For the last couple years there has been no greater joy than seeing Spoutnique take the stage and watching the slow but inevitable conversion of an audience from “what the heck is this?” to rabid fans. The disco punks of Edmundston, New Brunswick have proven themselves to be infectious and have found their critical momentum in recent years (they recently grabbed two ECMA nominations), but in 2015 Spoutnique was just being launched after nearly taking an entirely different direction.
The band recently posted a video for “Long Way Home.” It’s some of the first visual evidence of the band performing from before they’d even played their first gig.
“That’s an old track I was working on before I started the whole ‘Blue Sky Turns Teal’ narrative,” says Spoutnique’s frontman and disco conductor Paul Bourgoin. “It doesn’t really fit on the album. Got a whole other record of those.”
Bourgoin had written the song while working with an old friend of his, who would later go on to play in Fredericton’s now-defunct Cursees Connect. But at the time, before there was ever a Spoutnique, Bourgoin and his friend were full speed ahead on their own project
“I wrote it back when I was trying to put this band together with an old friend from high school who lives in Fredericton now. I’d drive down to his place to work on songs,” says Bourgoin. “We were in bands in high school and lived together in Montreal for a bit. I was the bassist for our band at the time. He eventually decided to call the whole thing off. He wanted to start his own thing. I ain’t mad at that.”
Bourgoin explains that he had already experience a few false starts and the band had undergone a number of line-up changes. The gestation period for Spoutnique was a prolonged one, but Bourgoin says that he has “no idea” where Spoutnique would be now if it weren’t for that turn of events.
“I mean, it feels like it’s something I’ve been slowly and secretly putting together for like 10 years and it took many turns. Many lineups. I felt like nothing was happening for so long. I mean, I’d probably do it all again because I’m hard headed, but like, being a waiter and people asking, ‘Oh? You’re a musician? What’s the name of your band?’ and being like, ‘I have no band….’ Then back to my parents basement… quiet… no instruments to play… an electric guitar, but no amp and what felt like 10,000 songs going on at the same time and nothing to record with.
“I was selling insurance for SunLife in half a year. I had made a bunch of cash, so I bought myself a old Wurlitzer – the piano I use live – then quit my job,” laughs Bourgoin. “I ain’t selling no insurance now.”
“Long way home, in a nut shell.”
With the band on more solid ground, along with the addition of that crucial Wurlitzer organ, Spoutnique found their footing. They amassed enough songs for their first album; 14 of which would appear on Blue Sky Turns Teal Vol. 1, along with a handful more set aside for Vol. 2, and in April of 2015 were preparing for their first show when they filmed the video for “Long Way Home.” Recorded at guitarist Daniel Bérubé’s home on an iPhone with some seriously cringe-inducing effects, the video is a fine example of how sometimes it can be difficult to see how far you’ve come until you look back.