With an electric guitar embellished with star-shaped stickers slung over his shoulder, Root Cause’s lead singer and guitarist Liam Hall adjusted his white sailor’s hat. He stepped off Club SAW’s stage, concluding a sound check for his Dec. 2 performance.
“It’s just something that’s stuck around from earlier shows,” Hall said about the sailor’s hat.
With their debut EP, Chuck It Out!, released on Nov. 24 and latest performance on Dec. 2, the Root Cause trio is embracing silliness in the local music scene.
Their performance visual on Dec. 2 was a 45-minute video of random LEGO pieces and cartoon figures in saturated lighting, telling no coherent story to match the setlist. According to Hall, it served no other purpose than being funny.
The Instagram post promoting their single “peace out chuck!” depicts Hall getting milk poured over his face; an homage to his love for milk — specifically whole milk — and his childhood spent on a dairy farm.
Root Cause is quick to crack a joke, including about their motivations for being in a band.
“The drink tickets are a big part of it,” Hall said.
The band’s passion for music, however, is serious.
“I love getting up on stage and making people feel good,” Stuart MacFarlane, the band’s drummer, said.
MacFarlane said he loved performing the new EP with his bandmates.
“They’re some really great people to make music with,” he said.
Bassist Alex Bégin said he met Hall in April 2022 while skateboarding in a parking lot. After discovering their mutual interest in music, they formed Root Cause last January. MacFarlane joined in October.
“Their songwriting really drew me in,” MacFarlane said.
At Club SAW, the band floated amongst the crowd, chatting with friends.
“We’re pretty excited,” Hall said minutes before his set, now clad in all-white to match his hat.
MacFarlane said that “it was really nice to see” that the crowd knew the lyrics and witnessed the band’s growing potential.
“I couldn’t stop smiling throughout the whole show,” he said.
The audience sang along to Root Cause’s entire setlist. Their dancing shook the venue’s floor and they chanted for an encore — the band obliged by performing an unreleased track titled “a diplomatic conversation with the guy who elbowed me at the rainbow bistro.”
Produced by Teenage Fiction’s guitarist and lead singer Sandy Vance, Root Cause recorded Chuck It Out! over the span of two days. The EP features songs such as “this year” and their single “ego you’d rather.”
Bégin, who wrote the EP with Hall, struggled to categorize the band’s music style.
“I would put it as indie-emo or indie-punk,” Bégin said. “It’s a weird mix of things. I just hope that someone connects to it or relates to the stories of our songs in some way.”
Hall said he hopes their music evokes “fond memories” of high school nostalgia.
“I want it to feel like you’re in high school and everything that’s going on is such a huge deal,” he said. “I want it to feel like, ‘Woah this is so crazy,’ or ‘Woah, this is so dramatic.’”
A relationship between two of Bégin’s high school friends, which he said “shouldn’t have continued for as long as it did,” inspired “basement song.”
The chorus of “whos got smokes in little italy/hintonburg” came to Bégin in a dream, the lyrics reflecting how he feels “things would’ve been different” with his high school partner if they had met later on in life.
MacFarlane, a self-described “quiet guy” in spite of his boisterous drumming, called the new EP “nitty, gritty and raw.”
“It’s in your face, and I kind of like that,” he said. “It’s new, it’s fresh and I’m looking forward to the future.”
Bégin said the band plans to continue producing music and potentially tour Southern Ontario next summer.
However, for Root Cause, they said the friendships they cultivated are the greatest things about making music. All three members were out on the dance floor before their set, showing support for their fellow performers with smiles plastered on their faces.
“The friends that we’ve made through this journey are some of the nicest, most talented people I’ve ever met in my entire life,” Hall said.
Near the end of their set, Root Cause invited Backseat Dragon’s guitarist and lead singer Carrie Blair up on stage. Together they sang “unravel,” Chuck It Out!’s closing track.
“The [music] scene has just become so communal and friendly,” Blair said. “It feels like I’m just playing shows with a bunch of my friends.”
Bégin echoed the tight-knit sentiment of the city’s music scene, adding that he loved sharing the spotlight with other local bands.
“I’ve had so many friends that I’ve known over the years,” MacFarlane said. “They’re getting along over the sole purpose of music. It’s a really binding thing. I really like that it brings people together.”
Featured image by Alexa MacKie/the Charlatan
