Matt Goud aka Northcote is excited to bring his band and new CD “Hope Is Made of Steel“ on tour with The Glorious Sons and Poor Young Things.
They visit Average Joes, Oct. 18.
While Northcote’s usual solo acoustic folk stylings may seem like a contrast to The Glorious Sons’ brand of hyperactive rock and roll, he says his band including Stephen McGillivray (guitar), Mike Battle (bass) and Derek Heathfield (drums) will fit right in.
“We’re excited for the opportunity to play with a band whose songs have been played on the radio,” Goud said, noting the band begins their eight week tour with the bands in Winnipeg. They just finished a tour of Quebec followed by the Maritimes and are taking a breather before they hot the road with the Glorious Sons.
“It will definitely be different, but it will be a good show,” he said.
“It will definitely be a good time,” he continued, adding they will be focusing on material from the new album which they have been working on for the past 12-18 months.
“We’ve been playing the songs on our European and U.S tours, but this is the first tour in support of the album,” he said.
He noted he sat down last summer with producer David Genn and played him 30 songs he wrote for the album and chose the eclectic dozen to appear on it.
“I could have recorded an album of songs that all sounded alike. But this album was mostly about the energy. I wanted to keep the energy up,” he continued.
“An album is a snapshot of where you were at that point in time, so those songs are part of that batch,” he said adding working with Genn allowed him and the band to expand their sound from the more acoustic based music they are best known for.
“Working with Dave was basically giving ourselves permission to do more production on the album,” he said.
“He’s worked on a lot of great albums, so there were lots of possibilities,” he continued adding they began the actual recording process of the album last September and worked on it throughout the year in between tours.
The new sound also allowed Goud to experiment with guitar solos.
“That was fun, for sure,” he said adding the spirit of the song itself was foremost in his mind.
“ I wanted write each song with a different feel,” he said , noting he could have done a CD with all similar sounding song,s but wanted them all to stand out on their own.
He also included special guests on his CD including “ two of my favourite friends” Chuck Ragan on the first track “This is Our Time” and David Hause who is on “Stronger Than You Know” as well as people he has always been a fan of like Hannah Georgas who is on the title track and plays piano on a couple of other tracks.
“ I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, so I was quite thrilled when she agreed to be on the CD,” he said.
“ I’m excited about this CD. It feels like we’ve experimented. I noted heavier guitar effects because I‘ve been getting more comfortable playing electric guitar, he said.
“This is more direct,” he said.
Advance tickets are $17 or $20 at the door. The show begins at 8 p.m., Oct. 18.
