{"id":19132,"date":"2020-02-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-29T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=19132"},"modified":"2020-03-03T09:20:43","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T17:20:43","slug":"reuben-and-the-dark-keep-the-conversation-alive-through-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/02\/29\/reuben-and-the-dark-keep-the-conversation-alive-through-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Reuben and the Dark keep the conversation alive through music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reuben Bullock wants to give people new ways of opening up their hearts and their minds. The vocalist\/guitarist of the Calgary alt-rock band Reuben and the Dark is touring his latest album, un | love<\/i>, and doing things a little bit differently this time around.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The album\u2014Bullock\u2019s third studio release\u2014came to fruition while he was on vacation in Mexico, taking time to relax from life on the road. Bullock felt the spark of creativity and began writing. <\/i>The album wholly captures the essence of each of the spaces it was created in. Bullock and his band started recording demos in a small cabin in the jungle, playing next to open doors and windows. Some aspects of the ambient textures of the surrounding wilderness can be heard on each track. After polishing the songs in what he calls a \u201cfancy\u201d studio in Montreal, Bullock decided to finish the vocals in a friend\u2019s apartment bedroom. This brought the project full circle, creating a wholeness to the soundscape much greater than the sum of its parts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Reuben Bullock of Calgary alt-rockers Reuben and the Dark uses his music to bridge gaps (photo by Sheva Kafai).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t know when a good time to make something is, it just kind of happens,\u201d says Bullock. \u201cI just started writing and writing, so I called a couple of the guys in the band and they came out [to the cabin] and we just jumped in. I wasn\u2019t planning on making another album for a year or two, but when it\u2019s time, you gotta do it when you feel inspired.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having written hundreds of songs in his career, Bullock believes the measure of a good song comes from feeling the immediate urge to share it with somebody.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt may sound strange, but if I sing something and I get goosebumps myself, that\u2019s when I know I\u2019m on to something good. If it can affect me like that when I\u2019m doing it, then I know it\u2019s going to affect other people,\u201d says Bullock. \u201cThat\u2019s how this whole record came about\u2014all the songs on it are ones that really got me going one way or another. I didn\u2019t overthink this album at all; this album all came straight from the heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bullock says that he\u2019s at a point now where he understands that everything he says makes him vulnerable in one way or another. Through the act of weaving personal stories into song, he has found a healthy way to disassociate from his art; by sharing them, they belong to everybody.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t go up onstage night after night and say these personal, vulnerable things and be affected by how everyone is looking at me; you\u2019d feel naked, like someone reading your journal,\u201d he says. \u201cSomething happens at a certain stage along the way where I start calling it a song and no longer a bleeding-heart confession, and the brutal personal details that are in there, they become story and they become song, and that\u2019s how I step back. Once they\u2019re written, they belong to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently on what he calls a \u201cwhirlwind\u201d of a cross-Canada tour, Bullock wants to cultivate a feeling of opening and of bringing people closer together. Throughout the tour, Bullock and his band are actively working to bridge gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. They are making stops in high schools across the country and using music as a platform to engage in open conversation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe more I travel the country, the more I meet people, it\u2019s become super important to me to be having those conversations and seeing what I can do to become a part of that healing, whatever that may be,\u201d says Bullock. \u201cI\u2019ve realized that music has this way of bridging gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reuben and the Dark
\n8 pm Wednesday, March 4
\n$18.50 (includes digital copy of un | love<\/i>), Capital Ballroom
\nthecapitalballroom.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reuben Bullock wants to give people new ways of opening up their hearts and their minds. The vocalist\/guitarist of the Calgary alt-rock band Reuben and the Dark is touring his latest album, un | love, and doing things a little bit differently this time around.\u00a0 The album\u2014Bullock\u2019s third studio release\u2014came to fruition while he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19133,"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":[4,249],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-march-4-2020"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19132","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=19132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19134,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19132\/revisions\/19134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}