Bent Roads Tavern Shared Three New Singles This Month
Alt-folk collective, Bent Roads Tavern has released three singles released as ‘the nights get colder here in August’. The first was “Long Way From Toronto,” then “Sweet Mirona” and “Speak Up (Not Afraid To Yell).”
This might be the first you’re hearing of Bent Roads Tavern but they are a musical collective with a storied past. Originally formed in the early 2000s at the University of British Columbia, the seven-piece collective helped local club owners sell a lot of beer while building an enthusiastic following for their signature blend of alt-rock, modern jazz, and folk music genres. After more than a decade and a half-long hiatus, Bent Roads Tavern fans rejoiced at the release of the five-volume set The Legend of Bent Roads Tavern in 2020, which featured an archive of unreleased live off-the-floor demo recordings. The reception they received inspired the group, including members from all eras of BRT, to begin working on a brand new album featuring re-recordings of old favourites and newly written material.
Although the BRT frontman, Collen Middleton, is better known regionally in British Columbia for his recent outspoken public safety advocacy, performing music has always been a large part of his life.
“Music is the great equalizer in society,” says Middleton. “It helps to heal psychological injury, it helps to communicate complexity, and helps us understand each other where words fail – it transcends socioeconomic and political divisions and reminds us, through the expression of vulnerability, that we are all humans doing the best we can.”
Listen to the latest single, “Speak Up (Not Afraid To Yell)” below and learn more via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
Bent Roads Tavern (BRT) is a Canadiana Alt-Folk collective based on Vancouver Island. We have been most active recording and releasing music in the last three years following a 15+ year hiatus. We aim to share our music inspired by Canadian geography, history, and culture and follow in the footsteps of our nation’s troubadours that came before us.
Tell us a bit about your most recent release.
“Long Way From Toronto” was the first of three singles we released this month. “Sweet Mirona” came out on Friday, August 11, and “Speak Up (Not Afraid to Yell)” drops on August 18.
“Long Way From Toronto” is a song about growth through loss, and the need to rationalize the struggle at the end of a relationship. “Sweet Mirona,” on the other hand, is a track about renewal and peace of mind. and finally, “Speak Up (Not Afraid to Yell),” is a dark, determined protest song – a conversation about motivating those close to you to stand up against injustice and wicked forces.
Where do you tend to pull inspiration from when writing?
Songwriting in Bent Roads Tavern tends to take a long time – we work on music over years, revisiting ideas and reworking them until something finished takes shape. In that way our songs tends to deal with ‘slow emotions’ or major change in life. We are inspired by the world around us, particularly the complexity of our physical and emotional environments, and we think that is expressed in our original material.
Do you have any upcoming shows you’d like to tell us about?
Currently, we perform our original material as solo, duo, and trio performances in and around Nanaimo, including integrating with other music projects. We will be playing some short sets in downtown Nanaimo in September, but the focus is really on finishing the recordings right now and starting to get full band rehearsals organized with a regional lineup of BRT collective musicians.
What’s your goal for 2023?
The goal for 2023 is to get all the remaining tracks on our forthcoming album, Clear Nights. Brite Lites released as singles on digital platforms. We will then be cutting physical copies of the record and getting back to rehearsal and live shows on Vancouver Island in 2024.
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