Toronto based hardcore band Brutal Youth are back with the release of their newest record Rebuilding Year, out April 12 via Stomp Records. When the band formed, they only had three rules. 1) Play it fast. 2) Keep it short. 3) Don’t be precious when it comes to repeating a good hook. Ten years later, the band has broken every rule they started with and Rebuilding Year highlights this fact, featuring fourteen songs — some well over the ninety second mark — that deal with hitting rock bottom and redeeming yourself.
Could you all introduce yourselves and tell us what you do in the band?
DC: I’m Dustin Campbell but I go by DC. I play drums and sing backup.
Josh: I’m Josh, I’m the new guy and I’m on the six string.
Patty: Patty O’Lantern. I yell and jump.
Kyle: I play bass. I’m Kyle.
You’ve been a band for over ten years, which is quite the accomplishment. What do you think has contributed to the band’s longevity?
Kyle: Stupid is as stupid does.
DC: I’ve only been in the band for 8 years, so I can’t speak to what kept them a band before that. However, in my experience, I think that just genuinely enjoying each other’s company and the music we create together is a huge contributing factor in keeping this train-a-rollin’.
Brutal Youth is just me getting to do the thing I love the most with the people who mean the most to me.
Patty: I think DC said it well, first and foremost it’s built on genuine friendship and love for one another. I’ve said it before but it’s still true, Kyle calls me on the regular to just shoot on bullshit, Greg is in Ireland now but we still talk because we’re all just pals at the end of all of this. The band is built on car rides together and sleepovers.
Josh: Occasionally, adding a fresh face or two doesn’t hurt, haha.
Patty: Yeah, true. It’s evolved over the years, we’ve lost some people, gained some new people, but I have a deep appreciation and connection with everyone who’s been in the mix. That doesn’t mean we don’t have conflicts, but we all really care about one another and that lays a foundation to make this possible.
Kyle: Me and Pat got matching tattoos in Germany, you could say things are going pretty steady.
How did the band start?
DC: I wasn’t around for the inception of the band, but legend has it that Patty just didn’t have any friends, so he recorded a record by himself in his basement? Then it was actually really good, so he found some like-minded people who wanted to ride his coattails to the top? Something like that.
Kyle: Pat wrote demos and had a few different lineups to play these songs live. Eventually, it landed on Greg and me and we just found an easy groove of writing and playing together.
Patty: So the whole story goes, I moved across the country for a girl, it very much did not work out and then I stayed there for another 6 months. I didn’t know anyone, I had no real support network where I was living, everyone was on the other side of the country and music was my only real outlet. I started putting it all down and writing what I was going through. At the time I lived with this awesome drummer named Cody who played in a band called Iskra. He was a complete sweetheart and recorded the first demos and drummed on them.
Eventually, I moved home and booked the first two shows with some kids from my hometown who played in a band called Victim 77 and a buddy named Jody Skul who was in local bands I looked up to when I was growing up. Then, it went on the backburner for a while.
Greg was really into the demos I’d made and said we should make a go of it as a band, we played a show with a pair of friends and around that same time Kyle and I were on tour together with another band we were both in, that finished, the band broke up, and he asked me if I wanted to record a record so I drummed the songs Greg and Kyle played the guitar and bass, and now here we are 13 years later.
Josh: I just learned something new.
I saw in your band bio that you think music shouldn’t follow a set formula or specific rules. How does creating music come about for you?
Patty: When I started the band I had 3 rules for songs. Lyrics had to be of a personal nature, songs needed to be under 90 seconds in length, and there was to be no repeating choruses.
I am a trained theatre actor and at one point I was working with this amazing writer/director from a company called Artistic Fraud who had written a play I went to see. One day she told me you have to make rules for your art to follow because when art has rules and guidelines you now have rules you can break, and when you break rules it makes an impact with your audience because you’ve set an expectation and then subverted it.
So we started with 90 seconds, no repeats, keep it personal, and now we’re on our 4th album and have broken all of those rules and expectations. I’m not sure if anyone has noticed or if there’s been any impact, but it’s been a fun process of changing everything up.
Kyle: The way a song usually starts is me and Pat record little clips and dump them into a top secret riff-lab and then we can steal riffs and get song ideas out of that.
DC: For me, as a drummer, writing music basically comes about once an idea has already been formed by one of the other players in the band. Once a general idea is conceived, I’ll give my insight into the possibilities of messing with strictures, additions, subtractions, different vocal parts/ harmonies, and whatnot.
Oh, and also what to play on the drums.
Who would you say your influences are? Would you say that you’ve looked up to other punk bands from Canada, like Sum 41, Simple Plan, etc?
DC: Our stock answer for influences would be Green Day and Weird Al. But I have definitely always looked up to a lot of Canadian punk bands.
Kyle: Canada has amazing bands, I like a lot of stuff from the west coast. I really like the bands Rest Easy and Bishops Green. I grew up loving bands like D.B.S, Goat Boy, The Hanson Brothers and NoMeansNo, and Gob.
DC: Some of my all-time favorite bands are Canadian actually, SNFU, Propagandhi, Belvedere, and The Almighty Trigger Happy were some of my biggest influences growing up.
Josh: Yeah Canada has always produced great punk bands, I’d agree with everything DC said, but I’d add to the list with the Flatliners and PUP.
Patty: Not to mention the bands you have never heard of. The local gems. But I’d say inspiration comes from everywhere, I’m constantly inspired by things I read, conversations I have, people I meet.
Josh: For me it’s important to take outside influences and utilise them to make a unique non formulaic sound.
Patty: Yeah for sure. Other bands and songs inspire me. I think it’s fair to say it lives in everything, but it’s mostly Green Day and Weird Al.
What do you hope fans take from your newest album?
Patty: Whatever they need to move forward in their lives, a personal anthem to carry them into the next stage of wherever they’re going. I want the people who need to feel connected to something and like they’re not alone find comfort here, the ones who feel accomplishment find affirmation, and those who are carrying anger or resentments find a place to scream and a place to heal.
DC: For me, I just hope people dig it. We put a lot of work into it, and we’re very proud of it.
Josh: I hope the energy of the stage show comes across while listening to the album, and that it begs the anticipation of our next release and further growth of the band.
Patty: This is an album about things being a mess and pushing through, so wherever people are on their own journey I hope this sings to them.
What else do you have planned for 2023?
Josh: Physiotherapy, ha!
Patty: Yeah, Josh messed up his knee.
Kyle: So after he heals up, some shows in Canada for sure, hopefully we’ll also be able to hit Europe, the UK, and the US for stuff next year.
DC: We play Pouzza Fest in Montreal in May and for the rest of the summer, we’ll be pounding the pavement in Ontario and Quebec. We’re heading out West in the fall, and heading back to the UK and Europe early in 2024.
Brutal Youth’s fourth album Rebuilding Year is out now.
Photo courtesy of Michael Crusty.
