Every Monday night you can find The Hornettes occupying their corner booth having post-practice drinks at the Lieutenant’s Pump on Elgin Street.
The Hornettes have been carving out their niche in the community for the past two years and playing classic Motown tunes.
Guitarist Jeff deValk describes their sound as having a “soul revival feel,” influenced by Amy Winehouse and Sharon Jones.
Contemporary artists aside, it all started with Motown.
“[The idea was] to have the classic Motown covers,” vocalist Popova said.
The Hornettes boast a set list of more than 50 definitive Motown songs from artists like The Temptations, Sam & Dave, The Screams and Stevie Wonder.
“The fact that we’re all really good friends comes across on stage in a big way, because we all have fun with it,” deValk said.
For these Ottawa musicians, Motown is more than just a genre of music, it connects them.
“It’s music that we all just really enjoyed, in a way it’s reflective of everyone’s personality in the band. We’re all pretty up and we like to have a good time,” deValk said.
Saxophonist Brady Leafloor described their performances as dynamic, in the sense that it goes beyond the sound.
“It’s not just music, we put on a show,” he said.
“There’s a good niche for [Motown] in Ottawa which is important, it makes it easy to get gigs,” Popova said. And she’s not kidding.
Over the past two years The Hornettes have been playing all over Ottawa with brief stints out of town to Montreal and Toronto and the shows have practically been “booking themselves.”
Building on this momentum, The Hornettes are going to be releasing a live album recorded at the bar 3030 Dundas West in Toronto soon and hope to record some originals shortly after.
“We’re a happy family now. We have our issues, we like to argue about every little decision that gets made,” deValk joked, “but at the end of the day, most weeks we end up here, we have some beers together.”
The Hornettes will be performing at Zaphod Beeblebrox Dec. 15.
