The Glorious Sons

Sending out an S.O.S., The Glorious Sons take their latest album out on tour, coming to the Hi-Fi in Indy, September 30 with Welshly Arms and Charming Liars

S.O.S. — It’s not a typical acronym used to hype up a tour, but for Canada’s The Glorious Sons, it’s a perfect choice. S.O.S. is not just a cry for help etched in the depths of The Glorious Sons’ lyrical attic of thoughts, but it also represents the immediacy of the band’s passion for rock and a sense of overcoming the obstacles, all blooming from their recent single, “Sawed Off Shotgun.”

Brett Emmons calls it the best song on their latest release Young Beauties and Fools. “This song speaks to the times. Everybody needs help. Everybody needs each other. It took a while to convince everyone else to go to radio with it because of the mention of a gun. Everyone is so afraid to say the wrong thing because so many people are going through so many hardships. And everyone seems to be turning on each other instead of coming together. I also think it’s a song people need to hear.”

The Glorious Sons – Sawed Off Shotgun

For the singer and main songwriter, a song like this is not just unleashing emotions and pointing to the outside world’s fallacies, but a intricate perspective of internal struggle that dominates Young Beauties and Fools.

“I need to rest my poor heart,” Brett opens up the album. “My Poor Heart” feels more like an exodus then a recoiling effect. The music—fueled by Chris Koster and Brett’s brother Jay on guitar, Adam Paquette on drums and Chris Huot on bass—pushes the band into unchartered territory as the introspective boat sails away from the shore, uncertain of its destination but relieved for making the journey. Personal recollections and internal hurdles are not unusual exploratory topics.

“When we met the producers Fast Friends (Frederik Thaae, Ryan Spraker, and Tom Peyton) who were joining us for the new album, they were drawn to the more personal lyrics and more introspective stories. That gave me the confidence to continue writing that way and continue to challenge my writing voice. Sometimes It takes another opinion. A lot of times I will ask what people think about a song. I can be very annoying. You have to understand what is right about the song versus what is best for it. You need that perspective to help with the interpretation.

When you are making a record you are starting a relationship with people you don’t have with hardly anybody else. It’s a close personal relationship and really important to your career. So there is something that you gotta be willing to mortgage with other people and trust them with. Also in your heart of hearts you know what’s best. You can’t let somebody else make your record. They can influence it, but they cannot take it and make it their own.”

The Glorious Sons – Everything is Alright Official Video

With 2014’s The Union album, the band landed seven consecutive Top 10 rock radio tracks, won two SiriusXM Indie Awards (Group of the Year and Rock Group of the Year) and received a Juno Award nomination in 2015 for Rock Album of the Year. All of these things propelled the band into the limelight, but personally, the group did not want to continue down the same musical path. They wanted more. They wanted to evolve.

The Glorious Sons – Heavy Official Video

“The last album was meat and potatoes. And that’s good. I’m proud of that album. But three years of getting compared to Lynard Skynard and southern rock bands made me realize rock and roll does not need to be a throwback. It needs to be unique to the times and made available to the 21st Century.”

Even the dark shadows lead to the light and as the group reaches “I Got So Much Love To Give,” the song acts as a beacon of hope amongst human imperfections Brett brings out on songs like “Everything is Alright” or “Godless, Graceless and Young.” There’s a satisfaction to both sides of the coin and from conceptualization to the stage, Brett realizes all of the important facets of making these songs work.

“For me, the most personal I feel to the song is usually when I am in my bedroom playing it. When you are alone and writing a song and working the kinks out, you are undergoing therapy. Playing these songs live you can feel very close, as well. A lot of it depends on how the show is going and how the audience is reacting. If you have 5,000 people singing your song, it’s like you are giving something away and they are giving something back to you. It’s different night to night. There are some songs you have heard a thousand times and you have played a thousands times. There are different people every night wanting to hear it again. If you are telling the same story over and over to your friends, people stop being interested in it. But the music, it grows.”

The Glorious Sons will continue to tour and write new material into 2019 and just trying to continually be better.