{"id":3815,"date":"2012-02-29T09:10:20","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T15:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=3815"},"modified":"2012-02-29T09:10:20","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T15:10:20","slug":"greg-rekus-hardcore-troubadour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2012\/02\/29\/greg-rekus-hardcore-troubadour\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg Rekus – Hardcore Troubadour"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Sheldon Birnie<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Greg Rekus’ long-running, hard-touring punk band High Five Drive went on indefinite hiatus recently, Greg wasn’t willing to hang up his stompin’ boots. Instead, the singer\/guitar-player set about writing songs he could deliver himself, and then set about conquering North America. With the release of his debut full-length <\/em>The Dude Abides, Rekus has been on the road more or less non-stop since. <\/em>Stylus caught up with Greg just before he flies over to tour Europe.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Stylus: You\u2019ve been really busy lately Greg. Can you tell us a little of what you\u2019ve been up to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Greg Rekus:<\/strong> Yeah, about a year ago I started a solo project that sort of a folk\/punk\/stomp\/sing-a-long sort of thing. I did a demo and hit the road coast to coast in Canada, which went alright. Then I did a full length, which I recorded with J.P. [Peters] from Private Ear. Then I ended up doing another coast-to-coast thing, then headed down into the States. I did the East Coast, then just this past January did the West Coast. So, I\u2019ve somewhat conquered North America at this point, so I\u2019m headed to Europe this spring, and I\u2019m pretty excited about it. It\u2019s pretty fun over there.<\/p>\n

Stylus: You\u2019ve done lots of touring with your old band High Five Drive. How does touring solo compare or differ from touring with a full band?<\/strong><\/p>\n

GR: <\/strong>With a band it was always tough to be as effective as you can. With four people on the road, if you want to say run some errands or whatever, or just do other things, every one might not be on the same page. That was one of the hard things. One of the easier things was driving. I find on my own I\u2019m doing most or all of the driving, with a band there\u2019s lots more drivers. There are certainly ups and downs to both, but I\u2019m really liking this solo thing right now. It\u2019s nice to be able to get away whenever you can, and not have to try to coordinate four other peoples\u2019 schedules.<\/p>\n

Stylus: You recently put out a full-length \u2013 The Dude Abides \u2013 <\/em>how has the reaction been to that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

GR: <\/strong>Pretty good, for the most part. I didn\u2019t want to go too too crazy, adding tons of instruments. I really wanted to do what you hear live. We added some back-up vocals, and some hand-claps, that sort of thing, besides that it\u2019s just singing, guitar, and stomp. JP\u2019s a really nice guy to work with, we get along pretty good. It was fun. Sometimes you go into the studio and its just a horrible experience, like a giant microphone on how bad of a player you actually are, but this was totally different. I got in there and it was fun.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Any plans at this point for a new album? Any new material?<\/strong><\/p>\n

GR: <\/strong>I\u2019m already thinking about a new record. I probably won\u2019t record it until 2013, though. I really want to do the rest of this year promoting this record. It\u2019s coming out in Europe on March 7. I\u2019d like to do some more touring in North America in the fall, and if it\u2019s in the cards go back to Europe, maybe not. There\u2019s this guy in Russia that got a hold of me last minute and said he wanted to book some dates in Russia. This tour is already pretty full, but that\u2019s a good reason to go back soon, if it makes sense financially of course. I still have a day job, that when I come home I work as much as I can to try to fund these things. But if everything goes well, I\u2019ll definitely go back to Europe, and some time after that start work on a new record.<\/p>\n

Stylus: For most folks, a busy schedule like this would be a lot to handle. How do you keep it going?<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>GR: <\/strong>It is intense, man. My job is a big help. I work as a sound-guy, which isn\u2019t easy. It\u2019s long hours and that, but I really enjoy it. If I was still at the call-center or something, a job that was horrible, I think it would be tough to come home and work that many hours and then boom back out on to the road. But this is a nice balance. I come home, work a bunch of hours, then when I start to get tired of it, I already have another tour booked. That\u2019s kind of it. It\u2019s not easy, but it\u2019s what I really like to do, so I just find a way to do it I guess.<\/p>\n

Catch Greg before he heads off to Europe at the Lo Pub on March 1st<\/sup>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Sheldon Birnie When Greg Rekus’ long-running, hard-touring punk band High Five Drive went on indefinite hiatus recently, Greg wasn’t willing to hang up his stompin’ boots. Instead, the singer\/guitar-player set about writing songs he could deliver himself, and then set about conquering North America. With the release of his debut full-length The Dude Abides, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[326,563,766],"class_list":["post-3815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-europe","tag-local","tag-punk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}