The Heavyweights Brass Band Announce New Album, Knockout and Deliver a “Splacka” Punch of Funk and Soul
After 15 years of bringing the party wherever they play, The Heavyweights Brass Band are ready to make you dance, strut, and testify with their fifth full-length album, Knockout, dropping June 27, 2025. With a sound steeped in New Orleans brass traditions, Toronto’s reigning brass band champions fuse jazz, funk, and soul into a heady, horn-heavy celebration of everything that makes music joyful and alive.
Their lead single “Carnicero” arrived April 25 and nods to their roots and their future. Written by sousaphone sensation Nolan Murphy, the track is a Latin-influenced shout-out to the band’s co-founder Christopher Butcher, who now calls New Orleans home. Think street parades, steamy late-night clubs, and a trumpet line that makes your heart do backflips. This is the kind of song that makes you want to dance in traffic.
Follow-up single “Splacka” out now, and you’ll know why they call it that as soon as the drums kick in. “It’s funk from the jump,” says trombonist RJ Satchithananthan, who composed the track. “The name ‘Splacka’ is literally the sound of the beat.” The track’s got that classic sitcom-style band intro energy — full of swagger, horn call-and-response, and a groove so deep you’ll need a passport.
And just when you think you’ve caught your breath, the album closer “Greater Good” (out June 27 with the album) brings it all back to the bayou.
“It’s our love letter to New Orleans brass bands,” the group says, name-checking heroes like Rebirth, Dirty Dozen, and Hot 8. “This is who we are, and who we’ve always aspired to be.”
Knockout was recorded over two days at Taurus Studios, with the entire band playing together in one room. That energy — that sweat-on-the-walls, live-off-the-floor magic — is the soul of the album. With 11 songs and contributions from a new generation of jazz trailblazers like Kae Murphy (trumpet) and Nolan Murphy (tuba), the album is both a celebration and a passing of the torch.
“The Toronto brass scene has grown so much,” the band says. “Including younger musicians who are pushing boundaries was vital for this project.”
In their own words,
“The Heavyweights Brass Band is a flag planted in the middle of the dancefloor. We hit hard with groove, energy, and originality. We’ve always believed in putting our personalities in the music, from gritty funk to bold soul to pure brass band joy. This record shows where we’ve been — and where we’re going.”
Formed in 2010, HWBB has carved out a unique place in Canadian music. From sweaty club gigs to festival stages, they’ve opened for The Roots, jammed with Trombone Shorty, and recorded with everyone from Giovanni Hidalgo to Joe Lastie of Preservation Hall. They’ve earned standing ovations from the Toronto Jazz Festival to hometown bars and built a catalogue of genre-bending originals and electrifying covers.
To celebrate the release of Knockout, the band will appear at the Toronto Jazz Festival on June 28, 2025 (details TBA). Expect two trumpets, a sousaphone, a drum kit, and enough brass swagger to power a second line through downtown traffic.
Hi Paul! Good to meet you! Care to introduce yourself to the readers for those not familiar with your music?
Hi, thanks for having me! I’m a saxophone player based in Toronto and one of the founding members of The Heavyweights Brass Band. I’m from Winnipeg, MB, originally, and moved to Toronto in 2007 to pursue a career in music. I got a taste for the New Orleans sound back in Winnipeg when Herlin Riley, the phenomenal New Orleans drummer, performed at the University of Manitoba, where I got my music degree. His playing had such exuberance and joy that I was hooked immediately.
In Toronto, I found a group that was jamming on New Orleans second line music. I was especially excited to find the drummer, Lowell Whitty, there. He played with that energy and feel that reminded me of Herlin’s playing, so I knew I had to play with him more. We played together from then on and started The Heavyweights Brass Band in 2010.
Fifteen years of brass power! When you look back on your first gig in 2010, what’s the biggest way the band—and your sound—has evolved since then?
When we started, we all had a love for brass band music, but honestly hadn’t delved deeply into it yet. I first experienced New Orleans music through studying the history of jazz, listening to groups like Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five, Sidney Bechet, and Jelly Roll Morton. I, like most of the band members, was focused more on jazz music, and how New Orleans was integral in the history of that music. Being mostly jazz-focused players, our first gig sounded more like a jazz group with brass instrumentation. There was more open soloing, chords, and head-based songs.
I’d say the biggest difference is how we use the tuba in the music. We originally wrote tuba parts that were more like the walking bass lines a stand-up bass in jazz swing music would play. Through our time as a group, I was introduced to brass bands like Rebirth, Dirty Dozen, and Hot 8. Those groups showed us the kind of weight and presence the tuba can have in this music. The style also has a lot more R&B and funk in the feel than we had played with at that first gig.
I was listening back to one of the first songs I wrote for the band, Heavyweight Don’t Bring Me Down. The tuba is light and bouncy. It bobs along as an accompaniment and doesn’t get in the way. I then compared that to the arrangement I did of Cheap Thrills 15 years later on the new album. The tuba has a weight that’s brassy and imposing. The lines are simpler but more solid and wider-sounding. I learned from listening to those brass bands that the tuba is at the forefront of the sound.
You recorded Knockout live-off-the-floor in two days. What kind of magic—or chaos—happens when the whole band is in the same room?
It’s always a rush to record live-off-the-floor. We’re always trying to capture the energy of a live show, which can be difficult in the sterile setting of a recording studio. We find that playing all together as opposed to layering the parts gives us the best opportunity to get the feel and energy gelling together. The magic in the room really comes when we play off of each other and react in real time. I feel the most energy when the tuba and drums lock in on the groove and they’re playing together live and in sync. We all feed off of that too and build the energy together. I noticed this especially on the title track “Knockout.” The song has this forward momentum that is propelled by that live connection.
There can be complications with live-off-the-floor, too. If one of us gets a little out-of-sync we have to start the track over. There’s even a chance that when a player does something really well that I have the potential to lose focus. I was right beside RJ Satchithananthan, our trombone player, in the studio, and when he was rocking out his part in songs like South Country, I had to focus more to not be distracted from my own part. I find the best way to deal with that, much like live shows, is to just enjoy playing through every part of it and let the music flow. This is our fifth album, and at this point, I’ve learned that any stress tenses up the sound and compounds on itself. I love the energy of the music in the moment, focusing on that is so joyful, and that comes out in the music.
You’ve played everywhere from festival stages to sweaty clubs—what’s your wildest live show memory that actually made it into this record?
Reminiscing, we’ve definitely racked up a lot of amazing live show memories. Playing Koerner Hall for a Dizzy Gillespie series with the virtuosic conga player Giovanni Hidalgo comes to mind. Most of the audience was there for the band after us, but we came in with an energy that they ate up, and received a standing ovation at the end of our opening set. There was the time we played the last Lorraine’s in Toronto. Lorraine’s was a hush-hush after-hours bar downtown that looked like someone’s one-bedroom apartment. There were so many people rammed in with us, jumping up and down, that it felt like everyone was in the band that night. In our last Canadian tour, we got all the way up to Tofino and played to a packed boathouse with everyone singing along to Rehab even though we’re an instrumental band. Opening for The Roots and getting shots from Black Thought afterwards backstage is up there as well. We even played a canoe gig once, where we all played in one canoe being paddled around Humber Bay.
There is a bit of an odd way that these experiences have made it into this album. I wrote a song called Go On Get Your Groove On. It has a disco feel, and it started out as a song planned for those sweaty dance clubs. As I was writing the song, though, some parts took on a feeling of melancholy. I decided to go with that, as that is another aspect of those live show memories. Every time after each of these moments, I have a feeling of, I wouldn’t say sadness, but melancholy is a good word. I’ve realized it’s not really possible to have highs like that without some of that low afterward. This is the first song I’ve written that I think has both of those aspects to it. I’ve learned to love that feeling as well, and have often used that time to appreciate the highs that preceded it. The song represents the feeling that I can keep grooving through that as well.
You’ve called this album “a flag planted in the middle of the dancefloor.” What’s the secret to writing music that moves people—literally?
I think dance music is all about the feel and the groove of the rhythm section. There’s a reason I’ve latched onto Lowell Whitty, our drummer, all these years. His playing is infectious, and he lays out grooves that affect audiences immediately. When improvising, I take to heart the adage that you play to get the drummer excited, and then that gets the audience excited. We also learned from those incredible brass bands I mentioned earlier that simplicity and a tuba part at the forefront of the music gets people itching to bust a move. When I write songs for this group, I almost always start with the bass line. That might be a bit different approach than writing other for other genres, where melody or harmony are focused on first. If the bass line feels good and makes me move when I’m writing it, then that’s what I base the song on.
Upcoming Shows:
June 20, 2025 – Niagara Jazz Festival: Summer Mardi Gras
Oakes Garden Theatre
5825 River Rd, Niagara Falls, ON
June 28, 2025 – Album Release Show
Toronto Jazz Festival – Village Stage
Village of Yorkville Park
115 Cumberland St, Toronto, ON M5R 1A6
8:30 PM – 9:45 PM
Free Admission
July 2, 3 & 4, 2025 – Montreal Jazz Festival
6:00pm @ Le Cabaret Loto-Québec Stage of the Quartier Des Spectacles
Montreal, QC
Festival details at: montrealjazzfest.com
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