Harlan Pepper

Ric Taylor – The View

Taking influence from long car rides and camping trips, after school jams and underage partying – from the streets of Hamilton to the Alleghany Mountains – the four young men that came to form Harlan Pepper offer some mature content and performances, far above most of their contemporaries, even though they’ve just only graduated high school.

But the individual members have seemingly paid their dues, spending the last two years honing their craft – and it didn’t hurt having people like Tom Wilson (Lee Harvey Osmond, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Junkhouse) and Ralph Nicole (the Saloonatics) as fathers for two of the members. In fact, the whole Harlan Pepper extended family have rallied to make videos, book shows, design CDs, load gear, develop songwriting and performing skills and otherwise help out the boys to make their musical dreams come true. It’s not surprising the performances on their debut CD, Young and Old, are as mature and fleshed out, representing songs well beyond their years.

The ballad of Harlan Pepper began when Jimmy Hayes (guitar, harmonica, pedal steel), and Thompson Wilson (bass, vocals) joined Dan Edmonds (keyboards, banjo, vocals), and Marlon Nicolle (drums, percussion, vocals) for some jam sessions at Nicolle’s parents’ Napier Street home during their first year of high school.

“The four of us just clicked together musically,” remembers Edmonds. “We all shared the same taste in music and from when we were 13 on; we continued to improve on our instruments but the band hasn’t changed at all since. All of us are really good friends and we all love playing music much more than we like going to school. We all were on the same music – like The Band, and the Flying Burrito Brothers.”

“Marlon’s father Ralph taught us everything we know about music,” he adds. “From Hank Williams, to Harry Nilsson, he showed us song after song of his favourites growing up. Every Saturday and Sunday we would walk down Locke street, past Rolly Rockets BBQ, which at the time was G.P Grumpy’s, to his house and play music all day.”

Taking the name of a character in Christopher Guest’s film Best in Show, Harlan Pepper became steeped in their parents’ old records but approached them from their own perspectives – mining country, rock, blues and pop from an indie rock advantage.

With their first bit of exposure via YouTube after father Tom Wilson filmed the band at an annual May long weekend retreat to the Allegany Mountains, the song ‘Great Lakes’ introduced the internet world to the sounds of Harlan Pepper.

“During that long weekend, all we do is play music in the rustic cabin, sans electricity and plumbing, with nothing but a wood stove, six cots, a bunch of harmonicas, acoustic guitars and a banjo – and so when Dan’s mom, Michelle, sketched a picture of the cabin, we knew it was perfect for the album cover,” recalls Hayes. “That was May of last year when “Great Lakes” was uploaded to YouTube and a few months after that, Big Tom brought out the camera again, this time to film us playing “Reefer” out on the street. We had no past credentials or recordings under our belt, so we were pretty dependant on those videos to get our name out there and our first few shows around Hamilton.

“It was when we were sixteen that we actually started playing shows around Hamilton, places like Fenian Films and the Casbah – that got us started as performers,” adds Edmonds. “Our families have been so damn supportive of the band. Ralph has been teaching us since we were little. He’s helped get us to gigs, set up, tear down, and he’s not afraid to say what we did wrong, too. I think when we began playing for the public we knew so much to begin with, it just was a matter of getting up and doing what he showed us.

Having Tom Wilson as one of the parents definitely helps us out so much. We played our very first show ‘cause of Tom. He keeps us in line too and we learn a lot from him at every single show. My parents are both graphic designers so when it came to the look of our CD, T–shirts, and a website, my parents did it all. Were all really proud of how the CD looks. Jimmy’s parents have been crucial too. When it comes to transportation, Jimmy’s Dad has driven us to gigs in Barrie, Toronto, Port Dover, all over Southern Ontario. He’s been a huge help with gigs. All of our parents have different things that they can help us with and we would not be where we are without all of their help.

I think it helps too because we’re not playing heavy metal or crazy electronic music. We all grew up listening to what our parents played in the car, so that sort of music is what we make. Now our music gets played quite a bit driving to shows and stuff.”

Recorded at Vibewrangler Studio with Aaron Goldstein producing, Harlan Pepper offers a lot to listen to over the course of nine songs – alt–country, hard rock, blues and folk all blend together but it’s the enunciation in vocals, the cadence of phrasing, both songs and performance, while simple in structure, betray some serious crafting in lyric and arrangement. It’s the subtlety and nuances of every detail that makes Harlan Pepper’s Young and Old an astounding debut.

And all the friends and family that helped along the way and many others will surely be joining in on– and off–stage for the Young and Old CD release party this weekend.

“We were thinking about titles for our album, and there’s a line from [the song] “Great Lakes”, that goes ‘I spoke, folks gathered young and old,’” explains Edmonds. “This kind of summed up the band for me. We play music that tends to attract the older crowd, and at the same time, young folks dig it, too. It’s a blend of new independent music that we all listen to like Zeus, Joel Plaskett, and The Black Keys, but at the same time, every song comes out sounding vintage. We listen to so much music from the past like Buck Owens and Bob Dylan that we can’t create music without those influences in there. To me a song needs substance, and should tell a story. I might be biased but folk music; the blues, rock ‘n roll, and country are the finest forms of songwriting.”

“The fun thing about the shows is the way we’ll jump from a down–home,  washboard–banjo tune to an over–driven mooged–out rock and roll song – we definitely like to keep the crowd on their toes in that aspect of the show,” notes Hayes. “For the CD release, we’re inviting different guests whom we’ve had the pleasure of playing with in the last year to come up and lead us through one or two of their own songs. Our “First Waltz” is definitely us paying homage to the Band and their “Last Waltz,” an homage to the way we began playing and paying homage to some of the local musicians we admire.”

“Our music sounds different than what other emerging bands sound like and we’re proud of that,” adds Edmonds. “We make the music that we want to make, and that’s what a band should do. They should make the music that reflects what they love, if you love what you’re creating; chances are others will, too.”

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