Pop-punk, a genre of music that had its biggest following from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, has had somewhat of a revival over the past few years, with many young bands making it into the mainstream.
One of these current up-and-coming bands happens to be from Canada’s capital: Bearings.
Having formed the band as Algonquin College students, Bearings has many loyal fans in this city. They even reference having a “small apartment in Ottawa” in their song “North Hansen.”
In July, they are set to hit the road across Canada with Seaway, a punk band from Oakville, Ont., with another stop in Ottawa on July 26. The Charlatan caught up with them ahead of a packed private show on May 19.
The Charlatan (TC): Tell us the story about how you guys formed as a band.
Ryan Culligan (RC, guitar/vocals): We all went to Algonquin College, taking the music industry arts program, and it was back in 2013-2014 . . . We all met through the program, we loved the same type of music, instantly became friends, and we initially started playing together just to have fun, but learning that we all enjoyed the same music, it became something special. We wanted to stay after school and continue playing together. We started playing shows all around Ontario and Quebec. We started moving around the country a bit, trying to get our name out there.
TC: But you guys would say you’re an Ottawa band?
Collin Hanes (CH, bass): We’re an Ottawa-based pop-punk band. We started playing shows in Ottawa, we came up in Ottawa. We played our hometown release show and we sold it out. I feel like that’s really special to us because we played so many shows in Ottawa before we started doing the Southern Ontario route.
Doug Cousins (DC, vocals): We made a very conscious decision to base the band in Ottawa, and we call it home. We love it here, and I’m happy we got to be from here.
TC: What have been some of your favourite shows that you’ve done here in Ottawa?
RC: It would have to be our last EP release show, because it was so cool to see everybody come out to the 27 Club and show their support. It was a big crowd, lots of energy, just had a blast playing, so much fun.
DC: My favourite shows in Ottawa have been at Ask A Punk (private venue) because it’s so chill.
TC: Who are some of your pop-punk idols?
RC: Definitely blink-182 was a main influence for all of us growing up, but there’s so many bands that are out now, like Trophy Eyes and Boston Manor. The Menzingers are a huge influence. We love Seaway. They’re from Canada as well, a really cool band. There’s so many.
CH: The thing is, when we’re in the van, we don’t listen to a lot of pop punk. There’s a lot of random stuff, we listen to a lot of pop music, like Post Malone, and then we’ll blast a Katy Perry song;everyone knows all the words. Pop-punk is something we all had common interest in. We all love different stuff, but that’s the common thing we all love.
TC: You just did the tour with Less Than Jake. How did that tour go?
RC: It was surreal because it was with Four Year Strong and Less Than Jake, and those are two bands we grew up on and we’ve loved for 10 years, and it was really cool just to hang out with them and play shows with them every night. It was kind of like, ‘how did we get here?’ I think we learned a lot from them too because they’ve been road warriors for so long, and watching them helped us get a grasp on what real tour life is like . . . Going city-to-city with those bands was amazing.
CH: It was interesting to see for us because it was a different kind of tour. A lot of the crowd was a lot older, and we’ve done tours where we’ve played to people in more our age demographic, like 16-year-olds to 25-year-olds, and this was a tour of people who are a little bit older, and the way they perceive music is very different. It was nice to see that change, of how different crowds could be receptive in different ways.
TC: You’ve got this upcoming tour this summer across Canada with Seaway and Like Pacific. What are you looking forward to about that tour?
DC: The big thing is touring Canada. We love Canada so much and playing shows here. Our country is so beautiful. We had such a good time on the east coast when we went there. We went there on our own a couple years back, and there was no one at the shows, but it was a lot of fun. We’re excited to do that again, but have people show up to the shows, and we’ve never seen the west coast, so that should be cool.
TC: There’s a new album coming out?
CH: We can’t give any concrete details because we’re not even sure, but it will be out later this year-ish. We just recorded it with Anton DeLost in Toronto. We’re really hyped on it. A lot of it is different, a lot of it’s the same. You’ll get something for everyone on it.
TC: Is there anything else you want to add?
CH: Tonight, we’re playing a secret house show . . . We announced it today, but we didn’t do any promotion for it. We just did word-of-mouth spreading. We’re expecting it to be pretty good, hopefully. We’ll see. Maybe no one person comes, maybe 100,000 people come.
DC: It’s so crazy how many good bands are from Ottawa. It always has kind of been that way, but now it’s cool because we’re getting so many bands from Ottawa touring . . . I just think there’s going to be some great things.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Photo provided by Ryan Stacey
