Just take a peek at The Stanfields’ website. It looks like a round of barflies flogging premium booze.
But as lead singer Jon Landry assures, it’s more to do with The Dirtiest Drunk, a sleeper hit that shot to No. 1 on Halifax station Q104 FM and stayed there for a month.
“Everyone knows a character like that, someone that likes to party hard at the expense of civility,” says Landry. “It’s such a popular song some people come up to us and say ‘I’m the dirtiest drunk.’ All the attention is good for us. But the character is really pretty sad and pathetic.”
The five-piece rock/folk/roots/Celtic band is riding a crest of accolades. After spending a year in the studio in sporadic bursts, their debut album Vanguard of the Young and Reckless was released in June through Ground Swell/Warner.
It received six nominations from the 2010 Nova Scotia Music Awards running Nov. 4 to 7. That’s not too shabby for a band that’s been together for just two years.
“We don’t think about it too much. We just take it one step at a time, make new fans and celebrate the little victories.”
The Stanfields are on a coast-to-coast tour with a stop at The Taphouse on Friday, Oct. 22 with opening act Birthday Boys.
All the band members, including Jason Wright (bouzouki), Jason MacIssac (guitar), Craig Harris (bass) and Mark Murphy (drums), hail from gritty Nova Scotia towns where booming kitchen parties are a big source of entertainment.
In addition to this East Coast Celtic immersion, the band grew up listening to a cross section of music that ranged from AC/DC and John Prine to James Brown and Britney Spears.
Since their formation in 2008, they’ve wasted no time blending all these influences into full-throttle shows that leave them sweat-soaked.
“The place defines what songs we play and we tailor our material to audiences from punk to blue hairs.”
Usually East Coast music emphasizes good times and family values, but Vanguard explores the darker, unspoken side of Maritime living.
In addition to the The Dirtiest Drunk, an ode to substance-driven lunacy, there’s Ship to Shore, a song highlighting the ripple effect of war and is identified by a cascading duel between MacIssac on guitar and Wright on bouzouki.
Ghost of the Eastern Seaboard relates a cautionary tale of drug smuggling and Dagger Woods is a dementia-fuelled whirlwind of a real place just outside Antigonish.
“We are going to put on a gong show for sure. We don’t hold back. There’s no pretence.”
