KAELEY: Hey folks, it's Kaeley Jade Wiebe here,
Festival director for the 2021
Ukrainian Village Music Fest, and I
am so excited to be joined here
today by Brian Cherwick of
the Kubasonics. So we're going to talk a little bit
about music, and a little bit about life,
and if you're not familiar with the Kubasonics,
they're arguably Newfoundland's finest
Ukrainian band. So this
award-winning group combines top-flight
musicianship spiced with quirky humour,
a dizzying array of exotic traditional
instruments, and an eclectic,
high-energy stage show. They've
performed across Canada, eastern Europe and
the Caribbean, they've released six
albums, and are frequently featured
in regional and national broadcasts.
Their newest recording, "Kubasongs," is
set for release in 2021.
Without further ado, Brian Cherwick.
[Funky theme song plays in background.]
KAELEY: Hey Brian! Thank you so much for
joining me today. How have you been
lately? How's everything going for you?
BRIAN: Well, all things considered,
not too bad. [KAELEY chuckles.] We're fortunate
'cause we live on an island,
and we're surrounded by water, so it's
easier to control, control
things in these strange times.
KAELEY: Yeah, yeah, I definitely imagine so.
What have you been up to since the pandemic
kind of started? Have you, have you been
learning anything new, or like, trying a new
language, or taken up any new hobbies
in the past year?
BRIAN: A bit of all of that stuff.
We, we were, with our group Kubasonics,
we started recording a new
record just before
the pandemic started,
so we got the
main recordings done in our local
CBC studio, and then
in January last year,
we were buried in snow for
a month, so our whole city was shut
down, like for at least two
weeks. KAELEY: Oh wow. BRIAN: I couldn't
see my car, for, it took me
four days to dig it out, like that's how much snow there
was. So our, so our, kind of
follow-up recording sessions were, were
cancelled, and then we just started
getting back into it again, and then
the pandemic started, so it's,
it's taken us like all this year
to kind of finish things up. But in that same
time, like I've been doing,
uh, besides
playing in our band, I play in a bunch of other bands, so
one of the groups I play in is a Greek-music
band, so I started learning Greek.
[KAELEY: Cool.] BRIAN: Then I could read all the
words to our songs in Greek,
and then,
and then one of the other things I've learning how
to do is stop-motion animation,
so I set up a little studio in my house
and have been making little animated
films,
and the idea is to make some films that will
go along with some of the new songs on the record.
KAELEY: Oh, that's so cool, are you doing, like,
claymation, or is it like some other sort
of media? BRIAN: It's similar to that, it's not,
they're not clay, it's like with
well I got actually a couple different ways
of doing it. One is with actually figures
that move around like that, and another way
is a cut-paper-kind-of
design thing, so, yeah. KAELEY: Oh,
that's so cool, so you're kind of a multi-
disciplinary, then, you would say?
BRIAN: Well, I guess. Some, some of my colleagues are,
you say, like,
you know, instead of learning more music
things, I tried, tried something completely different,
but sometimes, that's, that's good as anything,
so yeah. KAELEY: Yeah! I find, especially
nowadays, too, you kind of need to do
everything, like there's so much that
artists can do, like there's, it's
so, everyone's so empowered lately, like,
so there's lots of things that you can do to
further your career in different ways, I find,
so that's, that's really cool.
BRIAN: Yeah, well and for us, 'cause we're,
like all the musicians in our group, we
do this full-time, and so
we're always having to wear
multiple hats, like you know, doing
all kinds of, what do you call it,
like work that, working with, what
publicists would do, or
or, or booking things, or whatever,
so there's all kinds of stuff on the go.
KAELEY: Yeah, definitely. So,
so with the pandemic, too, how would you say
that your artistic process has changed?
Like have you started creating
a little bit differently? You mentioned the stop-motion,
but is there, is there things within your
songwriting that have kind of changed, or
like, how you might approach a project?
BRIAN: Well, it was tough
for awhile because, I mean, most of what we're doing
is collaborative stuff, so it was
hard to get together to actually do those
things, and the, you know,
so all of us in our group were
kind of working on individual, more individual
kind of projects. We had, we
had the basis of our, like
newest set of material ready to go
just before the pandemic hit,
so it was kind of like, you know
just waiting for the chance to get back
and, and finish things up, and,
and we were lucky here in Newfoundland, because
they had so few COVID
cases, you know, by the
summer, everything was kind of opened up, a,
you know, a bit more, 'cause
we're, we were in a very strict lockdown for a long
time in the spring, and,
so we were able to get back to, like,
finish up the recording stuff, and then
work kind of remotely with all our,
with our producer, like doing,
doing all the kind of touch-up things
and that, so. KAELEY: Yeah. Yeah,
that's super cool! So, overall,
what would you say is your favourite part
about the, about creating music?
Like what part of the process excites you the most?
BRIAN: Well, we like,
I mean, one of the things I like doing
is, dig, look, hunting for old,
you know, old stuff, whether it's
old Ukrainian-Canadian things,
or old stuff from all kind of Ukrainian
tradition—you can tell from my, all my
weird stuff back here—that I do a
bunch of weird stuff, and so it's
always, it's always fun to take those
things and then twist them around into a new package,
so we've, you know, we're
doing that all the time, I
mean, that's what this band's always
tried to do, like either come up with
completely brand-new stuff, or
take old things, and put them in a way
that we can show them,
people, like how it used to be, and
something new that you could do with it as well.
KAELEY: I actually, I listened to your
Kubfunland podcast that you released.
So if you haven't heard it yet, it's really,
really cool, it's available on like Soundcloud,
and on their website, and it's a
really cool into, like a lot of those
inspirations that you're talking about.
BRIAN: I always liked to send people
on that same path that I followed
to get to where I am, so I always
like to tell people where the ideas came,
you know, who did this before us,
so that people can go back and listen to,
you know, previous recordings, or find,
or, you know, hear, hear how things were
done before, and give credit to all those
people, who had, you know, great ideas
in the past, and, and just show how
we respect their work, and we
wanna just build upon it. Yeah. KAELEY: Yeah,
definitely, kind of, like, standing on the
shoulders of those who came before you, sort of idea?
BRIAN: Absolutely, yeah, you know, and if
it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have what we have
to work with, as it is, and so
I always like to let people know,
you know, where the, where everything comes
from, and so they can check out, check out the
original versions, and then check out our version.
KAELEY: Yeah, that, that's so awesome.
So, who would you say some of your biggest
inspirations are, when you're creating music?
Like is there any certain artists,
or different, like, genres that
you pull from more than others?
BRIAN: No! [KAELEY laughs.] We dig, we dig
through all kinds of stuff. I ,mean,
you know, because we're, I'm originally from Western
Canada, and I grew up, you know, lots of
my relatives were musicians, and played
music, so I grew up hearing the
Western-Canadian style of stuff,
so we still, we still dip into
that often, but, I mean,
there's also all kinds of other musical traditions
from Ukraine, and, you know,
one of the things that I do is
play all this weird stuff back here,
and so, so we try and incorporate
that as much as possible, if we can,
and, I'm really fortunate now because
all the people that play in our band
now are among
the best musicians in Newfoundland,
and so, you know, they all are
award-winning musicians on their own
in other projects, and so when we get together,
kind of, the sky's the limit of what we can do
with them now.
KAELEY: Yeah, yeah of course, that's, that's so awesome.
So, pointing at the, pointing
at the, the "weird stuff" behind you,
what is your favourite instrument to play? 'Cause you
play a ton of instruments, like,
so is there any that you just love
playing more than others?
BRIAN: There's, uh, I often answer that
that it depends which one I'm holding today, I guess.
KAELEY: Yeah.
BRIAN: But what I've been playing, of all of this stuff, the thing
that I've been playing the longest is the tsymbaly, which
your, you know, your people in Alberta
will be the most familiar with,
you know, in the old days, if you had a
fiddle and a tsymbaly, that was
enough to, like, have enough music for a
whole wedding, and my dad
and my grandfather, my great-grandfather,
they all played the fiddle, so I,
I got roped into that.
KAELEY: Thank you. Yeah, that's, that's really neat.
So I guess, yeah, what I, what I wanna know
too, is as a band that has toured worldwide,
what would you say your
favourite place to play has been?
'Cause you've been all over the place, you had an
Eastern European tour awhile ago,
and you've played at a whole bunch of festivals across
North America, so what's been your favourite
venue, or your favourite country?
BRIAN: We've had tons, like we were so lucky
to go to all kinds of different places, I mean
a few things stand out, like in
two thousand and
seventeen, we were
in Eastern Europe and in Ukraine
and, through some people
that we knew, we ended up
playing for the Ukrainian, like
Ukrainian Independence Day celebrations
in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk
and the people
that I was talking to, they said, "Oh, yeah, it'll be a
concert, you know, in downtown,"
and I, I saw, like, a bunch of
stages at different places of their main
street, and I saw the small ones and said,
"Oh, are we playing on this stage?" "No, no, you'll be playing on the,
at the other end of the street." When we got there,
it's like, fifteen or
twenty-thousand people in the crowd and
a bunch of the biggest, like, bands in Ukraine
on that show, and so it was really
cool to walk on there and then have that,
you know, and, and people really
responding and enjoying that stuff,
but, I mean, we also went
from that, one day, to like playing in a little
village with twenty people, you know,
in someone's house, and that
was also exciting, because it was completely different,
and, you know, playing different places,
in Canada, one of the things we really like doing
as well, is, you know, we played
lots of festivals in Canada, not
Ukrainian festivals, but just
regular, you know, music festivals,
so letting people
who have no idea what Ukrainian music
is at all have a chance for them
to see, you know,
what it's, what it's all about
and see different kinds of instruments that they've never
seen before, and
and, and, and at those things,
what we sometimes, you know, what we often do is,
besides playing a big concert on the stage,
there's smaller, like, workshop stages
where we get to sit, you know, with a
small group of people, and, and
show them what each instrument does,
or we have a whole show where we teach people
how to do old-time dancing, so
we show them steps of dances and then we
play these old-time dances for them and things like that,
so it's, it's nice
to be able to connect, you know, right with,
with people directly like that, as well.
KAELEY: Yeah, definitely. I
feel like a lot of times the smaller venues
are a lot more, like not fun to play,
but like I feel like you kind of get to know your audience a little
bit more on a personal level, in those sort
of settings. BRIAN: Oh yeah, well, we have that when we
play, we still play downtown in the pubs
of St. John's, and St. John's is different
of live music venues
in downtown, so
like, there's some places where,
you know, the, you
can barely move, when, when there's
four people, and it's funny
to see, you know, they don't understand
what we're saying, but—except for
what I explain to them—but those
people, they try singing along,
everybody's dancing however they think they want to
dance, to, to what music we're playing,
and it's also, like, really exciting
to feel all that energy when it's in a small,
tight space like that.
KAELEY: Yes, definitely.
So I guess, like, next, like, do you have any
advice for aspiring artists?
And I mean, an aspiring artist, like, they can be,
like, five or fifty, like
do you have any, any words that you might want to say to
someone starting out?
BRIAN: Well, I'd say, you know, choose something
that you like, like do
what you feel that, that, it, it
speaks to what you want to do,
and,
there's a whole, millions of different ways
of playing Ukrainian music, I guess, and
none of them is right or wrong,
you know, some, some people get
worried, "Oh, we're not playing exactly the way
it was, like, whenever, sometime
before," or something, but try and do your own
thing with it, I guess, you know, there's lots of,
especially now, like, I mean,
it's unfortunate the pandemic's kind of locked
people up, but then, you also get to
see, like, all kinds of people posting stuff
online, that, you know,
you probably wouldn't have a chance to see
otherwise, and so, you know, there's lots
of young people out playing music and posting their
things up there, and trying to play stuff,
so, it's, it's kind of exciting,
yeah. So, I would just say that, you know,
uh, look
back, try and learn as much as you can,
listen to all kinds of interesting stuff, but then, do your
own thing.
KAELEY: Yeah, thank you so much! That's, that's some really good words of
wisdom, there. So, finally,
I guess, I, I'm just curious, what is
next for the Kubasonics? You mentioned that you're,
that you had recorded a new album?
BRIAN: Well, that, we're just
finishing up the last
details of it, working with our
art designer right now, and
so hopefully, we'll have that out
later this year.
Uh, you know, we're
working on a couple of, kind of
projects to
spread that around as much as we can when you
can't actually get out and play.
KAELEY: Yeah.
BRIAN: One of the things that we
got to do on our
new recording is record with
a bunch of friends who weren't
here in Newfoundland. So because everybody
was kind of locked down in all their
different places.
We have one song
that we are playing together with a
band from Lviv, Ukraine, called
the Lemko Bluegrass Band, so
they're super great, we played in a
show with them when we were touring Europe.
We have one song that we're doing with a
band from Trinidad, 'cause
we, we were
on a tour down to Trinidad a couple years back
as well, and, and did some
collaborative work with, with that band
when we were there, and then one more song
where we have a whole bunch of different
well-known singers from Ukraine
getting, you know, adding
little bits to one of our songs, as well, so
it was fun to do all of
those things, and I think, it
especially worked, you know, because of the
strange times that we're in, and everybody,
you know, couldn't be out on the roads
so we could get them to, to
get together and contribute their stuff,
so it should be fun and interesting.
KAELEY: Yeah! I'm super excited for it. It's kind of,
that's kind of, like, an interesting thing that the pandemic has
sort of brought on, has been this, like,
global connection? Like, yeah, even
myself, like I find I'm working with a lot more
people from outside just where I
live, like my own community, like your,
your community just becomes so much more
global, I guess, when it's times
like these, so that's really awesome that you're
able to do that. BRIAN: Yeah. We
came out of a new lockdown just last
week, so venues are opening up
again, so we have the opportunity to play, you
know, certain places. We've already
been invited to a couple festivals
in the western part of Newfoundland
this summer, so they're, they're kind of
hoping that things will be
as normal as possible by then,
so, so we're going to be out to do
that. And, uh
And, and our new record's got all
kinds of, like, weird things that we've never
tried before, and also,
it's going to be packaged
in a way that's kind of
unusual as well, so people can keep an
eye out for that when it's, when it's on the go.
KAELEY: Awesome. Yeah, I'm really looking forward
to hearing when that comes out, so,
yeah, thank you so much for
taking the time to sit with me and chat a little bit
today. We're really looking forward to your
performance in the Ukrainian Village
Music Fest, so thank you
so much, Brian. It's been a pleasure.
BRIAN: And it's been a pleasure talking with you, and
hello to all my
friends in Alberta, and
anyone else that'd be listening to this. Sorry we
can't be out there with you, but we'll be there sort
of, in, well, electronically,
I guess. KAELEY: Great,
well, thank you again, take care, and
I'll talk to you next time.
BRIAN: Great, thanks a lot.
KAELEY: So, thank you so much for joining us. I
had so much fun and I hope that you
did, too. For more Kubasonics, be
sure to check out their performance in our festival
stream in July, and make sure to
tune in next week for our next interview session.
Diakuiu for joining us, and see you
next time.