Taking You On A Musical Odyssey, Montreal-based Surf Rockers…Meet, The Mighty Swells

themightyswells

It’s late night or early morning depending on your location, here in Florida, tomorrow morning we head out to the Beach to enjoy some hot sand and rip tides and what better way to travel to the beach than to turn on some surf tunes. Excellent long tradition and nothing but love for this stuff, The Mighty Swells do it proud, you can almost hear the water dripping from those guitars, very cool….. and if you don’t like surf , well your in the wrong place my friend…

Let’s Meet….The Mighty Swells

mighty swells

Hi our name is….

The Mighty Swells

And our sound might be best described as….

Surf Rock-Western Spaghetti-Exotica-Swamp Rock & Roll!

We are…

Drums: Lewis Handford

Bass: Olivier Pomerleau

Guitar: Hugo Joyal

Piano/organ: Etienne Barry

We are originally from…..

Montreal, Canada

The first time we met was…..

Summer 2012, we started off as a trio call The Reverb Raiders, then we met Etienne Barry in summer 2013 and renamed the band The Mighty Swells

We knew we were going to be a Band when………

In the winter of 2012 Hugo and Olivier were playing together as The Hillbilly Rockets, when Hugo met Lewis during a gig for country singer/writer Lee Mellor, in Toronto, Lewis was drummer for The Jimmyriggers at the time. A few weeks after that, the idea of a surf band started to grow between the three compadres.

Before starting the band we were employed as…….

All of us were working musicians at the time, except for Hugo who was doing deliveries part time for a beverage company…

Our craziest gig ever was….

We have a monthly residency at a little place in Montreal call “L’Escalier”. Those gigs are always crazy and wild, people dancing everywhere in the bar. Most of the people who come there don’t really know surf music, and i swear, for some of

them it’s like a first orgasm! Those nights are full of unexpected situations, even nudity sometimes!

The first song we wrote was…….

The instrumental track Dawn Patrol.

It’s about……

surfin’….haha

What we are currently listening to….

Anything from the golden age of surf rock, Dick Dale, The Fireballs, Ventures… We are big fan of Les jaguars, a legendary surf band from Quebec. We also like more modern stuff like Messer Chups, Los Straightjackets… Also shuffling in our ipods are, Ennio Morricone, The Sadies, Les Baxter, The Cramps…

A few albums we could never part with….

Surf compilations!… kinna a predictible answer! Hugo can’t go anywhere without Dylan’s Nashville Skyline and Motorhead’s Ace of Spades! Lewis is a a fan of 60’s garage and R’n’b, and Olivier is into anything swing (except electro-swing!), rockabilly, bluegrass…

For fun we like to…..

Party!!!! We are so busy playing music, anything not related to music becomes a hobby or just a way to relax! Lewis love cooking, Olivier likes riding his bike, Hugo goes on surf trip and Etienne shop for gears on ebay a lot!

The one thing we want you to remember while your listening to us……

Live your dreams, don’t fear, surf up!

Expect….

Expect our music to be wild, dreamy, intense, happy!

from us in 2014….

More shows! a surf festival in Toronto in June; an EP for the summer and a full length album of original for late 2014!

The Mighty Swells, Facebook

The Mighty Swells, Twitter

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Scott

Co-founder of 50thirdand3rd, stepped away to spend time with family and write. From Pittsburgh, now in Florida, Cool Canadian artist wife, 4 great kids, and two granddaughters!! I'm a lucky guy!

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