{"id":16931,"date":"2019-01-07T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T17:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=16931"},"modified":"2019-01-21T10:10:52","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T18:10:52","slug":"the-trews-share-their-secrets-with-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/01\/07\/the-trews-share-their-secrets-with-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trews share their secrets with Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Trews have a secret, but they can\u2019t keep it much longer. The rockers are ready to take their sixth studio album, Civilianaires<\/em>, on tour, and lead guitarist John-Angus MacDonald is at home in Hamilton, Ontario, savouring the moments before the band share their latest work with the rest of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the happiest we are as a band is when our new record is finished, but the world doesn\u2019t know about it yet,\u201d says MacDonald. \u201cThat\u2019s a peace of mind that I wish on everybody in the world to experience. Just knowing that you\u2019re confident, you\u2019re happy with the work, and it\u2019s just yours, for now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Trews are getting ready to bring material from their new album, Civilianaires<\/em>, to Victoria (photo by Kayla Rocca).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Trews participate with Pledge Music as a platform for pre-sales of their albums, as well as exclusive items and experiences; MacDonald is grateful for the support from fans but says the band has had to reconsider some of their more elaborate offers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe just went overboard on everything you could purchase,\u201d says MacDonald. \u201cLike buy a street-hockey game with the band, you can buy a house concert, or buy this and that, I\u2019ll do a guitar lesson with people… We just got really over the top with all these different ways you could generate funds to make your record, but then you realize you have to go out and do all that stuff afterwards, and that just led to such an insanely full plate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But those experiences they had with their fans, although at times inconvenient, were still incredibly fun for the band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always usually a really great vibe to actually be that face to face with a bunch of your fans,\u201d says MacDonald. \u201cThe street hockey stuff was super fun. We actually got out there and squared off with some fans and we usually won, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m lying about that. Maybe we lost one out of five, but I think we usually won. They might have been letting us win; I won\u2019t discount that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a band whose members have known each other as friends and family for most\u2014if not all\u2014of their lives, change is inevitable. For example, MacDonald says new drummer Chris Gormley has helped the band to rediscover their strengths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI guess he just reminded us to capture the essence of what we are at our best,\u201d says MacDonald. \u201cThat was exciting and it remains exciting, like now every show feels like an exciting happening again, as opposed to just another show. And a lot of that\u2019s just in your own head, but sometimes it takes somebody to rattle you out of your own head, and that\u2019s certainly what Chris has done for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another change for MacDonald is his approach to writing about love. It\u2019s been a learning experience for MacDonald\u2014who has a long history of writing songs about heartbreak\u2014to incorporate optimism into songs that otherwise may feel hopeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to take this approach more lately in our career,\u201d says MacDonald. \u201cIt takes a little step further to make it not cynical, not accusatory, or not, like, combative. Leave a light at the end of the tunnel on, because that\u2019s sort of the responsible thing to do as you become older and older in this world. I remember Gord Downie saying something very similar to that when I was talking to him about songwriting. He was like, \u2018I\u2019m over the fuck-you songs, I\u2019m done with fuck-you songs, I need hope at the end.\u2019 It doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m all roses and buttercups and this sort of thing. Life\u2019s hard and life is full of tragedy, but I think the responsible thing to do at a certain point is to leave the light on at the end of the tunnel. Leave a shred of hope at the end of the rope, cause that\u2019s what keeps us all going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trews
8 pm Tuesday, January 22
$32.50, Capital Ballroom
thecapitalballroom.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trews have a secret, but they can\u2019t keep it much longer. The rockers are ready to take their sixth studio album, Civilianaires, on tour, and lead guitarist John-Angus MacDonald is at home in Hamilton, Ontario, savouring the moments before the band share their latest work with the rest of the country. \u201cI think the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-january-7-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16933,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16931\/revisions\/16933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}