Change is hard, letting go is even harder, and often the best way to deal with both is to simply rock. Canadian alt-country band Foreman & Co. know this deep in their bones and it shows on their infectious, head-bopping new single “Sun Still Rises” – check it out YouTube:
Fresh from the Grenville Sur La Rouge, QC-based band’s 2021 nine-track album, Waiting For A Sign, “Sun Still Rises” is a toe-tapping rocker heavy on Americana flavor. It’s got twangy guitars, an easy-rockin’ beat, and it’s full of that push-forward lament that makes country such a great genre for getting through tough times.
“Sun Still rises is the story of letting go, be it a relationship that’s failing, or a band that is collapsing,” the band says.
To that end, the song was written when the band was going through a lot of challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Foreman & Co share; as Covid took its toll on live shows and rehearsal options, the band began to struggle via the shedding of members.
Throughout most of the production period, it was just founding members Tom Foreman and Steve Larocque locked away ‘Hall and Oates-ing a band on life support, they recall. The result is an emotionally charged record that speaks to loss and frustration and looks to better days.
“It’s both a personal and an objective take on the great dumpster fire of life that was the winter of 2021,” the band says of the album. “But it’s not all dark; it is true that it takes a little rain and a little crap to make flowers grow.”
Waiting For A Sign also includes “Hometown Saturday Night,” an AC/DC-fueled anthem that refuses to go gently into the dark night, and begs for the return of the action-packed Saturday night. “Just Like You And Me” is a Springsteen-style fight to find some light in a dark day during a dreary winter commute. “President’s Day” is an acoustic song of heartbreak, while “Down To The River” offers a resurgence of hope.
Staying resolute in their own resurgence of hope and determination to remain a band, Foreman and Laroque found other members to round out the roster; Brooke Fullerton was able to make it into some of the recording sessions and contributed with thoughtful piano and B3 lines, as well as accordion and rich vocal harmonies and, by the spring of 2021, the band had added Dave Luker on drums and Matt Remenda of lead guitar — which brought things full circle, since Matt, Tom, and Steve had been friends and bandmates of one sort or another since high school.
Foreman And Co. are a rollicking loud alt-country rock band from Grenville Sur La Rouge, just outside of Montreal, Quebec. They write like Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, but they sound like Skynyrd and Bon Scott-era AC/DC. If you are Canadian and you like The Tragically Hip and Blue Rodeo, this band is for you. If you are American, think Wilco, Blackberry Smoke, and Steve Earl.
They write country and rock songs that make you want to drink beer and go on a road trip with your best friends, cry over your lost high school sweetheart, and call your mom and dad.