{"id":9107,"date":"2014-06-05T08:05:10","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T15:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=9107"},"modified":"2014-06-11T09:17:17","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T16:17:17","slug":"jon-and-roy-return-with-new-album-continue-to-chill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2014\/06\/05\/jon-and-roy-return-with-new-album-continue-to-chill\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon and Roy return with new album, continue to chill"},"content":{"rendered":"

On their fifth full-length release, By My Side<\/i>, Victoria-based Jon and Roy continue their highly successful blend of acoustic guitar, smooth vocals, and unique drum beats. The pair of musicians, singer\/guitarist Jon Middleton and drummer\/percussionist Roy Vizer, has been playing together on the West Coast for years, as is evident in their music.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Spoiler: there’s a third member in Jon and Roy! Mind = blown. (Photo by Erica Chan.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve definitely honed our craft when it comes to the studio, how we are able to get things done, and how we approach things,\u201d says Vizer. \u201cWe\u2019ve learned a lot about ourselves and how to make that process function better over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album is the finished product of numerous songs created by the duo. Seven tracks in length, it\u2019s a short and dense mix of solid, acoustically driven tunes. Not unlike the band\u2019s past three albums, their latest release is relaxing, chill, and easy to hum along to, says Vizer.<\/p>\n

\u201cJon and I are both pretty chill people. And that comes across in our music for sure,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

By My Side<\/i> builds on the success of the duo\u2019s key \u201cchill\u201d ingredient and adds a little more depth to the sound.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis album seems like we\u2019re pushing the envelope a little more and getting a little more intense with the vocals, and maybe a few interplays that are happening between the drums and the guitar,\u201d says Vizer.<\/p>\n

After being in the studio for so long and learning to work closely together as a tightly knit group, the duo have been able to continually evolve their sound.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gone through different phases with our music,\u201d says Vizer. \u201cAt the beginning we were listening to a lot of reggae and a lot of that kind of thing made its way into our music a little bit more. Our past few albums were more on the folk-ier side of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vizer also acknowledges that on By My Side<\/i>, they were okay with leaving little hiccups or tiny mistakes in the songs themselves, more so than in the past, when they felt everything needed to be perfect.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have that capability in the studio now,\u201d he says, \u201cwhere we can afford to let ourselves go.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Jon and Roy\u2019s recordings mainly consist of quiet guitar and soft percussion, their live performances are a different story. Jon and Roy have played everywhere from Alix Goolden Hall, to Sugar nightclub, to local festivals like VIC Fest (see story on page 8).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen playing live shows our music conveys a much higher energy level than on our albums,\u201d says Vizer. \u201cFlexibility is definitely important as a musician; you have to be able to adapt and play all different kinds of venues. It\u2019s always been really fun for us to play outside in the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

By My Side<\/i> suits an outdoor atmosphere perfectly. The title track conjures up images of a long, sleepy car ride for a road trip up island, and \u201cWhere\u2019d My Light Go\u201d is a perfect song to sing around a campfire surrounded by friends on a hot August evening.<\/p>\n

Jon and Roy have an amazing ability to continually create music that makes people feel good when listening to it, and what could possibly be a better or nobler motive than that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On their fifth full-length release, By My Side, Victoria-based Jon and Roy continue their highly successful blend of acoustic guitar, smooth vocals, and unique drum beats. The pair of musicians, singer\/guitarist Jon Middleton and drummer\/percussionist Roy Vizer, has been playing together on the West Coast for years, as is evident in their music. \u201cWe\u2019ve definitely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9108,"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":[4,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-june-11-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9107","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=9107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9162,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9107\/revisions\/9162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}