Mar. 06, 2013 - Issue #907: Garbage Goes Green
100 Mile House
Here's to a positive 2013 / Detour Photography
"It seemed everyone you spoke to was having a hard time. Apparently 2013 is supposed to be the payoff, though," chuckles Peter Stone of the folk trio 100 Mile House in reference to a particularly difficult 2012.
Stone explains that it seemed as though the year was a difficult one in many regards for not only the band—rounded out by Stone's wife Denise MacKay and multi-instrumentalist Scott Zubot—but for those close to them as well. It was a year where relationships crumbled and loved ones were lost, which was made even more disheartening by the fact that many of those who passed away were quite young.
"Everyone we knew had some kind of big change in their lives, and for us personally, it was the hardest year we'd had, and we've been married for eight years," Stone adds.
These ups and downs made their way into the introspective and emotion-packed lyrics on Wait WIth Me, the third full-length from 100 Mile House, as well as its first release under Chronograph Records. At the beginning of 2012 the band had enough songs for a new album, but as the year unfolded and adversity kept coming many of those songs were replaced with new ones that were reflective of what the band was going through.
"I think it just gives a voice to them. It helps. At times it can be hard to sing certain songs if they come from a really sad place, but it's always sort of exorcising the demons. It's always good to get it out," Stone says. "Hopefully the songs can help someone else as well."
Weathering tough times is made a little easier with a strong support system at your side, much like Stone has with MacKay and Zubot. He credits his band mates with making the songs what they are and assisting in effectively expressing the lyrics to their full extent. Stone explains that he'll often begin a song and dislike it until he brings it to the group where, with the help of MacKay's vocals and Zubot's fiddle, it takes shape.
"They really make all the difference, even though the basis of the songs comes from me. Every now and then I'll get up and play a couple of songs by myself somewhere and it will suck, not having their voices beside me," he says with a chuckle. "Especially singing the songs with Denise as opposed to maybe writing the songs and then singing them with someone who wasn't experiencing the same things I was in the songs ... the fact that we're going through things together and singing these songs together adds another dimension."
Sat, Mar 9 (7:30 pm)
With Amy van Keeken
Roxy Theatre, $15
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