It’s an exciting time to be a member of the Hillside Outlaws.
The Penticton-based “outlaw country” band is thrilled to announce the release of the band’s first EP called Country Jukebox, which is now available on all digital platforms including Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, and Google Music.
Produced by the award-winning Paul Shatto (The Higgins, Robyn & Ryleigh, Jetty Road), Country Jukebox captures the gritty energy that the four-piece group has perfected on stage, said lead singer and primary songwriter Louis Bigras.
The band’s recent hot streak includes a 2017 BC Country Music Association Awards Weekend showcase, a finalist position in the Breakthrough Project 2018, and the release of Hair of the Dog – the group’s first Canadian radio single – in June.
Penticton natives Carlos Jiménez, Erik Galata, and Langley Jackson joined up with Bigras in 2016 and the songs on the resulting EP were written or co-written by Bigras and they mirror his own personal experiences while also representing the band’s collective outlook on life.
“Eric and Carlos, our drum and bass player, I met through some mutual friends out at a campfire party in the summer of 2016,” said Bigras, in an interview with PentictonNow earlier this week. “We ended up going up to Eric’s basement and jamming for fun, to play some music.
“I had a few songs I had written and I said, ‘hey guys what do you think of trying to make some music out of these songs I had written.’ We started putting music to them.”
A call was put out for a talented country music lead guitarist and Jackson was selected after going through several auditions, said Bigras.
The name of the band came from a “brainstorming session” amongst band members, he said.
“There’s a song we recorded early called Modern Day Outlaw and we were thinking maybe that would be a good name for the band,” he said. “That wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, so we brainstormed some more and Eric threw out Hillside Outlaws.
“Penticton is famous for its hillsides and there are a number of different businesses with hillside in the name. We talked about Hillside Outlaws and it kind of rolled off the tongue, so we went with it.”
Country Jukebox features five original tunes Bigras either wrote or co-wrote in the past couple of years.
Bigras said a life-changing event happened when he won a karaoke contest at the Barley Mill pub in 2015.
“I decided there’s no time like the present to chase a career in music,” he said. “I really loved creative writing in high school and I was playing music on my own, so I just thought I should write my own songs, so I started.
“They’re not all gold and you really have to work at it, but I’ve written quite a few since and I’ve kind of fallen in love with writing songs.”
Country Jukebox was recorded at Studio Down Under in Abbotsford and Rain Coast Studio in downtown Vancouver, which is owned by Shatto, who is one of the best country music producers in Canada, said Bigras.
Top-notch session musicians were brought in from Los Angeles, Nashville and Calgary to play banjo, steel guitar and piano during the recording process.
“It was just a lot of fun to go through the recording process and see everything come together and turn out great like it did,” he said. “All four of the guys in the band really learned a lot.
“What started with a couple of chords and words in the basement, ended up on a record and one of our songs is now on the radio. It’s all a bit surreal.”
The Hillside Outlaws, like so many others, were greatly influenced by “outlaw country” music legends such as Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, said Bigras.
“There’s a classic country sound to our band because we’ve been influenced by Waylon and Johnny, so we have a lot of that classic, traditional influence,” he said. “It’s more gritty and I find we have a lot of purity in our lyrics and none of this recyclable pop or bro-country that has been so popular for the past decade or so.”
The title song, Country Jukebox, is “an ode to all the great country music I grew up listening to, not just Waylon, Willie and Johnny, but the new guys like Chris Stapleton and Luke Combs. There’s a lot of references in that song to the great songs I grew up with.”
Hillside Outlaws will be performing all the tracks of their new album as well as other originals and classic country covers on Saturday evening at the Elite Restaurant on Main Street in downtown Penticton.
Several good friends they’ve met along the way in B.C.’s burgeoning country music scene will be dropping in to listen and share the stage, he said.
The band’s debut YouTube video for Hair of the Dog was recorded almost entirely inside and outside the Elite several months ago.
“We’ve got a lot of local guests and musical talent that are going to join us and help us celebrate the release,” he said.
Shatto saw the band perform live and was instrumental in convincing the band to go into the studio and record Country Jukebox, he said.
“We’re really pleased with Paul and how this record turned out,” he said. “We are working on plans to do a follow up album already. Hopefully that will happen early in the new year.”
Hillside Outlaws just finished performing several shows in B.C., including gigs in Kamloops, Quesnel and Cloverdale over the past two weeks.
Doors at the Elite Restaurant open at 9 p.m. Saturday, with Hillside Outlaws scheduled to take the stage at 9:30 p.m.
The show is free of charge, so get there early if you want a seat, said Bigras.
The group will then travel to Vancouver for a second release party Sunday evening.
For more on the band, visit their website at www.hillsideoutlaws.com.
