A record a decade in the making: Stompbox reunites for their debut EP

Ten years ago, four suit-and-tie wearing teenagers from St. John's shook up the music scene with their blues band. Playing festivals and gigs on TV and beyond, they were everywhere. On the 10-year anniversary of the band, the four musicians got back together to record their teenage tunes.

They were the best-dressed blues band in Newfoundland. 10 years later, their first record is here

Katherine Crummey · CBC News · Posted: Oct 06, 2024 2:14 PM EDT | Last Updated: October 6

A man with a beard and a baseball cap stands next to a man smiling in a green jacket. They are against a concrete background. — Jacob Cherwick, left, and Nick Earle of Stompbox reunited to finally record the songs they played all over the city 10 years ago. (Heather Barrett/CBC News)

About 10 years ago, an unconventional quartet took St. John's by storm.

Nick Earle, Jacob Cherwick, Joe Coffin and Nick Bendsza formed Stompbox while in high school. The then teenagers played the blues while wearing black suits, white shirts and black ties.

The band performed all over St. John's, despite needing their parents' signed permission to play their gigs in bars.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the band — and to celebrate, they got back together.

Cherwick and Earle met at a youth folk music event when they were 12, while both were playing open mics around the city. Soon after, they started playing Newfoundland traditional music as a duo. "But we were both rockin' bluesheads at the time," said Cherwick.

They invited Joe Coffin to join them, and the trio realized they were having more fun together than anything they were doing on their own.

"We decided we needed a bass player, and that's when Nick Bendsza got involved. We put an ad up on Kijiji looking for a high school-age bass player willing to be in a blues band … which surprisingly someone responded to," said Cherwick.

Four teenage boys in suits sitting in a row with their right leg crossed over their left knee. — From left to right, Jacob Cherwick, Nick Earle, Joe Coffin and Nick Bendzsa in the heyday of Stompbox. The now-adult musicians just released their debut record from their teenage band. (Grace King)

The band met with success — "probably more than it should have," said Cherwick.

"It was just a weird phenomenon. We were all over the place for about two or three years, I'd say almost every week or every couple weeks we were playing somewhere. Sometimes on huge stages, sometimes on tiny stages in the middle of nowhere. It was a bit of a whirlwind."

As they grew up and graduated high school, the band members went their separate ways without ever recording an album.

So how did this reunion record come together, exactly? Good timing, says the band.

"We realized it was the 10-year anniversary of our band, and even though it was only for a short while that we were together, it was really special to all of us," said Earle.

When the band members who moved away found themselves back on the island at the same time, Earle said they jumped at the chance to record again.

"We figured there deserves to be a time capsule for all the time we spent together," he said.

"We hadn't been in the same room playing together since 2018," said Cherwick. "We got into the studio without having rehearsed at all because we only had the one day to get in and record."

It went off without a hitch. "We started playing and the songs came back to us like that," he added.

"We've all evolved as musicians," said Earle. "To take these tunes we wrote when we were teenagers and sort of enhance and improve upon the performance of them together was special."

four teenagers in suits playing instruments in a stage. — The band met with a lot of success for a quartet of teens, Cherwick says. (Alick Tsui)

All four members stayed in the music business.

"Because it went so well for us back then, none of us had a jaded opinion of the music industry," said Cherwick.

Nick Earle now plays in a band called Nick Earle and the Reckless Hearts. Jacob Cherwick plays in Swimming and Kubasonics, and also is an audio engineer and graphic designer.

Joe Coffin is writing and releasing music in Dartmouth, N.S., while Nick Bendsza just completed a masters of audio engineering and is working in the field.

Stompbox's self-titled debut album is out now on all major streaming platforms.

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