Thursday, March 28, 2024

Album Release: Minimum by Minimum

For a band named Minimum, the music produced is anything but. 

The four-piece group is made up of Tom Shea, Mike Blais, Kevin Woolfe and Doug Scott. The band prides itself on having multiple songwriters, multiple instrumentalists, multiple vocalists and having a wide variety of influences, which creates an eclectic mix of original music.

Woolfe and Scott had a long history of performing together, originally in the McMaster band “Jughead.” Blais and Woolfe also performed together at open mics as a duo. They met Shea through the Dundas Music Club, and the group was complete.

“Some of our earlier collaborations were. . .compact versions of The Who’s Quadrophenia and Pink Floyd’s The Wall.” says Blais. “Though [those albums] might conjure up notions of classic rock, that is not us. To varying degrees we individually had some originals and we eventually decided to put some real effort into performing as an original music/material band.”

The band cites influences across genres, which comes out through their music. As a collaborative effort, each member of the band brings forward song ideas. Blais notes that the group can find inspiration anywhere. He notes a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, where the repeated phrase ‘we look for things. . .that make us go’ stuck with him as a way to speak about driving motivations. 

“We all have home studios, and we’ll work up demo versions of song ideas to introduce to the band.” explains Blais. “We each learn the parts as a starting point and go from there. Once we start working up a song, we’re all able to bring ideas to the table and we try them out to see what works, usually [with] the person who introduced the song providing the primary guidance.”

During the pandemic, Minimum kept performing, uploading videos for monthly watch parties through the Dundas Music Club. Once restrictions began to lift, the band looked to recording.

Every member of the band had been part of the recording process before, and brought their past experiences with them. In preparation for the recording process, the band invested a lot of time in pre-production- a worthwhile effort, according to Blais. Their debut album was recorded in early 2022 with Amy King at Grant Avenue Studio in downtown Hamilton and mastered with Michael Keire at Threshold Recording Studio.

“We picked apart every song- tempo, harmonies, rhythm, arrangement, instrumentation.” recalled Blais. “That pre-production effort paid off in spades, and while in studio we were able to accomplish a lot of recording in a shorter period of time.”

Their self-titled debut spent the fall climbing the CFMU charts, peaking at #2. Minimum is already looking to their next album and hoping to record again soon. 

In the meantime, the band is focusing on live performances, like this Friday’s concert at Clifford Brewing, where they’ll share the stage with Jamie Shea & The Gentle Reminders and Bryce Clifford.

While the band’s music spans across genres- from more traditional pub songs, to folk, country and alt-pop, Blais’ favourite songs to perform are those that are unusual or surprising to the audience. 

“If I had to pick just one song, it would probably be ‘Maybe the Narcoterrorists Are Right.’ This is our ‘punk’ song and it’s just fun to play (and I think Tom has written some fantastic lyrics).”

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