As a part of their Contender Tour, The Glorious Sons took the stage at The Louder than Life festival with a solid performance that hit the audience hard and showed everyone why they deserved to be there. We got the opportunity to briefly catch up with Jay Emmons and Chris Koster from the band.
UG: You guys are from Kingston, Ontario right?
Jay: Yeah!
UG: I know Brett was living in Halifax before joining the band, how did everyone come together?
Jay: Brett and I are brothers and we have been in bands together all our lives. Kind of on and off and my intention was to initially start a band with him in Halifax, but that never worked out. Then I started the band in Kingston, Ontario and Brett ended up moving back and joining the band… The rest is history!
UG: How has it been working with your Brother? After spending day and night together is there ever any tension?
Jay: He’s a squirrely little bastard… No no he’s great! I always tell the story of the first time I heard him sing as a lead singer I was like “I need to play with this guy!” It’s been good but obviously we have blow ups like brothers do.
UG: From what you have seen so far, how does the music scene differ in the U.S. compared to Ontario?
Jay: It’s a huge difference actually. The market down here is so much bigger. First of all, you guys like heavy music down here and in Canada it’s not as heavy. Radio rock in Canada could be anywhere from 3 Days Grace to Guess Who style stuff. Down here you guys listen to a lot heavier music.
UG: Most of the band members are vocalists themselves from what I’ve heard, is that right?
Jay: Yeah, We got five singers in the band!
UG: How is the songwriting process with so much vocal talent?
Chris: Whatever the songs call for we just try to find something. If it’s not something for people to hear we just don’t do it, and we don’t need to force it in there. It’s more like just serving the song. If someone hears an idea for some backups or something like that, we just try to serve the tune song by song.
UG: One thing I have noticed about listening to your recordings is the amount of emotion and passion conveyed, and it almost feels like a live performance. Do you find that hard to capture?
Jay: Definitely! I think with our album we would have liked to capture a little more of that…
Chris: It’s a really difficult thing, and it’s like capturing lightning in a bottle. I had a friend of ours in my old band say “Why don’t you guys just make a record that sounds like you do you live?” It’s just kind of like “That’s what everyone tries to do.” It really is a difficult thing and it’s a completely different animal… The studio and the stage.
Jay: You don’t get away with things in the studio that you get away with on stage. We’re very much more a live band than we are a studio band.
Chris: Which is better than the opposite I must say. You know when you hear somebodies record and it sounds amazing, but then you go see them and are let down. So… I would rather do the opposite and make really shitty records.
UG: You have released a full length album and an EP. Between both of these you have produced four music videos, which seems more than the usual. Do you guys enjoy producing these?
Chris: There is a fifth one now coming out!
Jay: We got the contender video coming out and it’s going to be quite hilarious I think. Features a lot of really good acting from all of the members.
Chris: Thespians
Jay: We just kind of do music videos as we are told to do them.
Chris: We’re corporate puppets!
Jay: We’re not actors… We’re just musicians. Our new music video will be funny, so keep your eyes peeled!
Chris: I actually just joined this band, so I’m only couple of months in. These guys had a member leave and I slid in there, so that’s my first video and they fucking dressed me like a lunatic. Seriously… It looks great!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHomTO2Yd8s]UG: Does it feel weird getting in front of the camera then?Chris: When you’re dressed like an idiot yeah! It’s kind of an idiotic video though and it’s going to be funny. It’s like Jay said we’re not actors, but it’s a necessary evil I guess. Part of the… I don’t even know who watches video anymore, but I guess they are good to have.
UG: I think everyone still watches videos, the method of delivery I think is just different.
Chris: The YouTube thing… Yeah I heard about that. They got that one on computers now right?
UG: Yeah! It’s been almost a year since the last album, how much do you think you have evolved as a band since then?
Jay: Quite a bit… It’s just about work. The more you work at something the more you reap the rewards. As far as evolving goes, I guess that depends on the songs that we make. I know we have all became better as musicians and we have played hundreds of shows and that makes a huge difference in the sound. It’s a work in progress always. I guess the biggest testament will be once we release the new record and we will see how much we have evolved. It doesn’t exist yet, but we got a couple of songs that we are going to drop. So… Yeah we still got a whole record to make.
UG: We definitely can’t wait! We are fans ourselves and think your music is awesome! Just starting in Ontario and already making it down to the US, The Glorious Sons have really gone far in a short period of time. Do you ever just stop and say wow?
Jay: Yeah every day! But it’s also like “Let your foot off the pedal and it all disappears”, so we don’t want to do that.
Chris: We don’t want to get too self-congratulatory. It’s nice to look around and be like… I grew up listening to Skid Row and shit like that and they’re a trailer apart from us tonight and I just watched their set! If you told the younger me that this was going to happen… It’s just kind of crazy the situations you find yourself in… You know? But at the same time, you don’t want to start patting yourself on the back and take your eyes off the prize. It’s like Jay said it’s always work and it’s always going to be.
You can get all the latest information on The Glorious Sons with their Official Site and Facebook Pages.
Make sure you catch their latest single “Sometimes on a Sunday”.
