The Trews

Colin MacDonald - vocals, guitar
John-Angus MacDonald - guitar, vocals
Jack Syperek - bass, vocals
Sean Dalton - drums, vocals
You can hear it in the first four bars of the album. A meaty, beaty, big and bouncy drum fill, followed by a glistening guitar line that could have been ripped from an old Rockpile album, and a breathy Hammond B3 so beautifully captured that it seems to conjure the dimensions of the room it sits in. It’s huge, but intimate. Heavy, but airborne. And the hook is strong enough that you could hang a whale from it.
“In the end, we made sort of a two sided record,” says Trews guitarist John Angus MacDonald, of the band’s third album, No Time for Later. “It’s some of the heaviest stuff we’ve done, but it’s also some of the most out there artistically that we’ve ever laid down.”
Too true. The Trews’ reputation is built on buffed and visceral rock songs, but on No Time for Later they cohere like never before. The structures are more compelling, the playing is more articulate, and the results more nourishing. If it’s the shrewd marriage of new and classic rock that accounts for the Trews’ remarkable multi-generational appeal – meaning they’re as welcome on MuchMusic as they are inside the pages of the UK’s Classic Rock magazine – then No Time for Later finds the band expanding at both ends of the spectrum.
“Ocean’s End” clads Jack Syperek’s willowy bassline in AC/DC’s crunch, and then breaks down into phosphene psychedelia. In the snakey single, “Hold Me in Your Arms”, the Trews use a buzzsaw to mediate between the re-tooled 21st Century radio rock of Velvet Revolver, and the righteous groove of off-road, resin-stained headbangers like Fu Manchu. Similarly, “Burning Wheels” is a Tom Petty riff given a nitro injection and mag wheels. And that unhinged solo about half way through? “That’s Colin’s only solo,” confides John Angus with a chuckle, referring to his brother, vocalist-guitarist Colin MacDonald. “He wanted to do a solo, so we said, ‘Okay, fine,’ and that’s what came out. It’s like Kurt Cobain or something. It’s just, like, unbridled fucking craziness. It’s totally animal.”
So where did the Trews go? According to Colin, “We were always big fans of CCR and REM and stuff, and those influences had to come out sooner or later. At one point we wanted to take everything off the record that sounded remotely heavy. We wanted to make a total roots rock album.”
Anyway, this quartet was initially formed in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1998 by lead singer + guitarist Colin MacDonald, his brother guitarist John-Angus MacDonald and bass player Jack Syperek; they were known as One Eyed Trouser and then simply Trouser, releasing an EP under that name. Drummer after drummer came and went before Sean Dalton was recruited.
They subsequently moved to Ontario where they dubbed themselves The Trews and in August 2003 released their debut full-length album, "House Of Ill Fame" and the Canadian hit single "Not Ready To Go"; the group spent nearly two years touring across the country and performed over 400 shows including headline sets as well as high-profile gigs with marquee acts such as Nickelback, Three Days Grace, Evanescence, Finger Eleven, The Offspring, Sam Roberts and more.
The band's sophomore CD, "Den Of Thieves", which arrived in August 2005 climbed into the Top Canadian Albums chart peaking at #6 and went gold driven by the three powerful hit singles: "So She's Leaving", "Yearning" and "Poor Ol' Broken Hearted Me".
In February 2008 The Trews released their much-anticipated third studio album, "No Time For Later", through Bumstead/Universal Music Canada. It quickly bulleted into the top 5 in Canada spawning the top 30 hit single "Hold Me In Your Arms" and three more minor hits: "Paranoid Freak", "Man Of Two Minds" and "Can't Stop Laughing".
"Acoustic - Friends And Total Strangers", recorded at Toronto's Glenn Gould Studio and released in the fall of 2009, captured the band's kinetic energy in front of a full house of fans. The live-acoustic set contained all their hits as well as previously unreleased rarities and new songs including the single "Sing Your Heart Out".