Interview: Vancouver Rock Trio Bute Street Talk About Their New Single "Fentanyl"
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“Our biggest accomplishment is the upcoming album. It feel like everything was building toward this.”
How did you three initially meet and decide to form Bute Street? Also, what does the band's name represent?
Myself and Liam met through mutual friends. It's a small world when you're an Irish immigrant. We jammed once or twice then lined up cover gigs for money as Mop And Beard. I've wrote songs since I was 15 and played a lot of them to Liam. He really liked them and we started working together and threw originals on the set. After a while we decided to get full band together. We went without a bassist for at least a year. Our first EP was recorded without a bassist by trade and in hindsight would have been much better with Jory. I found Jory on Craigslist and once he came in to the fold we hit the ground running. Hes the only Canadian, so he balances the band in many ways and he’s by far got the best stage presence.
The name Bute Street was suggested by our first drummer Connor Morrissey because I lived on Haro and Bute in downtown Vancouver. Bute Street sounded better than Haro Street so we went for that.
In Belfast, Bute is slang for good as well so I think that clinched it Haha. Connor put us on to Craig when he had to leave over work commitments.
Congratulations on the release of your new single "Fentanyl", and its soon to be unveiled music video. Tell us about your creative process for the song itself, and working with its producer Dan Ponich.
I (Colm) moved to Vancouver in 2016 and by 2019 had met 4 people who overdosed and died on fentanyl laced cocaine. I met others who woke up in an ambulance and told me first hand on a building site a few days after the fact so I thought it was pretty messed up situation.
Growing up in Belfast I'd been around a lot of recreational drugs but the potential of death in Vancouver seemed crazy to me so I wrote the tune with all that fresh in my mind. Musically we wanted a rockier sound in general from our first EP so I tried to write a pumped up punk song with a chorus people could sing along to live.
I didn’t want to be preachy either despite the subject matter. I wanted to address it in our matter of fact way with even a little dark wit I dare say. Our producer Dan Ponich was the man who picked the right guitars, effects and amps to get that big sound. We worked with Dan previously on “Superficial Times” but knew each other a lot better by the time we were recording this song. So the production is a lot better here as I think he got us by this stage and helped us get that rock and roll sound we wanted.
Regarding Fentanyl's animated music video, how did you and the director, Kara Fernstrom, come up with its treatment?
Our bass player Jory owns the legs you see walking at the start of video before it goes into animation. He filmed that and came up with the video intro. We threw tons of ideas at Kara and she picked a few that was possible without a million dollar budget Haha.
I think I came up with the roulette wheel and the ambulance but Kara came up with most the visuals that made the cut and she done a fine job. She is Jory’s cousin and just as well because it was a crazy long endeavor and might not have got finished otherwise.
Me and liam haven't actually met her but corresponded by email and threw dozens of ideas at her. I think as we all have worked in construction we wanted that theme in there too of hardworking man who likes to enjoy himself but that threat of death looming because "they poisoned the sugar".
Kara got all the visual themes we wanted in beautifully without too much repetition or confusing narrative. But most importantly it looks cool as fuck.
What can you tell us about your upcoming debut album "Eclectic Taste"? How long did it take to record all of the 15 songs, and were there any that you recorded that did not make the final track list?
We done an album by accident really. Our drummer Craig informed us in August 2020 that he was return to Ireland in November. We thought well we won’t be gigging for a long time by the looks of it so we might as well get few drum tracks down before he goes. After conversation with our producer Dan who said Craig is unusually talented and efficient in the studio 4 turned to 6 to 8 to 10. We rehearsed for 6 weeks and had to finalize structures and Craig went in late October and done all the drum tracks in one day.
Craig went home and the three left went in every month and worked on 2 songs at a time. We finished our 15 song album in May 2021. It’s now mastered and ready to go but now we need content before release so we are working on that.
Believe it or not I dropped several songs and 15 was as ruthless as I could be. It may be the only album we ever do so I wanted every song that made the cut on it. I'm very proud of it. It's a huge step up in quality for a lot of reasons like better arranging, better production, better harmonies and the development of our working relationship coming to fruition.
After the first 2 we all hit our stride and Dan was a massive help playing synth and little guitar when liam broke his hand. He got the songs sonically better and was def like our 5th member. If you like “Fentanyl” you will love our new album. It's ballsy rock and roll with a few softer songs in between hence “Eclectic Taste”.
What would you say has been Bute Street's biggest accomplishment musically thus far since you began in 2018?
Our biggest accomplishment is the upcoming album. It feel like everything was building toward this. I have been at this a long time and try to be realistic with my assessments of my own music but the timing, the people, the talent and work rate was all right for this project which is almost impossible in band life and I think we've produced a special piece of art with these group of songs.
The hard part will be to get it heard so I thank you for listening to us and hope your readers will.
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