artist Barn Owl

Barn Owl formed in 2004 for a Cock n' Bull Christmas party. We played six songs, broke four strings (one of them was from the bass) and two sets of drum sticks and guitarist and songwriter Jared Both screamed so loud during the end of “Death of a Submariner” that after the performance he sounded like a sixty year old smoker. We were paid a hundred dollars and got free food and beer so basically things have gone downhill from the beginning. Practicing at Drew Taylor's apartment with his drum kit soon became no longer possible after three noise complaints from his neighbors. The result was that for the next two years the band went acoustic and concentrated towards further building upon its vocal magnitude with vocalists Maggie Cross and Clare Barker.

The first year at York university the band played where ever they could usually at open mikes at the Cock 'n Bull but also once on the rooftop of the Ross Building. That is the origin of our Do-it-Yourself folk spirit, which is best heard on our first album “Wooden Hall Show” that was practiced and recorded live in one fall weekend of 2005 at Alex Unger's apartment. The recording session had to end before the neighbors with families complained about the hollering. Sebastian Ostertag, the youngest person to run for the NDP during 2005 federal election, officially joined the band during that weekend. He has been committed to the band ever since, even though he also studies classical music in London, recorded and toured with the Basia Bulat and Jared traumatically spills beer on Seb's unbelievably expensive cello.

After a year Barn Owl expanded aesthetically to become more dance-able and top forty hit oriented with a drummer. Jared brought his drums up from Owen Sound to his new home downtown and for a year Drew Taylor moved back and forth from bass to drums. Then Pat Piper entered the stage and proved to a Rancho Relaxo audience that Barn Owl could play the punkest version Motherless Child since Richie Haven's version to open Woodstock. As a drummer Pat is fearless for the reason that Jared at the climax of certain songs will smash his kit with his guitar and body. Once at the Savanna Room on College Street, Jared was stomping so hard during “Young Explorers” that he slipped and fell onto the cymbals and broke one of the stands. This effectively testified to the audience that Barn Owl has little regard for its own safety or material belongings.

The last person to complete the current line up was piano and violin player Leslie Fidler who was a high school friend of Jared and Sebastian. Actually the trio of friends had performed together before in the high school musical H.M.S. Pinafore. It was Leslie's station wagon that traveled during a February snow storm to record the first chilling tracks from “Chasing the Glow” at Zion Kepple Church near Wiarton. The heater was so loud that we had to turn it off while Alex recorded so everyone put on their winter coats and hats and huddled around candles in wine bottles to stay warm. To use the rural church a deal was brokered with the small congregation's representative Mrs. Hill: $50 for the weekend but only if they played some gospel songs on Sunday.

Barn Owl plays gospel songs not only in the county church but also in punk holes like the Bovine Sex Club or the Chinese karaoke bar, The Boat. Jared believes in the spiritual crisis of our times that must be acknowledged with lyrics about loneliness, loss of community, and desperation to find meaning. The gospel element is that these trials are all surpassed through revelation and transformation to see beyond ourselves. Some of those songs are real stories about tragic deaths of submariners, canoeists and murder witnesses. We must also acknowledge the political crisis of our spiritual centers and use tragic songs to protest the institutional and corporate oppression that dis-empowers us all.