On the heels of their brand new CD, Mother Mother will be heading to town to play Bo’s Bar & Grill March 18th.
They will be joined by K.Flay for the Canadian tour, which will see the band hitting 25 cities and travelling from coast-to-coast with their final dates being in their hometown of Vancouver with four nights at the Commodore Ballroom.
The Juno and MMVA-nominated band, which consists of Ryan Guldemond, Molly Guldemond, Jasmin Parker, Mike Young and Ali Siadat, earned critical acclaim with their first two outings Touch Up (2007) and O My Heart (2008).
Their next two releases Eureka (2011) and The Sticks (2012) delivered the top five radio hits The Stand, Bit By Bit and Let’s Fall In Love, making the band the second most aired alternative act in Canada in 2012 and 2013, according to their bio. And in 2014 they racked up more hits with Get Out The Way, Monkey Tree and Modern Love from the Very Good Bad Thing CD.
Since then, they’ve garnered over five top 10 singles on the alt rock charts, over 1.5 million streams on Spotify and over 1.3 million views on YouTube.
Meanwhile, their single The Drugs from the just-released CD No Culture is simply irresistible and they unleashed their latest offering Love Stuck before their tour began.
“We wanted to see the album was born out of unabashed honesty from the lyrics to the performances to the production choices,” explained Ryan during a recent interview. “That was an intention set by virtue of the intimacy in the writing itself,” he said, adding there was a new emotional quality to the overall writing as well.
“We wanted the album to mirror that, and we wanted to make a really, really honest record.”
As to the music itself, Ryan said it’s always the goal to have the actual melodies be as potent as possible.
“Catchy as well as novel with the song’s architecture well thought out and tight. We also want the harmonic structures to be emotional and dynamic,” he said, adding with No Culture and their music in general they set out to encompass, “Big, bright, punchy sounds.”
According to Wikipedia, the band began in Heriot Bay in early 2005, when guitarist/vocalist Ryan was at music school and wanted to start a band based on vocal-driven pop songs.
He recruited his sister Molly along with a friend from college, Debra-Jean Creelman to accompany his own vocals for the songs he had written, and the trio played as an acoustic act before adding drummer Kenton Loewen and bassist Jeremy Page.
The five members started off playing under the name Mother, and in the fall of 2005, they independently released a self-titled album. In 2006, their label encouraged the band to change their name to avoid legal issues, so rather than changing it completely they decided to rename themselves Mother Mother.
In early 2007, the band re-released its debut CD under the new name, renaming the album Touch Up and including two new songs, as well as artwork and overdubs different from the original. The band released their second album, O My Heart, in 2008.
Later that year, it was announced Creelman had left Mother Mother and in early 2009 the band announced the addition of a new singer/keyboardist Parkin.
In 2014, the band signed with Universal Music Canada to produce their fifth project Very Good Bad Thing.
Meanwhile, Ryan had an early appreciation for music which was always encouraged during his early years as well, although the family wasn’t overtly musical. “There weren’t family jamborees by any stretch,” he said with a laugh. “But music was important – it was always seen as a crucial and vital part of life. That was an emphasis made by my mother, so she advocated piano lessons and the pursuing of arts in general.
“Whatever medium in the arts that we (Ryan and Molly) chose, it was heartily supported by our parents,” he said, adding in his teens he was particularly drawn to groups from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin. “I was always drawn to melody paired with eccentricity. I like pop sensibilities especially when they are twisted.
“And initially, my intention was to become a hot shot guitar player. Sort of a tradesman in the field of music more than a rocker.” But during his school days, he started penning more music and ultimately a different path was taken.
“It stirred something in me that was more potent than learning theory and archaic catalogues. To me, it was a conundrum so I started going to open mics to try and find my voice. And I’m still finding it. It’s probably the one thing that I’ll never feel completely at peace with.”
But these days – he’s a bit more relaxed about the entire process.
“I was born a perfectionist but as I’ve matured, I’ve come to realize that much perfection lies in the flaws. You can spoil the magic by seeking perfection, and I’ve learned that. But that isn’t where I started from.”
mark.weber@reddeerexpress.com
