 Port Cities. Credit: Matt Dunlop
Port Cities’ music is a perfect balance of Nashville (where much of their record was recorded) and Nova Scotia (where the band reside). Comprised of a trio of celebrated Nova Scotian musicians - Carleton Stone, Dylan Guthro and Breagh MacKinnon - Port Cities were drawn together through songwriting as independent artists, with every intention of crafting new material and then going their separate ways. However, things turned out a little differently.
The trio's new album, Back to the Bottom, is rustic, warm, and atmospheric, filled with indie intimacy and arena-pop anthems that blend MacKinnon’s silky jazz-schooled timbre, Guthro’s R&B influenced natural tendencies, and Stone’s acoustic troubadour style. Recently, Port Cities answered their Essential 8 and spoke about the project, how they pass the long hours in the van, James Taylor, and more. Did you have a musical mentor? If so, who was it and how did they influence you? One of our musical mentors as a band is our producer Gordie Sampson. He grew up in our hometown, but now lives in Nashville and has built a career as a Grammy winning songwriter. Growing up in Cape Breton, we were all big fans of his music. Once we got to know him, our respect for him only grew once we saw how generous he was with his time and talent when it came to mentoring young artists. We actually all met through a songwriting camp that Gordie puts on every year in Nova Scotia, since he knew us so well as individuals, and had a vision for what we could be as a combined force, it made so much sense for him to produce the album. Gordie is just generally an all around good person who continues to inspire us to keep pushing ourselves as songwriters and artists. Why did you chose to anchor the album with the songs you did? We spent a while working on this first album, so we definitely didn’t rush into recording any songs we didn’t love. Since there are three lead singers in this band, we tried to make sure we had a good mix of songs we each sing lead on. We would get a rough demo of everything we wrote, whether it was the three of us, or a combination of one or two of us with other writers and once every few months we would sit down and go through everything to pick out any songs that stuck out. We always go by the motto of “the best song wins”, so we really make sure everyone was super excited about every song we chose for the album. How do you kill the long hours in the van? Besides arguing about the best songs ever, I (Carleton) love asking stupid questions that annoy our tour manager but manage to pass the time (ex. if you could only eat at one fast food restaurant for the rest of your life, which would it be and why?). We also love listening to podcasts, and a new game we started is listening to Savage Love, and try and guess what Dan Savage will say to the callers before he gives them advice.
What’s your favorite food on the road?
Anytime we have the chance to sit down to a proper meal in whatever city we're in is our favorite at that moment. Eating healthy on the road is difficult to say the least, so Subway becomes the default a lot of the time. We try and eat as many salads and smoothies whenever we can, but the odd cheeseburger does sneak it's way into the van from time to time. Do you have any touring tips? Make sure you get sleep any chance you get, don't drink too much, don't eat too many cheeseburgers, and don't stay and hang out and chat in loud places after your gig. What are your “must have” albums for the road? We have an ongoing playlist that we call "best songs ever", that whenever we get bored we listen to and debate what songs should be added or taken off the playlist. You can see where we are in our journey by following us on Spotify. Favorite (or first) concert you have ever attended? Recently I saw James Taylor in concert. Growing up, my parents were huge fans, so it felt like I was checking something off my bucket list by seeing an artist that was such a huge part of my childhood memories. He was 68 when I saw him perform, and he still sounds absolutely incredible! -Breagh Is there a recent release you cannot stop listening to? I can’t stop listening to Julia Micheals’ album Nervous System and all of her recent singles. Before she started to release her own music, she was a writer and wrote hits for artists like Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and Brittany Spears, so she is obviously an incredible writer, but it’s her voice that really captivates me. Everything she sings sounds like it’s so personal and makes you really believe every word she says, which I love. -Breagh http://www.portcities.ca/ https://www.facebook.com/portcities/ https://twitter.com/port_cities https://www.instagram.com/port_cities/ https://www.youtube.com/c/PortCities902_
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