“Write what you know.” That lesson gets hammered into us again and again. For bands on the road, like Prince Edward Island’s The East Pointers, many songs are often about just that: life on road. From their sophomore LP What We Leave Behind, released in September 2017, the band are revisiting ‘Two Weeks,’ a song about travelling far away from friends and family to find work.
https://soundcloud.com/eastpointersmusic/two-weeks-3
“When I played that song for my mom, she said, ‘That’s going to hit home for a lot of people,’” the East Pointers’ Koady Chaisson explains. “Many families are forced to split their time, with at least one member having to go out west—usually to Alberta—to make ends meet. It’s so hard. I did it, though luckily not for long, but there are people in my community going through it month after month, year after year.”
The song was produced by Grammy-winning Cape Bretoner Gordie Sampson. Sampson has worked with the likes of Nashville’s greats, writing songs for Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Faith Hill, LeAnn Rimes, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert and Rascal Flatts. Now he’s taking the East Pointers into new territory. What We Leave Behind hasn’t strayed too far from Maritime traditional, an almost sort of inescapable prerequisite for east coast music. Safely within the confines of pop, there’s still the faint plucking of a banjo and the beat of a bodhran hovering just on the edge of hearing.
The band are currently engaged in the very substance of ‘Two Weeks,’ namely being on the road in the midst a massive international tour that’s taking them to the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Come February, though, The East Pointers will be back on the east coast and embarking on a Canada-wide leg of the tour.
TOUR DATES:
02.07 – Fredericton, NB @ Capital Complex
02.08 – Moncton, NB @ Tide & Boar
02.09 – Halifax, NS @ The Seahorse Tavern
02.10 – Charlottetown, PEI @ Confed Centre – Homburg Theatre
02.13 – Sharbot Lake, ON @ Sharbot Lake Country Inn
02.14 – Toronto, ON @ The Great Hall
02.15 – Paris, ON @ Dominion Telegraph
02.16 – Barrie, ON @ Mavricks Music Hall
02.17 – Morrisburg, ON @ St Lawrence Stage Series
02.18 – Ottawa, ON @ NAC – The Studio
02.27 – Saskatoon, SK @ The Bassment
03.02 – Calgary, AB @ Festival Hall
03.03 – Edmonton, AB @ Arden Theatre
03.04 – Canmore, AB @ Communitea Café