Toronto Rockers Original Pairs Laugh at the Moochers on New Track “Money on a Tree”
Toronto-based band Original Pairs fuse folk, country, pop, and psychedelia into their own inimitable brand of rock’n’roll. Lead singer and songwriter Andrew Frontini grew up in Kingston, ON where he played in bands with future rock luminaries Gord Downie (Tragically Hip), Hugh Dillon (The Headstones), and Finton Mcconnel (The Mahones). Alongside drummer Lisa Logan, the duo formed Original Pairs and draw on the talents of Berklee-trained multi-instrumentalist Chris Bartos, saxophonist Richard Underhill, keyboardist Jon Loewen and New York-based bassist/guitarist Lynda Krarr to create a rich sonic palette for Frontini’s compositions.
Ever have a time when people just start showing up out of the woodwork? The phone starts ringing with calls from friends you haven’t heard from in years or friends who you didn’t even know you had? That’s when you know you’ve made it! Or at least people think you have and all of a sudden, they want to get close. The new single, “Money on a Tree,” takes a common saying and amps it up into a rock’n’roll diss track, making fun of the moochers one verse at a time and capping it with a tongue-in-cheek chorus.
Watch the video for “Money on a Tree” below and learn more about Original Pairs via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
Original Pairs is a Toronto-based band fusing folk, country, jazz, pop, and psychedelia into their own inimitable brand of rock’ n roll. The group consists of Andrew Frontini on lead vocals and guitar, Lisa Logan on drums, multi-instrumentalist Chris Bartos, Lynda Kraar on bass, and Jon Loewen on keys. The group originally formed in 2008 and released their first Album “Forbidden Fruit” on Spying Dwarf Records in 2009. The band’s long-awaited follow-up, “Natural State” explores the full range of the group’s musical influences wrapping them around a solid core of dark Americana
Tell us a bit about your most recent release.
The new album, “Natural State”, offers a collection of musical short stories, each one a chapter in an “everyman blues” song cycle for our time. It’s musically eclectic but with a consistent atmosphere that draws from a range of musical palettes to bring each of the lyrical protagonists to life. Folk, country, rock’n’roll jazz, and psychedelia all find their way into this collection of 11 original songs. It’s a rock and roll record at its core but with orchestral colourings – strings, pedal steel, moog, and saxophone come and go with the characters.
Where do you tend to pull inspiration from when writing?
Andrew, the singer writes all the songs so far, drawing from the total confusion of being human. Society and its structures, the endless quest for meaning, and our troubled relationship with the rest of creation. That could get pretty pretentious, so we use comic storytelling to bring it home. It’s easier to take your philosophy from some comic loser than a priest or sage.
Do you have any upcoming shows you’d like to tell us about?
Original Pairs will be playing June 6 at the Dakota Tavern in Toronto alongside our friends Burito Band, a fantastic synthy Dream Pop group from Tel Aviv. Show time 9 pm.
What’s your goal for 2023?
Our goal for 2023 is to get back into the studio and record the follow-up to Natural State. We’ve been workshopping new tunes and integrating them one by one into our live shows and it’s sounding very heavy. I think this next one will trade the pedal steel for pedal to the metal, but we will have to see. Recording is alchemy, right?