By Ken Wallis.
If you like the Allman Brothers Band, (and who doesn’t?), you’re gonna love Terminal Station hailing out of Burnaby, British Columbia in Canada. In this their third album they soar to new heights with a blues album that crosses many bounds. They’ve been thrilling audiences in B.C. for years and their album is sure to reach new audiences that will become instant fans.
Ken Wallis interviewed Scott Smith of Terminal Station for his radio show, Blues Source Canada. Excerpts from the interview follow.
Ken Wallis
There's a rockin’ blues album out right now…it's a new one by Terminal Station…it’s called Brotherhood. And joining us is Scott Smith, the lead singer and guitarist in Terminal station. Thanks for joining us.
Scott Smith
Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
Ken Wallis
What a great album. I'm really enjoying it. First of all where did the band's name come from?
Scott Smith
Terminal Station is a Vancouver reference. We're a Vancouver band. And you know, Vancouver was the last stop, in the current cross-country railroad. It was the Terminal Station. So it's a Vancouver reference.
Ken Wallis
And the title of the album is Brotherhood. What does that reference to?
Scott Smith
Well, we've played together for a long time…This band has been together about 15 years, but even before that, I've been playing with the bass player since about 97 and the drummer since about 99. And, so we go back a long way. That's why it's called Brotherhood.
Ken Wallis
I find it very interesting. The album seems to cross over a lot of different areas, some classical blues style, yet very contemporary blues. With a little bit of rock thrown in. How would you describe your band to someone that hadn't heard you before?
Scott Smith
I generally describe us as a blues-rock band. Because there is a lot of classic rock elements in it We're not trying to recreate a 1957 blues recording, right? We allow all the different influences that we like to seep into it.
Ken Wallis
And where was this album recorded?
Scott Smith
It was recorded in a suburb of Vancouver called Burnaby. In the studio there that's run by a great singer, a guy named Chris Woods, who plays in a band called The Rock and Roll Circus.
Ken Wallis
I really noticed there's some great harmonica playing… some great keyboard playing… there's bass.. there's drums… you guys seem to take turns featuring each other is that correct?
Scott Smith
For sure, yeah. I'm a huge harmonica fan. And I play a bit myself. But the harmonica player on this album is Australian named Vic Polyik who used to live in Vancouver, but he's been in Australia for the last 13 years or so. So he came up to Vancouver last summer. And we had him play on about two thirds of the album. And he's just phenomenal. I'm happy to have the solos be spread around. I love playing guitar but I don't need the guitar to be the focus all the time.
Ken Wallis
Are there any blues rock icons that you really looked up to and sort of followed?
Scott Smith
I'm a huge Allman Brothers fan. So Dickey Betts and Duane Allman, Derek Trucks as well. They're all huge influences on me. And like Layla when you've got Dwayne's slide trading off with Eric Clapton’s strat playing. That’s the ultimate for me as far as guitar playing.
Ken Wallis
There are a couple of tunes on this album that kind of remind me of Allman Brothers and one song Chicago Calling…that really makes me think that you guys really follow the blues?
Scott Smith
Well, we do you know, we're pretty fanatical about it. We listen to all eras from the 1920s 30s acoustic stuff up to the 50s stuff and then 60s 80s…we love the Fabulous Thunderbirds…And right up to this day,
Ken Wallis
If there was one song that you would point the listeners to on that album to get a flavour of what the band is all about. What would that song be?
Scott Smith
My favourite song is One More Bottle which definitely has that Allmans’ influence. I would point people to that. Or there's a song called Poor Lightnin’, which kind of has our sort of swamp rock blues sound. And that's a song actually written about Lightni’ Hopkins who's a hero of ours as well.
Ken Wallis
I guess most importantly, where can our people get a hold of your album?
Scott Smith
In this order, I would suggest our website is where you can buy a physical copy, just go to terminalstationband.com and the merch section, you can buy it from there. And you can also buy it through Bandcamp which is a great website where the majority of the proceeds go to the artist so you can get digital there, you can get a CD there. And it is on all the streaming services as well.
Ken Wallis
Well, we encourage folks to buy rather than stream. So what have you been doing during these difficult times? I assume there haven't been a lot of live gigs going on in Vancouver.
Scott Smith
I've managed to still have some stuff going on as a sideman. I play with some country artists…Aaron Pritchett and The Washboard Union. We did these interesting drive in shows on the prairies where you play to a huge parking lot of people in their cars. And the music gets broadcast on an empty FM station. And then I've been doing large theatre shows with 150 people spaced out all over that kind of stuff. Lots of live streaming. So stuff is still been happening. But it's just different.
Ken Wallis
Scott, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
Scott Smith
Thanks for having me Ken
Website: www.terminalstationband.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/terminalstation
Instagram: www.instagram.com/scottysteelsmith