The Glorious Sons sell out Detroit stop at The Shelter
“When we wrote shotgun there was just this electricity in the air that I cant really describe, we knew something magical had happened.”
After dropping their second full length album last fall, Canadian rock band The Glorious Sons head back on a North American tour headlining for Welshly Arms. Their stop here in Detroit at The Shelter sold out weeks in advance.
“Oh yeah, of course! I mean the further you get away from home and the bigger audience you see the excitement level just goes up,” said singer Brett Emmons. “We’ve been touring canada for a long time and we do pretty well here, but to see the love down in the States and a little bit of love from Europe — to just see people out there hundreds of miles away sometimes thousands — its just really really exciting and it reminds of of the reach you have as an artist and a performer.”
Ahead of playing for a sold out crowd, the 2017 Young Beauties and Food album earned a Juno award for best rock album. The sophomore album shows growth from the band.
” ‘Shotgun’ felt very special when we made it and Everything is All Right’ is special for a different reason, it kind of unlocked everything on the album,” said Emmons. “We knew we were sitting on material that showed vast improvement from the last one and I think we were cautious about letting ourselves believe that we could take over the world with it — clearly not there yet, but we knew the material was really good and we’re super proud of it.”
He said specifically that this album was about navigating the world as a young adult.
“It’s about 2018, its about the anxiety you can feel [being] trapped in with a world that moves so fast as a young adult,” said Emmons. “I tried to speak on it because thats what I’ve been going through for the last three or four years — I wrote what I saw and what I heard and I just kind of threw it out there like anybody else.”
Having been on tour before, preparing for this one was “pretty simple.”
“We go out there and have fun,” said Emmons. “It’s just about getting on the road and getting into a groove and surviving.”
Their song ‘Sawed Off Shotgun’ has made waves on the charts, something Emmons said was electric from the start.
“When we wrote shotgun there was just this electricity in the air that I cant really describe,” he said. “We knew something magical had happened.”
The song has an accompanying Open Letter that was posted to YouTube July 2018 which nods to political and social issues going on in the United States. Emmonds points out that being aware of issues is important, but not to allow it to entirely influence his music.
“I want to talk about whats going on in 2018. I want to have an effect, or at least speak to the people that are affected by the time and its really important to really understand the world around you,” he said. “I try not to get involved in it myself, but I see a lot of people spending a lot of time on social media commenting about everything bad thats going on in the world — sometimes I think that that doesn’t help either — I think its about being aware and trying to speak to people and reach people the best you can.”
Emmons is assured in the band’s ability to maintain fans live and urges people to enjoy their music while they’re on the road.
“Come out to the show and see for yourself, I dont think we’ve ever lost a fan live,” he said. “So if you’d like to come out and enjoy yourself and listen to some rock n roll in the modern age we’d love to have you!”
*Photo courtesy of Rob Blackham