CALEB NICKERSON
SHAWVILLE Aug. 22, 2018
Keeping with the fair’s tradition of offering rock and roll tunes for the Friday night entertainment, Nova Scotian head-bangers The Trews will be coming to the main stage on Aug. 31 at 10:30 p.m.
For those unfamiliar, the band hails from Antigonish, N.S., and is made up of: vocalist Colin MacDonald, his brother and guitarist John-Angus MacDonald, bassist Jack Syperek and newly added drummer Chris Gormley.
With two gold records under their belt, and several Canadian radio hits like “Not Ready to Go”, “Hold Me In Your Arms” and “Highway of Heroes.” they are currently building the hype for their sixth studio album Civilianaires, set to release Sept. 14.
The Equity caught up with Colin at home in Toronto, to chat about the new record, changes in the music industry and about learning vocal techniques from his fiancée, Serena Ryder.
Civilianaires is the band’s first studio album since 2014’s The Trews, though they released a greatest hits record in 2016 entitled Time Capsule.
MacDonald said that the journey of recording this album was a lot different than those previous.

“We’ve basically been writing this record for about three years and finally finished it at the beginning of this year,” he said. “It took a lot of searching, a lot of soul searching, a lot of writing, a lot of stops and starts with different producers.”
After working on a few songs in early 2017 with The Arkells frontman Max Kerman, the band headed to Vancouver that summer to put in some work with legendary producer Bob Rock, who has worked extensively with artists such as Metallica, Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe.
Though they had originally planned to do much of the album with Rock, they only ended up demoing four songs. MacDonald said it wasn’t until they took a chance on some up and coming talent that the project really started to come together.
“We hit our stride in November of 2017 when we hooked up with a young producer in Toronto named Derek Hoffman,” he said. “He came through our label, they suggested we get together with this guy, we hadn’t heard of him and we immediately hit it off and it worked really well. Everything came really quick and we had a record in the can by January of 2018.”
In addition to new producers and a new label, MacDonald said it was a big adjustment to be without founding member and former drummer Sean Dalton, who left the band amicably in July 2015.
“We had a certain way of going about writing Trews material up until that point. We had a certain way of working with him, and that changed when he left,” he said. “It took us a while to find our footing, we could always write tunes, but we kinda changed up our approach.”
“I just remember talking to Brett [Eamons, of The Glorious Sons], last spring, and he said, ‘I know that you’ve been journaling a lot,’” MacDonald continued. “He said, ‘You should just go over your journals and see if there are any lines that are compelling to you, in your morning stream of consciousness rants.’ I ended up finding a lot of what became titles of songs on the record through that.”
In the midst of all the changes that came about in the making of Civilianaires, one thing that stayed consistant was The Trews willingness to take on political subjects in their music, like 2008’s “Gun Control” or 2010’s “Highway of Heroes”.
True to form, a cut of their new record called “The New US” blisters the new president and his divisive politiking.
“Ultimately the inspiration for ‘The New US’ came, it was a song that was written really quickly, it’s very political, it’s very on the nose,” MacDonald said. “We kinda couldn’t help ourselves, the times are so insane right now. Sometimes with songwriting you have to take some time and reflect but that was definately a reactionary song from us.”
“A lot of people agreed with us and thought it was great and others were like, ‘Keep your politics to yourself , I just want to hear you rock,’” he continued. “It’s always a gamble when you put that out there with your fans.”
He said he was reminded of protest songs that came out under George W. Bush, and said he would like to believe that since artists have a platform to communicate with huge audiences, they also have an obligation to speak out about the issues of the day.
“I remember back in 2006, in the second half of the Bush administration, Neil Young came out with an album called Living with War – which is one of my favourite Neil Young records – and it was just a reaction to all the garbage that was happening back then,” he said. “I remember seeing an interview where he was like, ‘I had to write this record because none of the younger bands were saying anything.’ I think, when we wrote “The New US”, we kinda felt the same.”
Despite all the changes that took place on this new album, the band is no stranger to the constantly shifting tides of the music industry. The band got their big break in 2002 by winning a radio contest in St. Catherines and landing a recording contract. Napster had just ceased its operations that same year, but the Pandora’s Box of file sharing and mp3s that it unleashed forced the industry to adapt.
“Every year since we started making records, there’s been a new sea change in the way people digest music,” MacDonald said. “When we first came out, having a song on rock radio and a video on Much Music would really break your band. Now there’s a lot more to it.”
In addition to the way people access their music, MacDonald said that the publicity game has changed as well with the advent of social media like Facebook and Twitter.
“The social media thing had kind of leveled the playing field in a way, but it’s also created this infinite content, to quote Arcade Fire, where there’s just so much, all the time,” he said. “Everybody’s got an Instagram page and a Twitter feed and you’re just getting inundated by stuff all the time so I think it’s difficult to discern sometimes, what’s worth listening to, and what’s just noise.”
“It’s kind of a funny place where we’re all living in these cocoons, where we’re just listening and watching whatever we desire at any moment,” he mused. “I think it’s a good thing and a bad thing.”
MacDonald credits some of the changes to his singing style on the new album to living with his fiancée, Juno award-winning artist Serena Ryder.
“It’s hard not to have a co-write with your fiancée when she’s literally in the room next to you when you’re on the piano playing a song,” he said with a laugh.
MacDonald credits Ryder with teaching him how to scale back his voice and learning to sing softly. She shares writing credits on the title track “Civilianaire” as well as the bonus song “Way Too High”.
“It’s been really fun and great for me to live with someone that’s that tuned in to music,” he said. “You just learn things by osmosis. You’re just around somebody who’s singing great.”
MacDonald said that while the band doesn’t make it out to Quebec often, they’re excited to play the fair and introduce the Valley to their hard-rocking tunes.
“It’s a great area, it’s a great place to play, especially over the summer,” he said.