Adam Kennedy talks with Meghan Parnell from Canadian blues/rock outfit Bywater Call ahead of their pair of North East shows this weekend.

Following their recent appearance on Blues heavyweight Joe Bonamassa’s Keeping The Blues Alive at Sea cruise, Canadian seven-piece Bywater Call will be returning to the UK this week.

Earlier in the year, Meghan and Dave from the group dipped their toe in the water, so to speak, with a run of UK shows as support to US rockers Robert Jon and the Wreck, which included a date on Teesside. But for their last dates on this side of the pond, the group left five of their bandmates at home in Canada to make the run less logistically challenging.

Speaking about their last UK tour, lead singer Meghan Parnell said: “It was a blast, we had a wonderful time. We didn't know what to expect. Dave and I don't do a tonne of that, where we strip the music down. We were nervous about properly representing a seven-piece band.” She adds: “The audiences were so receptive to it. Again, we didn't know coming into the tour whether they would be into this version of the band. I think what our intentions were was to go ahead and introduce ourselves to the UK audience before we did this tour coming up and drum up some interest, and I think we accomplished it; we seem to have some fans over there. So, we're excited to show them the whole band experience.”

The Northern Echo: An interview with Bywater Call ahead of their shows in the North East this weekend

Performing music that was written for a seven-piece band as a duo is not the easiest of tasks; perhaps you will agree. "It was certainly an eye-opener,” says Meghan. “This will be our fourth time going to Europe to tour. And going over as a two-piece is a completely different experience on so many different levels. Financially, we're not dragging around seven people in a van. You have to have at least four hotel rooms, if not more. But yes, introducing them to the duo first is the logical way, not vice versa.”

When translating the music from a seven-piece group to a duo, the pair had to rethink song arrangements. "This music was all written around a seven-piece band,” explains Meghan. “There are some tunes in the repertoire that do lend themselves nicely to the two-piece. And I'm sure part of that is the way that we started writing them. A lot of those tunes started with Dave picking on the guitar, and we stripped it back to that idea. So, there's definitely a handful that lend themselves very well to it.”

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Thankfully, the full band are back together for their upcoming UK tour. Bywater Call warmed up for their headline run with an appearance on the Keeping The Blues Alive at Sea Cruise in Europe. The latter is a musical voyage curated by bluesman extraordinaire Joe Bonamassa. “Most of the guys, including myself, have never even been on a cruise ship,” explains Meghan. “There's music everywhere, all the time, and there's tonnes of really talented musicians to talk to. We had a couple of guys get up on stage with us on our last show.” She adds: “Everybody's very accessible. And then to be able to be in the same bed for four or five nights, playing three shows and be able to walk back to your room after the show - that's awesome.”

With a captive audience and a whole raft of music fans on board, the cruise was the perfect environment to showcase the band’s talents. “It was a cool opportunity to introduce ourselves to people who may not have come across our band,” she said. “We got an opportunity to do the All-Star Jam at the end of the cruise, which was very humbling." During the All-Star Jam, the group played alongside Joe Bonamassa, Josh Smith, and Reese Wynans along with Jimmy Vivino’s band.

Bywater Call are presently touring in support of their latest album, Remain. "So that was a COVID baby. We had started writing a couple of those tunes before we went on our very first European tour at the beginning of 2020. And Remain, the title track, which is a pretty special tune for us. We had written that one, and it came together really easily. We brought that on tour with us in 2020. That became the staple of that album,” explains Meghan. “There were a couple of other tunes that we brought on the road that we workshopped while we were on tour, and they changed a lot as the year or so went by.”

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Sadly, as we all know, the pandemic resulted in a halt to touring activity around the world. “When COVID hit, we weren't particularly inspired for the first bit of it. It was a weird day, obviously. But as it dragged on, and we weren't quite sure when we were going to come out of it, we were like, this is an opportunity. And really, we needed to get back into writing. So, we used the downtime and

started workshopping tunes,” said Meghan. “Once we could get the whole band together, we started developing those even more in terms of the full band sound.”

The difference is that these songs had never really been played in front of an audience. “It was different to the first album because the first album was pretty road-tested. We'd played most of those songs a lot before we went into the recording studio. And for Remain, we had barely played them,” said Meghan. “We didn't really know what reactions would be to some of those tunes. We hadn't been in front of people with them. But yeah, it came together.”

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Bywater Call will be returning to the North East this week. “We just had such a wonderful time, the two of us there, the people that we met, everybody was so awesome. And we're excited to introduce the rest of the band to that, so they have the same experience that we had in February,” said Meghan. “The landscape is just completely different than home. In Toronto, we tear down any building that has any kind of historical significance. Whereas you get anywhere in Europe, and the history is all around you.”

The rest of the year will revolve around touring for the Canadian seven-piece. "Most of this year is mapped out for sure. It's been a crazy year of touring for us. And we're taking it into December. So, when we get back from tour, we have a few weeks in November where we're doing shorter runs in Ontario or at home to some new markets. And then we're going back down south of the border for a run at the end of November through mid-December,” explains Meghan. “Throughout the year, we get together when we're at home, we're having some fun right now self-producing; we've never done the music completely on our own. And we want to see where we go with that.”

Bywater Call will perform at The Cluny in Newcastle on Friday 6th October, and Steelies in Hartlepool on Sunday 8th October. For ticket information and further details, please visit: http://www.bywatercall.com