You Would Have To Lose Your Mind - The Barr Brothers

We head to Montreal now to meet our next LCM featured band The Barr Brothers. It's been a very exciting year for the group so far, releasing their latest highly anticipated album 'Queen Of The Breakers' in October followed by a supporting tour.  “Queens of the Breakers” is The Barr Brothers’ finest work yet, a collection of 11 hypnotically fluid songs that speak to the raw, elemental power of reflection, forgiveness, loss, and growing up. The record finds the band, featuring brothers Brad (guitar) and Andrew Barr (drums) and Sarah Pagé (harp), further on their thrilling path of exploring the outer limits of folk, blues, rock and Americana made north of the American border. Our  #LCMSOTD is the excellent and hypnotic 'You Would Have To Lose Your Mind'. It's not very often you will find a harp being used in a three piece like this which makes it very special. 

The band will be at Rough Trade East on the 30th January followed by a sell-out date at the Union Chapel in London. They will also be on a UK tour at the end of January, so watch out for them if they come near you.

Brothers Andrew and Brad Barr had spent most of the 90s criss-crossing North America, playing music with their spirited, improv-based rock trio, The Slip. In the spring of 2004, the band was playing a small club in Montreal, QC when a fire broke out in the venue. They grabbed a few guitars/drums and rushed out onto the rainy street with the rest of the concert goers. As the club's mezzanine was swallowed by flames, Andrew offered his coat to one of the waitresses from the bar. One year later, Brad and Andrew Barr were living in Montreal. That waitress is now one of their managers. 

In his first apartment in the new city, Brad shared an adjoining wall with Sarah Page, a classically trained harpist from Montreal, whose melodies would seep through the cracks of the wall and into the music Brad was writing. From this nebulous relationship, a friendship developed and the brothers, with Sarah, began recording and performing around Montreal. Soon, their friend and multi-instrumentalist Andres Vial was brought in to lend his wide array of expertise to the outfit, playing keyboards, bass, vibes, percussion, and singing. They called themselves The Barr Brothers.