A guide to some of the N.B. artists taking the Area 506 stage
Long-weekend festival an annual celebration of province's music and culture
Organizers have stacked the musical lineup for the Area 506 festival's 10th anniversary edition, taking place on the Saint John waterfront from Aug. 1 to Aug. 3.
Alexisonfire, Arkells, Cancer Bats and Classified are among the performers at the festival.
Sharing the stage with those names are New Brunswick artists, including Wolf Castle, Poets and Liars, the Last Call, Ura Star & Fireball Kid, the Merci-Buckets, and the Kingston Collective.
CBC News talked to some of the New Brunswick acts booked for the long-weekend festival that describes itself as featuring the best of the province's music, culture and goods.
Wolf Castle
Wolf Castle is the stage name of Mi'kmaw rapper Tristan Grant, who founded Atlantic Canada's only Indigenous music label, Castle Records, in May.
The first to sign on were the Hello Crows, made up of four members from different First Nation communities in New Brunswick who use their music to "share their culture and be inviting," Grant said.
Grant is a former host of Reclaimed, CBC's contemporary Indigenous music show. He credits his family for his interest in music and has made songs with both his mother and uncle, who also perform.
Before hip-hop, Grant made remixes of techno and dance. He started to create his own songs as a teenager and has focused on hip-hop since 15.
The artist said he recorded his biggest hit, Whoop!, "in the closet of my bedroom when I was still living at my mom's house."
Grant said he loves the Saint John music scene and is "super pumped" to be performing at Area 506 this year.
Poets and Liars
Kendra Gale, Kortni Nicols and Warren Beatteay make up Poets and Liars, a "monster rock trio," in their words. The term originated as a joke because of the energy drinks Nicols conumes, Gale said.
"I didn't really ever feel like I was good at things growing up," Nicols said. But singing in the car as a child, she was told she was a great singer, so she decided to pursue music more seriously.
Beatteay fell in love with music because his dad was a singer. He started making his own music at 13 or 14.
Gale credits her guitar-playing sister for her interest in music.
"She's 12 years older than me, so music was always kind of around and she would teach some of our friends guitar in the kitchen and make me hit pots and pans or this little drum kit and noticed I had rhythm," Gale said. "She'd be like 'Hit this and then that,' and I'd be playing along with them."
She's excited about the size of the Area 506 festival.
"It'll be great to play with a lot of the big names around and on the stage size that we don't usually get to play on."
The Last Call
Saint John band The Last Call has been together since 2022 but is shifting from playing covers to creating its own music and just released two singles, Wine Bottles and Trainspotting. The band's first album will be released.
The camaraderie within the rock band and the members' shared passion for creating and performing were obvious during an interview as they spoke and nodded and agreed with each other.
Will Maber said that what he loves most about "being a singer and a frontman" is the opportunity to meet people and share something with them.
For Zach Titus, it's "the excitement of every next step."
"The first thing was playing a big show and having people actually care about the music and getting some fans, and the next step after that was actually writing music and recording it. Every time we take a step, it just reignites a spark in me."
The rest of the group agreed.
Alden Smith said one of the exciting things to him now is creating original work and putting it out into the world of music. Having "that blank canvas" and getting to "write my own guitar solos," he said.
Ura Star & Fireball Kid
Seth O'Neill, Ura Star, and Colin Ratchford, Fireball Kid, grew up in New Brunswick but have lived in Montreal for 10 years.
Both make music independently but also collaborate. According to their website, the two "have always made music for good times, kitchen parties, barn burners and foggy night drives."
In the video for their song Hanging Out, they are feeling the summertime vibes, hanging out and dancing on a couch in a soccer field.
Ura Star's album Heartracer was created when O'Neill was dealing with chronic pain to "try to get out of that dark place I was in by creating a world of fantasy and safety and pure joy," he said.
New Brunswick is central to the duo's music.
"The more time I spend away from it, the more there's this mythological aspect to it," O'Neill said. "It gets kind of more and more beautiful and romantic in my mind and more and more inspiring."
So far, the two have focused on the upbeat, party lifestyle but are shifting direction.
They've started to let go of the "commonly accepted partying mentality," Ratchford said, referring to kitchen parties and barn burners, "and I've just been thinking and writing more about the real ramifications of that."
"You can't party all the time without coming face to face with darkness."
"Maybe, God forbid, we're just growing up a little bit," O'Neill said.
The Kingston Collective
The Kingston Collective is a group of five based in Long Reach on the Kingston Peninsula, where it has a strong following.
The tight-knit group brings a lively mix of genres and styles together, blending reggae, rock, funk and pop.
Joel MacPherson, Will Jones, Sam Jones, Jaden MacNeill and Miriam Westin make up the group, which has released one EP, Live in the Timber Frame.
CBC talked to the band on the Jones family farm, in the barn that inspired the album title and is used as the musicians' jam space and a spot for storing tools, motorcycles and recording equipment.
When asked about their best show, Sam Jones said, "we had a mosh pit of eight year olds at a church one time."
Without hesitation, the rest of the band agreed.
"To see people in the church bouncing, showing love, singing back and forth, it's what church is, it's what community is, and it's what the Kingston Collective is," MacPherson said. "So, that's definitely our best show because it represents what we're trying to grow here."
When asked about the show at Area 506, MacPherson said it was a "bucket list" thing for him because he's a father of four.
"Jaden's going to be eight months pregnant when we have the show so we might have a baby on the stage," Will Jones said.
"It's going to be exciting," he said. "It's going to be popping."
"Literally," Jaden Macneill added.
The Merci-Buckets
Travis Flynn, Paul Hayes and Jonathon Marino make up the Merci-Buckets. Started in 2021, it was originally a backup group for Flynn's individual musical work.
Flynn works as a bartender at the Cap in Fredericton, where he also hosts a weekly open mic even tries to be as involved in the local music scene as he can.
The audience and music scene make the biggest difference between great shows and events that aren't ideal.
"To me, it's just feeling the community and the music scene being open and welcoming," he said.
Playing at Area 506 means a lot to Flynn because he hasn't been able to even attend festival in the past. Not only will he be playing alongside friends but he'll also be performing in a lineup that includes his favourite band, Alexisonfire.
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