You are probably already familiar with Prince Edward Island’s Dennis Ellsworth. He’s wracked up fourteen Music PEI Awards and collaborated with the likes of Gord Downie, Donovan Woods, Kinley Dowling and Drive-By-Truckers producer David Barbe. He has successfully navigated his way through the music industry for years but hasn’t quite felt at home in it. The Moneygoround, Ellsworth’s new band, takes its inspiration from The Kinks song of the same name and a general disdain for the mechanisms of the industry.
Their debut single, “Very Cherry”, is anything but an anti-establishment punk ode to DIY. Instead, the Joel Plaskett produced single leans hard into the inspiration of the brothers Davies with a ’60s pop-influenced sound with gentle hints of psychedelia. This new effort may have itself anchored to the rough edge of Ellsworth’s vocals, but it’s all sunshine and rainbows (or incense and peppermints) in the warm fuzz of its guitars.
Naturally, Ellsworth isn’t alone in this; drawing in longtime collaborator and fellow Electric Stars bandmate Dan Currie, as well as Currie’s wife Katie McCarry (piano and vocals). They’re joined by brothers Josh and Sam Langille—both members of Charlottetown-based up-and-coming band Absoluter Losers—on bass and drums respectively.
Borrowing the ’60s catchphrase for the title, with inspiration from Jan and Dean’s “Surf City”, “Very Cherry” is a story about “commitment, security, and the promise of love” drawing from Ellsworth’s own romantic experiences.
“This is a love song,” explains the band. “It’s a song about promising. It is about dedication to someone else’s happiness. It is a declaration of your loved one’s excellence. It’s a simple and romantic idea.”
The Moneygoround cast a wide net when it comes to their genre-of-choice—from Americana to Folk to Psychedelic Rock and back—but consistently vintage. “Very Cherry” is just the first listen and dipped as it is in ’60s pop, it’s the band’s name itself that might offer the clearest picture of what we can expect from them.
“I love The Kinks and that song talks about the unjust music business, from their standpoint,” says Ellsworth. “I particularly love this outro lyric to the song ‘The Moneygoround’: ‘Oh, but life goes on and on, And no one ever wins, And time goes quickly by, Just like the money-go-round, I only hope that I’ll survive’.”
The Moneygoround’s debut album, Cruisin’ and Swingin’ with The Moneygoround, is scheduled to be released in spring 2022.