The Balconies: Music trio traces its roots back to uOttawa
The members of the energetic trio The Balconies, formed in 2007, all have integral ties to uOttawa's Perez Hall—Liam Jaeger and Jacquie Neville met and fell in love within its walls, and Jacquie's younger brother Steven Neville studied double bass at the school.
The band has been busy since leaving university. A move to Toronto in 2008 resulted in networking opportunities and bookings - including sets at the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest, Canadian Music Week, North by Northeast and Pop Montreal - that eventually culminated in their highly acclaimed self-titled debut album released in September 2009.
“When we're bouncing around ideas, it's a lot easier for us to express to each other what we want the other person to do because we can use harmonic terms,” says Liam. “Nerdy stuff,” interjects Jacquie. “Cool stuff!” says Steven.
“In that sense, it really helps that we all did the music theory courses because it makes communication much easier,” says Liam. “It's also fun using classical terms to label rock songs, like ‘oh, that's a plagal cadence!'” says Steven.
Eager fans will also be happy to hear the band has started writing songs for a follow-up album.
“The more we play together and the more we write together, the more we learn what people expect us to change into,” said Steven. “A lot of people will say ‘keep writing harmonies,' or ‘write more funky baselines!' So some songs will be funky, but some won't be because it's also fun to surprise people.”
With a sophomore album in the works, the future looks bright for the outfit that isn't fond of being labelled.
Listen to Ghost Fever
Flash Player needed
Listen to Serious Bedtime
Flash Player needed
By Dave Weatherall
Photo courtesy of Alex Cairncross