By Andréa Rojas
You know the end of a feel-good high school movie where the class nerd finally dates the head cheerleader? If you were to substitute his awkward skin condition for a guitar and her pom-poms for a set of drum sticks, you would wonder why Bell Tower wasn’t playing in the background.
Calgary four-piece Bell Tower layers dissonant vocal melodies over unpredictably saccharine instrumentals to create a garage-pop vibe that’s all theirs. The band is comprised of Michael Hudec on lead guitar, Jordan Ackerman on bass guitar, Ross Watson on drums and Thomas Englund on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. The latter two are third-year University of Calgary students studying in Haskayne and the Faculty of Arts, respectively.
All four are old friends whose musical careers sprung serendipitously from the academic environment in which they were situated.
“Originally we got together to play this benefit concert at Mac Hall that never ended up happening,” says Watson. “That’s the whole reason we started.”
A gig that never materialized was the impetus for the band’s further musical endeavours. After taking first place in 2009’s Battle Royale — a battle of the bands hosted by Mount Royal University — Bell Tower caught the attention of Lorrie Matheson, a musician and producer well-known in Calgary’s music circles. This connection would prove golden for Bell Tower, as Matheson helped them land a coveted spot on the Sled Island bill in 2009 where they played with Beija Flor.
Watson says winning the battle of the bands got their “confidence boosted pretty high.”
“[It] reassured us that this was kind of working,” adds Englund.
The band found further success when a random bar meeting cinched them a spot opening for Hot Hot Heat.
Despite the increasingly grown-up reality of their musical success, the group’s plucky riffs and angsty vocals sound like a teenage dream. With song titles like “Mr. Popular” and “Old Fashioned Romance,” the group’s repertoire seems like an eclectic soundtrack to a milkshake date at a suburban drive-in and a sloppy kiss in a grimy bar all at once.
A lot of this is due to Englund’s cacophonous vocal style, which will be translated to their newest release.
“I used to do a lot of yelling in my basement and that kind of evolved,” says Englund.
Their forthcoming album, appropriately titled Redux, is scheduled to drop in April of this year on local label Studio 014. It will be released simultaneously on iTunes, in CD format and on a limited number of hand-painted cassette tapes.
“We had an old release [2009’s EP], but we went back and listened to it again and we were not happy with it,” says Enlgund. “We just went to re-record the songs . . . I find it’s very youthful, with energy. I’m really excited for the release after this because it will be more current songs — more songs that we can connect with.”
Bell Tower is at varying times both sweet and grimy, but it seems as if the group has started to find that highly sought after musical blend of angst and loveliness, and in a hand-painted package to boot.