A New Beginning

The Drea Macdonald Band has gone through many talented members since it's conception in October, 2008. Created for a demo recording session (December, 2008), the original line-up was as follows;

Vocals/acoustic - Drea
Electric guitar - Thomas Mears
Upright bass - Ross MacDonald
Drums/percussion - Scott Doyle

Recording engineer Adam Gallant changed the session date from mid-November to the weekend of December 5th. Because Ross was unavailable on this date, the upright bass position went to Dean Dunsford. A few weeks before the recording date, Scott Doyle dropped out and the drum/percussion spot went to Andy Hodgins. Adding Jon Mullins on the lapsteel guitar and Tim Gormley (vocals on the duet "To Love You"), the band was ready to record.

The group turned Lyon's House into a studio for the weekend, and during those three days, the band recorded six songs live off the floor with some lapsteel, background vocals, guitar solos and percussion overdubs. They consumed 60 beer, countless cups of coffee, home-made chili (thanks Mom!) Dino's pizza and take out from Formosa Tea House.

A great time was had by all, and the recordings came out sounding lovely. Adam did some mixing at Shell Lane Studios and handed the tracks over to Jon Matthews (Big Grey Sound Studio) for mastering.

Manufactured by "Put it on CD" in Dartmouth, NS, the cd was ready in mid-March, 2009. A CD release party was held at Baba's Lounge on April 4th, 2009 featuring a new version of the Drea Macdonald Band (Mike MacDougall took over on drums and Simon Joseph took his turn on bass) and including The Dan Currie Band as special guests.

After playing a few gigs around the CD release, the band took a break and Drea took off on a three-week long trip to clear her head and write some new material. After taking the Greyhound all over the country visiting old friends and family, she arrived home with a slew of new lyrics, and set about putting them to music, booking gigs and re-forming the band for late summer, 2009. The new line-up includes the drummer from The Cashmere Disciples, the front man of The Royal Rifles, and is as follows;

Vocals/acoustic - Drea
Lead guitar - Thomas Mears
Drums/percussion - Joel Walker
Bass guitar - Mark Palmer
Lapsteel - Jon Mullins

It's been quite a year.