I Heart the Music: Your Online Source for Live Music Reviews and Interviews in Toronto!

The members of Gentlemen Husbands are as lovely as their name suggests. Don’t be fooled by their country sound, these guys know how to rock! iheartthemusic caught up with Derrick Ballard (vocals/guitar), Ryan Hutcheson (guitar), Jed Atkinson (bass) and Dan Farrell (drums) after a wicked set at The Horseshoe Tavern, where they brought their small town flavour and big time sound to centre stage. Whatever qualms you have with country music, or the country/rock combo, set them aside and start picking up what they’re throwing down.

iheartthemusic: I understand that your favourite Toronto venue is The Horseshoe. Since we’re here, what is it about this place that you love?

Derek: The Horseshoe definitely is amazing. It’s got an awesome reputation and it’s got good turnouts and an amazing sound.

iheartthemusic: I read that when you guys first started you wanted to appeal to the CMT crowd.

Jed: I think it was a misunderstanding because I didn’t want to.

Ryan: Everyone else in the band did except for him [Jed].

iheartthemusic: So how did you find this particular sound?

Jed: It was sort of a huge learning curve for us. It took almost a year and a half to get where we are now, mainly because it’s totally different to what we’re all used to playing.

Ryan: We had a really slow, slow start. We had a bunch of back and forths until we finally got going. We’ve been playing shows for just over a year now and as of January 1^st, we became a four-piece. So we had a fifth member for that whole time, his last show with us was New Year’s Eve.

iheartthemusic: That tends to happen in the music industry unfortunately. So this is your first venture as a four piece, how does it differ?

Dan: It’s substantially different. If you heard the country song, the slow one, that’s old. The last three songs we played were pretty new, so you can hear the evolution.

iheartthemusic: Tell me a bit about this new three song EP you are working on.

Ryan: It’s not done yet. The songs up on our MySpace are from our six song EP that we have no more copies of. The three song are supposed to be finished now, but they’re not. Jason Martin, who did the new Cold War Kids album, is mixing it for us.

iheartthemusic: When can people expect to be able to get a copy?

Ryan: It was supposed to be mid-March, then it switched to mid-April, and now we’re saying mid-May. It’s done, but we’re just adding some finishing touches and getting it mixed.

iheartthemusic: Can I ask about your band name?

Derek: It was just two words at first; I just kinda thought “gentlemen”, “husbands”. These guys didn’t really care much about names and I didn’t really care much. They all kinda sound stupid.

Jed: I think it was the punchline to a really racy joke Derek told us and we decided to go with that. It later wound up that it kinda suited Derek’s lifestyle.

Dan: It means something too.

Derek: Yeah I Googled it one time, and I’ve never been able to find this again, but it said it meant a farm father or a family man.

Ryan: Gentleman Husbandry.

Derek: Yeah, it’s like a lifestyle.

iheartthemusic: So not only does your name tell a story, but so do your songs. What’s the writing process like?

Ryan: He [Derek] used to be the main songwriter and we would just take what he wrote and turn it into whole band songs and structure them together. We quickly figured out that that didn’t work very well, so now we write how we used to write.

Dan: It’s very collaborative.

Jed: Derek is the sole lyricist though.

iheartthemusic: Where did you get “Tapanga” from?

Jed: “Tapanga” is about a collection of things, but the title is from Boy Meets World.

iheartthemusic: I had hoped it was a shout out to the show! Now, on your blog there was a very sincere attempt, by a former member, to encourage fans to become more interactive and get in touch with you guys. What was the response like from that and do you still encourage interaction with fans?

Ryan: There was definitely a response, mostly younger people. We are always surprised by how many teenagers like us. We don’t really play pop punk or the stuff that 14-year-old girls really like. We did recently have a little onslaught of young girls come up and get free shirts and everything.

Dan: Yeah, that was right next door to my house.

iheartthemusic: They found you?

Jed: They definitely found us!

Dan: Yeah, I think they lived in the neighbourhood and we were just standing outside with all our gear.

Jed: They definitely searched us out!

Dan: Well, we were waiting to go to a show and they kept yelling “Gentlemen Husbands” and running away.

iheartthemusic: For those who don’t live down the street, where can they get your stuff?

Jed: Coming to a show is the best way to get our stuff.

Ryan: We were giving out hard copies at every show and then we ran out. You were supposed to be able to download them on MySpace but for some reason that feature doesn’t work anymore. So we’re gonna figure that out. If you want to pay, you can get them on iTunes.

iheartthemusic: Is there anything you really wish I’d asked?

Jed: How many zeros do you want at the end of the cheque?

[all laugh]

interviewed by Leanne Plummer

photography by Kristin M.