Halifax’s Chester Doom Releases the Epic “Not Far Behind” From CROWS GO HOME Album
Chester Doom is a rock & roll juggernaut that knows how to bring the house down! These lifelong musicians are on a mission to prove that rock & roll is alive and kicking harder than ever before by mixing equal parts punk rock attitude and Southern rock soul and drawing inspiration from the classic rock gods like Led Zeppelin, Rush, Guns N’ Roses, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, as well as modern icons like Tool and Linkin Park.
Hailing from the rocky shores of Atlantic Canada, the band is fronted by powerhouse vocalist Josh Best, who can switch effortlessly between soulful ballads and face-melting anthems and has been hailed as one of Canada’s most promising rock vocalists, drawing comparisons to Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington. He’s backed by the riff-tastic duo of rhythm guitarist Patrick Blackie and lead guitarist Kellan Menhennett, who never fail to get the crowd jumping. Keyboardist Dave Mackenzie adds an extra layer of sonic texture, while the rhythm section of brothers Glenn Arseneau on bass and Peter Arseneau on drums keep the beat pounding.
Best wrote “Not Far Behind” in the spring of 2022 while recovering from Covid-19 and being bombarded with news of the then-recent invasion of Ukraine. He was inspired both by the resiliency of the Ukrainian people and more generally by what the world had gone through in the previous two years with the global pandemic.
Step over the bodies
Dear please close your eyes, yeah
I swear that I’m not far behind
I’m not far behind
The idea that no matter how dark things get, we are never truly alone resonates with Chester Doom—and the epic anthem “Not Far Behind” is the rocking result.
Their highly anticipated album CROWS GO HOME will be unleashed in the summer of 2023.
Watch the video for “Not Far Behind” below and learn more about Chester Doom via our mini-interview.
Care to introduce yourself?
Hey! We’re Chester Doom, a six-piece rock n’ roll band out of Halifax, NS. We started the band in 2020 as something to do during the pandemic and with no real intention of anything beyond writing some songs together. We even said when we started “we won’t play shows or anything, it’ll be casual!”, which lasted about two seconds. Once we started working together the chemistry was obvious immediately and we knew this was going to grow much larger than our original plan, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. We released our first single “Monsoon” in January of 2022, our first EP “Masks” in June 2022, and our next EP “Crows Go Home” is coming out June 23, 2023.
Tell us about the process of writing “Not Far Behind?”
Josh (vocals) wrote the song in the spring of 2022, just as the war in Ukraine was starting. He was deeply influenced by news of that going on and wanted to write something that spoke to both what the Ukrainian people were facing as well as feelings everyone was having after living with the pandemic for over two years at that point. He’d lost his singing voice completely at the time due to a bout with Covid, and we were all a bit concerned (no one more than he was!) that it may never come back or, if it did, that his range and power would be limited. He kept telling us that he had written a new song but wasn’t able to sing it yet, so we were all anxious to hear what he’d come up with. Thankfully, a few weeks later his voice was back just as powerful as ever and we were all blown away by the song, which was “Not Far Behind”. The whole band immediately saw its potential and we felt that it could be one of our strongest songs. The very first time we jammed it out together as a band all of the pieces just fell into place, and it went into our set immediately.
What’s it like being a musician in Halifax?
Being obviously on the smaller side as a city, Halifax has kind of always punched above its weight when it comes to having a music scene. Many people say “it’s not like it was in the 90s” (when Sloan and company were blowing up), which is true, but there’s a thriving scene here with tons of killer bands and artists. There’s still a huge appetite for guitar-based music here, which is great for us and our tastes. The smallness of it means you get to know the other bands really well and there’s a camaraderie here among bands that may be harder to get in bigger cities like Montreal or Toronto.
Who was the first Canadian artist to blow you away?
With six members we have a pretty broad range of tastes and influences, but one of the very few that’s consistent across all band members is Rush. They were an early and deep influence on each of us individually and we find that influence sneaking its way into some of our songs, even though we’d never claim to be anywhere close to the technical wizards they are!
You’ve been making music for a while now, what’s one piece of advice you can offer to those starting out?
Just keep doing it. It sounds cliché (and it is), but it’s really the only way to grow or get better at anything. Whether that’s songwriting, playing live, or even the business side of things, everything gets easier with practice. Another thing that we find key is making an effort to finish things when they come up. Rather than leaving 50 scraps of ideas laying around, we’ll make a conscious effort to turn an idea into a full song as soon as possible so that we don’t lose the magic of that initial spark. It also means we have a backlog of 30 or 40 finished songs that haven’t been released yet that we can pull from any time, and that pile just keeps growing. It’s a good problem to have but one that we wouldn’t be able to capitalize on if we didn’t consciously try and finish songs rather than leaving them at the idea stage.