Toronto band Bywater Call deliver blissed-out, multi-layered musicality, equal parts southern soul and blues-rock. As the band finished a short tour of America’s east coast last month, ahead of 11 UK dates including the Globe in Cardiff, lead singer Meghan Parnell spoke to Buzz’s Colin Palmer from the lobby of a hotel in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Bywater Call’s name comes from the frequent trips guitarist Dave Barnes and vocalist Meghan Parnell have made to the quiet Bywater neighbourhood of New Orleans, a setting which seems to call them back often. Gritty blues, gospel, soul and classic rock fuse seamlessly on Shepherd, the latest album from this Canadian seven-piece based around Parnell’s soulful voice and Barnes’ slide guitar mastery both founding members of this seven-piece outfit.
Bywater Call formed in 2017. How did that come about?
Dave and I had been running a wedding party function band for about 10 years and had always talked about writing but never got around to it. We got to a point where were losing the spark for performing other people’s music so much. We were covering anything from the Beatles to Aretha Franklin to Bruno Mars. Also at that time we were listening to a lot of music that was inspiring us: Amy Winehouse, Tedeschi Trucks, Alabama Shakes. Stuff like that.
And how did the band evolve from the two of you into the current seven-piece lineup?
We always knew we wanted horns in the band from the time we started writing music, but we needed to get a core band together first and write some tunes and start playing them and see how that felt. Then we started to do some competitions and we won a couple of them. One of the prizes was a festival pretty close to home – in Port Credit, Ontario – called Southside Shuffle, which we actually played for the third time last weekend.
Can you describe the songwriting process?
A lot of it starts with Dave. He will have a chord progression, sometimes a melody or lyrical idea starts in his brain. And then he and I bounce stuff back off each other. Then we bring it into the whole band and everybody is involved in the final product, so everybody’s voice is heard. All the guys are jazz school-trained musicians, and we do want it to sound like it’s a group effort.
Are you looking forward to playing in Wales again?
Yes! We haven’t played Cardiff as a full band yet. Last year, in February, Dave and I went to the UK and did a little duo support for Robert Jon & The Wreck – I think Cardiff was the first show we did on that tour and it was awesome. We had a great time – the audience was really receptive – but we didn’t end up getting a Cardiff date on our fall tour, which was disappointing for us, so we’re excited it’s worked out this time.
The first song on your new album is called Everybody Knows, not to be confused with Leonard Cohen’s song of the same name… it’s a powerful start to the album!
I think it’s a bit of an attention-grabber. There’s a journey within the song itself that’s great. Lyrically, we wanted to tell the story in vignettes and there are two or three songs on the album where we do that – where the verses are individual little vignettes which tell the story that are tied in by the chorus.
Bywater Call, The Globe, Cardiff, Thurs 17 Oct
Tickets: £20. Info: here
words COLIN PALMER
