Hello reader,
How are you doing today? Ready for some more great music to add to your playlist, turntable, or however you consume music?
I’m excited to discuss a great rock group from Toronto making quality music: The Get Alongs. The four-piece band, which formed in 2017, currently features brothers Harrison (vocals, rhythm guitar) and Rory Pickernell (lead guitar) as well as Eric Wood (bass) and Tristan Catenacci (drums).
While the band draws from a variety of musical inspirations, Harrison notes the 60s and 70s era garage power pop and 90s alternative are especially prevalent.
“What makes it unique is we all have pretty different inspirations, and going into it, that maybe helps us write our own parts. So, I guess it’s just our own personal tastes that make it unique,” says Harrison. “I don’t know exactly how that manifests in our sound, but people usually give us three decades: ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘90s. And I always wonder why we miss out on the 80s. I dig the 80s. We’re not very new wave, but we don’t have any synths.”
Adds Rory, “It’s just good music that we’ve listened to growing up and enjoying it into our young adulthood. You want to give us those titles? We’ll take it. It’s no issue. But yeah, our sound has been evolving. We’ve been together since 2017. So then, asking us, we’d be like, ‘harder, less refined and scrappier music and punk rock.’ But we still had our similar influences that we do now. So, it’s funny to see how it’s changed.”
Harrison says their music is more dynamic and fleshed out since “it’s more just you spend a lot of time doing anything and you can only write so many songs with three chords and stuff and then you end up, you’re like, ‘Damn, I want a new song.’”
“At least for me, you just think of these little patterns on the fretboard and then you have to expand it or else you can’t really write anything new. So, I just think as a product of that, we’ve ended up just writing new songs that have become just different sounding.,” he says.
“You have to evolve to keep it fresh and just to write new songs or else there’s some bands that have songs that sound the same over and over again. Maybe it’s my untrained ear, but if I listen to The Ramones or something, I feel like their songs a lot of times are so just monotonous and similar.”
The band’s development is readily evident throughout their discography. Prior to this year, the band released two EPs – Good Morning (2019) and Tossing Stones (2020) – as well as their debut album Weather Permitting (2023). On Friday, June 19th, the band is releasing their sophomore album Second to None via the Having Fun / We Are Busy Bodies label.
The group recorded the album at Montreal’s Holy Mountain Sound with producer Clayton Dupuis. It was the first time the band had recorded a full release with the help of an outside producer. It helped the band open up in their playing and gave the songs an extra boost.
“There’s four band members, so that’s four parts going into it. But when you have someone who has an ear and knows their equipment, you can really layer stuff better,” says Harrison. “And he also helps fill in with some, ‘I think this part needs a riff’ or ‘I think we could write a bit of a hook here.’ So, it’s cool having a bit of a collaborative partnership going on.”
The band also has a beneficial collaboration with their label, which allowed them to have vinyl and CDs for the first time for a release. The band will be able to continue to pursue their goals of getting more listeners and playing more shows now on a bit of a larger scale.
“It’s going to be cool that that’ll be available in record stores in Canada, Europe, and the States,” says Harrison. “So, a goal would be for people to walk into record stores and see the record and think it’s cool and buy it.”
For me, one of my favorite tracks on the album is “Sunday Afternoon”. It’s a fun, breezy, and melodic rock song that quickly grabbed my attention with a loose feel and groove. I especially enjoyed the superb guitar work on the song, with riffs ranging from jangly to anthemic. The great vocals and accompanying instrumentation further enhance the song’s DIY-esque charm.
The press release has a great description of the track:
“You can hear exactly where ‘Sunday Afternoon’ lives, park hangs that turn into evening, warm beer sweating on a picnic table, the low hum of the city in the background, or a crowded back patio somewhere off Ossington where the conversation drifts in and out and the music carries the rest…It leans more melodic this time around, jangly, sun-soaked, and a little hazy, with shades of The Stone Roses and The Lemonheads, plus a loose, winding guitar lead that opens up into a full-on shred. It’s an easy summer rip that still carries some weight.”
During my interview with Harrison and Rory, it really excited me to learn that my all-time favorite artist, Tom Petty, was a major influence. And I can certainly hear that, given Petty’s affinity for 60s groups like The Byrds that thrived on great guitar-driven songs. Harrison owns the same model of Rickenbacker that Petty has on the cover of Full Moon Fever.
“I was listening to a lot of Tom Petty, and I was liking the song on the Full Moon Fever album, ‘Depending On You.’ And I just wanted something just as punchy and rolling. I don’t really remember writing the lyrics. Now that they’re written and I’ve heard the song a bunch of times, it’s just relationship stuff and just learning and growing and whatnot, but just going back and looking at different feelings and whatnot, just trying to write something that seems cohesive and emotional that people might like. It’s a pretty weird abstract song if you listen to the lyrics. It’s not super linear, but I dig the lyrics.”
So do I.
Harrison said that Rory actually misheard his lyrics months after they recorded it, and he wishes they had recorded with those lyrics. While the finished version features the line “I wish that I could have changed/I wish that I could have stayed/I wish for a Saturday on a Sunday afternoon”, the misheard version was “I wish that I could have changed your mind/I wish that you could have stayed the night/I wish for a Saturday on a Sunday afternoon.”
“I really wish I had heard what he thought he heard because I like those lyrics a lot more, but the song’s recorded so it’s over,” says Harrison.
In my opinion, I feel it adds an element of intrigue to the song’s backstory.
Harrison says the song’s themes of love connect it with the rest of the album. While he wishes he could “write some really trippy stuff like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ or ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” he seems to be doing pretty well.
“It’s pretty funny. I’ve been in a relationship for five years, but when I write songs, it’s easier to put yourself in the headspace of heartache or heartbreak,” he says. “So, a lot of the album is like that. And sure, a lot of the songs are old, and I’ve obviously experienced those things in the past. So, I’ll just try to reflect on that. For me, it’s the easiest thing to write about. I mean, most songs are like that. I guess it connects to the rest of the album just because it just deals with the same themes of just love and loss and longing and trying to figure yourself out.”
“I’m 25 now. A lot of this album was written when I was probably 21 to 23. I guess it just fits in with that whole realm of just love songs and stuff like that. I used to say songs about growing up and love, but I’ve almost grown up now, so I can’t even really use that line anymore.”
Check out another song of theirs:
The band will support their new album on Friday with a release show in Toronto at Dina’s Tavern.
Below are additional snippets of my conversation with Harrison and Rory:
Writing and Recording “Sunday Afternoon”
Harrison: I think we recorded it in the fall. It was pretty nice out in Montreal, and I think it was our second session at the studio, so we were warmed up a little bit. We knew the drill with Clay, the guy recording us. We brought my acoustic guitar, which you can hear in the first verse. The producer’s partner and also our good friend, AJ, they both play in this band Shallow. AJ sang on the song, which is the higher harmony you can hear at the start. We just settled into the studio, and I think Clay really likes that song. He texted us that he was super happy with how it came out when it was released. I just think that song came together pretty easily. Yeah, it was low stress.
Rory: Everyone had their parts and the things that we came up in the studio were just very serendipitous to the time. It just happened.
Harrison: Yeah, we knew pretty well how that song was going to come out, which makes it easier. We knew what we wanted to do and we had a little bit of time to experiment with things and layer some cool things. I think we’re just happy with how it came out. The process was easy.
On The Band’s Collaborative Chemistry
Harrison: Everyone’s just always left to their own devices to figure out something. It’s always been a pretty easy process, thankfully. And if something sticks, it sticks, and it becomes a song, but there’s our song graveyard of songs.
Even if it was cool or there was a good verse or a good chorus or good chord progression, guitar riff, if it doesn’t stick, it doesn’t stick, then it just kind of fizzles out. I’m sure most people who write songs in a band will feel that. Everyone just figures out their own stuff. That’s the time where we’ll butt heads most, especially Rory and I. We’re brothers, so we have free rein to argue. I’m like, “No, I want you to play something like this. ” And it’ll kind of be like, “Well, screw you. I’m not telling you what to do. ” And that’s why we’ll fight about stupid shit.
Rory: Yeah. But then it all gets down to the idea of egos. It’s like, well, if you have any clear idea of the song, it doesn’t hurt to have something stripped back or more basic or something that you didn’t expect. But with Harrison and I, we’re definitely given that free range to yell at each other for a hot minute. It’s a good dynamic that we have going on and writing the songs. Harrison will have lyrics or a progression, and it always just comes in a flow.
Sometimes there’ll be two chords that Harrison plays funny, and we jam it out for 30 minutes and be like, “Well, it’s kind of turned into something decent, and we’ll jam it out for three more practices.” And by that sixth practice, we’re still jamming, and here’s his lyrics, then it’s close to being a song, or it could just disappear in our song graveyard.
Future Touring Plans
Harrison: We usually do an annual shindig called Get Alongs Fest. We really got to figure that out. It’ll probably be late September in Toronto. Hoping to book some East Coast in Canada in September. I’m kind of basing it around my unemployment because I’m only working for July and August, so I’m like, “before I get a job, we should go to the East Coast, so I don’t have to book anything off.”
And we’re maybe going to go back to Europe in November, depending on how that shakes out. We’d love to come to the States. It’s just difficult.
Rory: It’s too expensive.
Harrison: But yeah, if we could go to the States, we’d love to play Chicago, New York, Detroit. But yeah, for now it’s kind of like Europe and Canada. We would love to get to the other side of Canada, too, just waiting for the right opportunity, I guess. It’s really huge.
Rory: Playing in a band in Canada, you drive around with all your gear. It’s just a happy-go-lucky time. You’re with your shit. You understand it. Us in Europe, you have to almost break your arm to make sure your guitar is safe going through travel. You’re like, “No, I’m going to gate check this. You’re not taking my guitar for oversized luggage. That’s not going to happen.” And yeah, traveling to North America would be such a charm in that way, where it’s like we know how to drive. We drive quite far. Being in North America, you know how to go a good distance. And Europeans are like, “You drive six hours to go to a different city.” And it’s like people in bands we played with in the Netherlands haven’t even left the Netherlands, but they can play so many great cities in a two-and-a-half-hour drive all around.
It’s just such a crazy dynamic. It’s probably more like that in the States as well. But in Canada, you kind of get used to it like, “oh, we’re going seven hours to play one show, and it’ll be a good time.” So, it’s funny, but it’d be great to hop in the car and actually travel.
Harrison: Yeah, maybe we’ll set our sights on South by Southwest for next year. That’d be pretty cool. We’re down for whatever.
You can connect with and listen to The Get Alongs at the links below:
Linktree: Linktr.ee/thegetalongs
Instagram: Instagram.com/thegetalongss
TikTok: Tiktok.com/@thegetalongss
YouTube: Youtube.com/@theget-alongs750
Spotify: The Get Alongs on Spotify
Bandcamp: Thegetalongs.bandcamp.com
Apple Music: The Get Alongs on Apple Music
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
