotchapaw’s cousin, worked at the Second Cup next door.
“It’s pretty poetic to say that it’s fate,” Button says about the way the band came to be. “So it was fate,” Kotchapaw chimes in.
The band’s name symbolizes those formative times: Edwards and Kotchapaw lived together on James Street, and Button lived on Blackburn Avenue.
Edwards says Island Univese has a loose storyline, arranged almost chronologically so the listener can follow a soul-searching character along a timeline as he seeks purpose and answers to life’s big questions.
“It’s very unique sounding and totally different from a lot of other stuff going on right now,” says Dean Watson, of The Gallery Recording Studio in the Glebe, where the band tracked most of the album. “Not many people go with a concept with records these days and they did a very good job with it.”
Island Universe was launched online – via iTunes and Bandcamp – a few weeks ago, followed by a three-city promotional tour that hit Kingston, Ottawa and Toronto, where the band members have been living since September.
“This is what we want to do so we don’t mind the long drives and the horrible road conditions in the Canadian winters,” Button says, naming Ottawa as a favourite spot to perform.
Their sound has been described as alternative rock with elements of folk, blues, progressive rock, the psychedelic and more. But they say that’s just how they like it – left up to the listener to decide.
“We’ve got our hands in the pockets of various genres,” says Edwards.
The band cites more opportunities for moving to Toronto.
Even so, they aren’t forgetting their roots: “Ottawa’s always a bit of a reunion . . . it’s hometown,” Button says.
James And Blackburn is scheduled play at the Avant Garde Bar in Ottawa March 3.