I know we’re sick to death of hearing about “the pandemic” and all the challenges it has caused around the world. But, there’s some upsides too. Families that like each other get to spend more time together. Kids get to play Roblox all day long. Beer distributors are selling 24 packs like hotcakes. And without it, this Burning Nickels EP probably wouldn’t exist.
Burning Nickels is a Canadian punk band that started a side project from 2/3rds (Josh and Ozone) of Trashed Ambulance, a Red Deer, Alberta skatepunk band that consistently putting out great material since 2016. In 2018, Burning Nickels came into existence in the form of an album of old songs Josh had written before Trashed Ambulance became a band, and followed that up with few EPs of new songs.
For the latest EP, they asked friends from around the world to help. Since every musician around the globe is sitting at home wishing they were on stage, it was easy to convince a few friends to record vocal and guitar tracks for them.
“I had always wanted to do more collaborations and figured because of Covid, I would have the best chance to find willing participants since most musicians are bored right now. I was right as everyone I asked agreed to do it.” said Josh. He enlisted Dan Garrison from The Corps to sing a verse on “Cobwebs” and then kept asking other friends to help out, and they all said yes.
The first three songs on the EP paint a pretty dark image of isolation, alcohol abuse and sorrow. For example, on “Bootstraps” Josh complains that he “feels like a drunk Celine Dion”, in the way only a true Canadian can.
Even though the subject matter is mostly bleak, Burning Nickels are a little more poppier than their faster, angrier, louder partial alter-ego Trashed Ambulance. However, Josh “called a mulligan” for a redo of an early Trashed Ambulance tune (“Sentiment”) that they knew they could nail better a second time. They enlisted Alex Goldfarb from Debt Neglector/New Mexican Disaster Squad to help out on vocals and changed the key of the song to give it a different vibe.
The EP rounds out with bassist Robbie Moron singing “Summer Boner” – a sentimental Bryan Adams-esque rocker that makes the sexual connotation just a little more obvious (and goofier, because boners are almost always funny) than “Summer of ’69” (although Adams has since made it clear that was a reference to the sexual position, not the year as most of us had assumed).
Available via the High End Denim Records Bandcamp page, Spotify, and everywhere else.
