Bud Rice

It’s not easy to pigeonhole Bud Rice’s very good debut album Belfast.

The 23-year-old Montreal singer-songwriter’s surprisingly assured first collection – which he’ll launch with a show at Le Divan Orange on Friday – moves easily from riff-heavy rockers to old-school Van Morrison-style R&B/soul workouts to more contemplative numbers, all anchored by Rice’s distinctive vocals.

“I think everyone has a hard time with that for some reason,” said Rice, in an interview at Shäika Café on Sherbrooke St. in N.D.G. “It’s a tough question to answer because everyone’s trying to put it into a marketable genre. I look at it and … I just call it rock music. There are a lot of other influences that contribute to how eclectic the record is … with my influences in soul and funk and R&B.

“To put it in a box is tough because there were so many different things I was influenced by when I was growing up, ranging from Celtic music to jazz music and rock and blues. It’s all there. I like to (compare it) to The Band for the most part. They have songs that are very slow ballads, almost country songs and then upbeat soul funky tunes.”

Rice received some help from seasoned local players while making Belfast over the course of a year at the noted Mile End studio, Hotel2Tango, with veteran Celtic musician Dave Gossage producing, Plants and Animals’ singer-guitarist Warren Spicer mixing, and acclaimed musician and producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh engineering, along with Paul (Nudge) Johnston.

Several songs feature a star-studded horn section including Andy King on trumpet, and three noted saxophonists, Chet Doxas on tenor, Erik Hove on alto, and Jason Sharp on baritone. Senja Sargeant, formerly a member of the band Ladies of the Canyon, provides backing vocals, and Gossage plays harmonica, bass flute and guitar.

Snaring Gossage wasn’t that tough. Rice’s real name is Henry Rice-Gossage – he uses the Bud Rice moniker for his music career – and Gossage is his father. Gossage is a well-known Montreal studio musician, who gigs regularly at the local Irish pubs and was a member of the Celtic band Orealis.

Rice frequently performs with Sargeant at Honey Martin’s in N.D.G. and he and his dad play twice a month at Hurley’s.

Some up-and-coming musicians might be loathe to work with their dad, even if he is a crack musician, but Rice had no such qualms.

“I think he and I have really sound minds musically,” Rice said. “I always called the final shot, but Dad always had great things to say. We never really butt heads. He’s a huge influence on why I play music in the first place, and I was so happy to have him on board. And he was really keen to be on board, too. So we worked really well together. I’d do all my records with him.”

Rice comes from quite the musical family. Besides his father, two of Gossage’s brothers are musicians — drummer Thom and bassist Bill. That led to no shortage of musical soirées for Rice growing up.

“I can remember being five years old and dancing to Celtic music,” Rice said. “It’s stupid the amount of music that’s involved in my family. At birthday parties, singing Happy Birthday became this huge harmony (thing) and everyone would have an instrument. It was great.”

Dave Gossage is best-known as a Celtic player and Rice grew up in a family with Irish roots listening to a lot of music from the old country, but that influence doesn’t rear its head at all on Belfast, in spite of the title.

“I love Irish music,” Rice said. “When I go to see Dad at Hurley’s or any event where there’s Irish music, (I like it) … it’s got that tear-jerking, drinking, beautiful thing going on. But there’s none of that in any of my music right now.”

The title comes from his song Belfast, a tune inspired by his grandfather, his mother’s father, who moved his family from that city in Northern Ireland to Montreal.

“I just thought it was sort of fitting for the type of music because a lot of the excitement of my upbringing was due to the fact that my mother was from there and my aunts were all Irish, and it made for a lot of fun and a lot of sorrow and a lot of everything. A lot of my writing has to do with my personal experiences, so I thought it was fitting to have something personal like that (as the album title). It’s a huge part of my culture.”

“It’s about my grandfather, but it’s more than that. Belfast is about my turmoil, about what it means to be a man, the ups and downs of drinking, love and the craziness involved.”

Bud Rice performs at Le Divan Orange, 4234 St-Laurent Blvd., on Friday at 8:30 p.m. The album will be on sale at the show and will be available digitally on Feb. 1.

bkelly@montrealgazette.com - Brendan Kelly, The Gazette

Bud Rice wins Best Out Of Province Act for the 2015 Toronto Independent Music Awards. -

BRENDAN KELLY

1. Jean Leloup at Metropolis, Oct. 22. ...

2. Bud Rice at Divan Orange, Jan. 30. The 23-year-old Montreal singer-songwriter launched his remarkably accomplished first album, Belfast, with a swinging gig that featured some serious players, including his dad (and producer) Dave Gossage on guitar and a honkin’ brass section featuring Jason Sharp on baritone sax, Erik Hove on alto sax, Al McLean on tenor sax and Andy King on trumpet.

3. Iggy Pop and Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg at Heavy Montréal, Aug. 8 (Pop) and 9 (Ramone). I made my first trip to our big hard-rock fest this summer to catch two punk vets. Both showed that you’re never too old to inspire a little pogoing, and they both did it while sounding completely contemporary. Iggy remains one of rock’s great showmen, even if he now walks with some difficulty. Ace drummer Ramone, with the help of singer Andrew W.K., convincingly supported my argument that his old band, a nifty little guitar combo called the Ramones, wrote more good songs than any other band in the history of rock ’n’ roll. - The Gazette

Best Solo Act
1 Patrick Watson
2 Leonard Cohen
3 Wiz Kilo
4 Grimes
5 Ms. Holmes
6 Bloodshot Bill
7 Will Butler
8 Sean Nicholas Savage
9 Bud Rice
10 Pete Warning

Best Singer-Songwriter
1 Patrick Watson
2 Leonard Cohen
3 Coeur de Pirate
4 Mike Feuerstack
5 Devon Welsh
6 Ms. Holmes
7 Sarah Segal Lazar
8 Bud Rice
9 Shane Murphy
10 Pete Warning - Cult Mtl

Bud Rice: Son of a son of a gun

by Steve Guimond – December 24, 2009, The Hour.ca

Rice: Everything is second to the art itself

Bud Rice and the lessons learned from a rad dad

Montreal has its fair share of musical families – the Biddles, the Wainwrights, the McGarrigles, the Gossages. To the latter belongs singer/songwriter Bud Rice, son of Celtic guru Dave Gossage. It’s fair, then, to say that young Bud almost had no choice but to pick up the guitar and sing.

"Ever since I was a kid I was surrounded by music, attending folk festivals with my sister and cousins where my dad and uncles would play, dancing to the Celtic tunes… or listening to the jazz tunes, watching my dad pour his heart into his flute for a crowd of appreciative people," he mentions. "My dad never made me do it, or anything for that matter. He just sort of guided and inspired me into pursuing what was right, and what was right was what I believed in."

Versed first in drums and next in guitar as a teenager, his honest pop music points fingers at folk, blues, rock, country and soul, while his lyrical bent has a surprising influence. "I listen to a lot of hip-hop, and so the poetry in phrasing and co-ordinating lyrics comes from that," says Rice.

I’ve always considered Rice an undervalued commodity on this city’s buoyant music scene, which surprises him. "The majority of the people that like my music are students that have trouble affording seven dollars to come see me play. I hate charging for shows, but sometimes it’s necessary. I just figure I love doing what I do, and no matter where I am, how many people know me, or how much I’m getting paid, all that is sort of second to the art itself." Amen.

Bud Rice At Casa del Popolo (4873 St-Laurent), Jan. 3 - Hour

Exactly one year after the release of his album Belfast, Montreal musician Bud Rice is back with a new single, a song about Plateau nights called “Toxic Wonder,” launching with a show this weekend at Turbo Haus.

Though he and his band — which includes his father, well-known Montreal Irish-music-man Dave Gossage — hadn’t planned to go back into the studio just yet, a couple of fortunate accidents gave them access to a state of the art recording space in Old Montreal.

“A buddy of mine named Justin Wiley, who’s in a group called the Holds, works for Recording Arts Canada,” Rice explains. “He reached out to me about a week before this concert series that they hold annually, and for whatever reason they were in need of another band. I wanted to help him out and I was excited to play, it was at la Sala Rossa and I figured it would be a nice crowd.

“It turned out to be a competition, but I didn’t know it was a competition until the very end, when we won the competition. We had played our set and somebody came up to us and told us we won. We were a little caught off guard, but it allowed us a day in studio at the RAC studio. Recording is a pretty expensive endeavour so the free studio time was a great opportunity to put something else out. We took the day — it was me, my dad, my bass player, keys player and drummer and we banged out two tracks in about seven hours. I’m super grateful for it; I’m so pleased with the end result.”

The RAC crew handled the production, but Rice and company turned to the same guy who mixed Belfast for finishing touches — Warren Spicer of Plants and Animals. In some ways the track’s funky rock sound might point to the future, as Rice says that his next record will be a step away from the singer-songwriter nature of much of Belfast, but it’s also a nod to the past — the song was written roughly seven years ago.

“I was a teenager, and I was living at home still,” Rice recalls. “At that point we spent a lot of our weekends at (St-Laurent Blvd. bar) Bifteck — people always talk shit about Bifteck, ‘It’s a dive bar’ and this and that, which it is — but I loved my time there, it was always very fun and exciting. There was that stretch from Pine and St-Laurent that my buddy and I would walk at least once a week up to St-Viateur and Esplanade, which is where I grew up — my mum’s place — and we would encounter a lot of funny, weird experiences in that area at three in the morning.

“The song was also written in the blistering winter and I remember we would get 40s of Corona and walk down the street and drink it on the way down, which sounds so lame in retrospect, but we were young and it was funny.

“[The lyrics are] a little more romanticized than what it actually was. I tried to add a little poetry to what we saw but more or less it’s the exact same things that happened to us on a weekly basis down there.” - Lorraine Carpenter Cult Mtl

Montreal singer/songwriter Bud Rice (known to his mom as Henry Rice-Gossage) has been playing his blend of upbeat soul, rock and intimate ballads in venues around the city since he was just 15 years old. He’s about to release his debut album, Belfast, recorded here in Montreal at Hotel2Tango Studios, and will play Le Divan Orange on Friday 30th January to celebrate its release.

Belfast is titled after Rice’s grandfather and mother’s hometown and is an eclectic record demonstrating his varied musical influences. The son of Montreal legend, Dave Gossage, Rice has been exposed to music from a very young age. For a debut record, Belfast is a quite astonishing achievement.

The album begins with the solid rock stomp of Maybe Tomorrow, a soulful yet gritty song that immediately lets you know that this is an artist with potential to go far. Imagine a mix of Ryan Adams, Jeff Buckley and even a little Michael Buble vocal and you won’t be far off. Dying To Know keeps the soul and funk to the fore, with added horns and a little swagger. The vocals are smooth and believable; the sound rich and accomplished.

Price Edward Island takes things down a notch or three with an acoustic ballad that demonstrates Bud’s lyrical skills and reminds me slightly of Damien Rice (no relation) if he’d been more influenced by R&B. Female backing vocals and a touch of slide guitar add to the song nicely which leads perfectly into the slightly more upbeat Burlington.

The songwriting and playing throughout the record, which was produced by Rice’s father and mixed by Warren Spicer (Plants and Animals), is of such a high level you may wonder why his name is still relatively unknown in his home town. I have a feeling that may all be about to change!

The Little Things brings the funk back after a few mellower tunes, those horns and soulful backing vocals working beautifully as Rice sings his heart out. Hands As Worn clocks in at almost seven minutes and is one of the record’s real highlights. A heartbreaking, piano-led ballad, it once again highlights Rice’s strengths as a songwriter.

The rock riffs and distortion pedals return for the album’s title track as it builds to a soaring crescendo before the album’s intimate closer, Who I Am.

Some may find parts of this album a little too slick for their tastes but nobody can deny the level of talent on display here. From the arrangements, the musicianship, the passionate vocals and accomplished songwriting, this is an album that, in an ideal world, will take Bud Rice far beyond those Montreal bars and on to a worldwide audience.

Catch him at Le Divan Orange on January 30th. It may be a night you’ll tell your friends about for years to come. - Steve Gerrard, Montreal Rocks

Montreal’s own Bud Rice played to a packed out Divan Orange on Friday evening, launching his debut album, Belfast. The $10 cover charge was particularly generous when you consider everyone was given a copy of the CD at the door!

It’s around 10pm before Bud finally wanders onstage, acoustic guitar in hand, and begins proceedings with the closing song from the album, the gentle Who I Am. If he’s at all nervous introducing these songs to such a packed out room, he certainly doesn’t show it. The stripped down song gives his smooth vocal plenty of room to breathe and within minutes he has the attention of the room.

Through The Wind sees Rice joined by a handful of musicians as the song builds from an acoustic intro until a drumbeat builds the mood, followed by a little electric guitar and some female backing vocals. As the pace quickens and the tune builds there are a few whoops from the crowd and it soon becomes evident that we’re watching something more than your average singer/songwriter.

Burlington brings a little more soul to Rice’s sound and shows the broad range to his vocals. It’s a lovely thing to see the man playing guitar to his right too – well known Montreal musician and former member of the critically acclaimed Celtic band Orealis, Dave Gossage. Gossage also happens to be Bud Rice’s father.

By the time we get to Meet Me In The West End, the stage is full of musicians, backing singers and an array of instruments. Rice looks relaxed and confident, and now seems to be fully enjoying his moment. Eventually he adds horns to the mix and the audience get to witness the full scope of what the album has to offer. Dying To Know brings the party vibe before the soaring The Little Things bring things to a perfect conclusion.

As an album launch, tonight could hardly have gone better. A great crowd, a cool little venue and a slick and impressive performance from everyone on the crowded stage. All ten songs from the album are showcased, demonstrating the broad range of his songwriting. Here’s hoping the album reaches the audience it deserves. - Steve Gerrard, Montreal Rocks

http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/local-entertainment/what-s-on - Christine Long, CTV News

For those who missed the initial launch of his debut album Belfast, Bud Rice held a concert on March 2nd at the lovely O Patro Vys on Mont Royal. The show was opened by SoulStreet, another local band, who played a long set of funky songs, best described as what I would call reminiscent of Memphis soul.

Rice began his set with his song Who I Am, playing solo with his guitar. For his second song, however, he was joined by members of the Bud Rice Band to perform Through the Wind. The backup vocals on this song (and all other songs, for that matter) were wonderfully in tune, full of soul, and overall a great addition to the performance. Through the Wind was already one of my favourite tracks on the album, and listening to it live only made me like it more. As the set progressed, more musicians joined the band on stage until I counted ten – not including Rice.

There’s no one way to describe Rice’s music. As he weaved his way through the set, he played tunes that ranged from soft, calm songs with introspective lyrics, to songs with more of a rock sound. The best example I can think of is the difference between his songs Maybe Tomorrow (another one of my favourites), which was performed with the entire Bud Rice Band and has a clear rock vibe, and Who I Am, which has the simpler instrumentation of voice and guitar. Yes, they may be different styles, but if anything by doing this he proves that he can pull them off – and not just pull them off, but play them brilliantly.

While it’s clear that all of his songs deal with experiences unique to his personal life, it’s not hard to relate his lyrics to one’s own life. There’s a line from his song Belfast that I’m sure many a person can identify with: “My family’s crazy/ They love too hard/ They drink one more when they’ve gone too far” (who doesn’t have that one member at family gatherings who always has one drink too many?)

The band decided to finish things off with the song The Little things, which was a great way to end the night. Among other things, this song really showcased the band’s great horn section.

Bud Rice is, without a doubt, an artist who is sure to deliver great new tunes in the future. Though I had already listened to Belfast prior to the show (and quite a few times within the last week, may I add), hearing the Bud Rice Band in a live setting gave me a new degree of appreciation for his music. The experience of seeing all of the musicians, up on the stage doing their thing, exchanging smiles here and there, and having an all-around good time, is something that’s going to stay in my mind every time I give a listen to this album. - Posted on March 5, 2015. Written by Moegi Egan

Bar Scene Son Bud Rice Steps Up

After eight years playing bars and pubs, Bud Rice has made the record he wanted to make. Belfast was produced by Rice’s father, longtime local Irish-music man Dave Gossage, and recorded at Hotel2Tango with a pack of respected musicians including Ladies of the Canyon’s Senja Sergeant (vocals), Joe Grass (pedal steel), Chet Doxas (tenor sax), Eric Hove (alto sax), Gossage of course (guitar/bass flute) and Rice’s longtime drummer Marc Beland. They’ll be among the dozen players at Rice’s album launch this weekend.

At only 23, Rice (real name Henry) has racked up impressive experience, not surprising given his pedigree. After a false start on drums and piano around the age of 10, Rice picked up the guitar and got to work at 15, playing his first show at Brutopia.
“It was a great show,” Rice recalls. “We did three sets of mostly original music. I think it was a weekday so people were sort of lenient with the 16-year-old-doing-his-first-songs kind of thing. It wasn’t very good but it was a lot of fun.”

“I was playing the bars a lot by the time I was 16,” he adds, “and I’ve been doing that ever since, practising and getting okay at it. And I remember Dad told me, if you wanna play music, you have to write your own music.”

Rice released an EP and an LP at the ages of 17 and 20, but they were low-budget DIY exercises that didn’t satisfy their maker. ”I was too young and not in the right headspace,”he says. “I wasn’t ready to take the plunge like I am now.”

Despite his father’s career, Rice’s music doesn’t resonate with echoes of the Emerald Isle. “I love listening to Irish music but it’s not part of what I do, except maybe for the lyrics because I love Irish songwriters. My music is mainly influenced by funk and rock and soul.”
Through his heritage (Irish on both sides), Rice felt enough of a connection to the old country to name his record after one its cities, where he still has family.

“I just got back from visiting Belfast with my girlfriend, and I met my cousins and my aunts and I saw where my mom grew up,” Rice says. “Because this is my first record, the first thing I’ve ever done for myself, I thought it would be appropriate to go back to where it all started. It’s my roots. It felt like a fitting title.”

Though Rice’s preference is for the American musical tradition, he sees a meeting point between his music and his father’s. “It’s what music does to a crowd. Irish music will get people up and dancing and that’s sort of the goal: to keep people happy and keep people drinking and having a good time.

“Being around music from such a young age, music is what I’ve always wanted to do,” Rice adds. ”I’d like to do this forever.” - Lorraine Carpenter

"Chanter Ses Racines Irlandaises"

Il a fait paraître en janvier son premier album, intitulé Belfast, comme la capitale d’Irlande du Nord, et son nom de famille est Rice, comme un certain chanteur prénommé Damien. Même sa voix sentie et son jeu de guitare acoustique évoquent parfois le célèbre troubadour irlandais. Et pourtant, ce n’est pas de Damien Rice dont il est question ici, mais bien du Montréalais Bud Rice, qui sera en spectacle ce dimanche soir à La Vitrola, boulevard Saint-Laurent à Montréal.

Nous aurions tort toutefois de pousser plus loin cet amalgame un peu facile. En effet, l’univers de Bud Rice tel qu’illustré sur son premier album Belfast, paru en janvier dernier, transcende les racines du folk pour explorer toutes sortes de territoires, du rock n’ roll au soul en passant par le jazz et le blues. On se doute bien que l’auteur-compositeur-interprète montréalais compte parmi ses influences des gens comme Van Morrison ou The Band, mais on pense également parfois à des groupes plus contemporains comme The Black Keys, sur l’excellente pièce-titre, et aussi, oui, à Damien Rice sur des ballades acoustiques comme “Who I Am”.

Bud Rice a pu profiter de collaborateurs de premier plan pour l’enregistrement de son album au célèbre studio Hotel2Tango. Warren Spicer, du groupe Plants and Animals, en a assuré le mixage, tandis que la production est signée Dave Gossage, musicien celtique bien connu à Montréal et qui est nul autre que le père de Rice, dont le véritable nom est Henri Rice-Gossage. Les deux jouent d’ailleurs régulièrement ensemble au pub Hurley’s, rue Crescent. Mais malgré son titre, Belfast ne montre aucune trace ou presque d’influence de la musique celtique, et les cuivres occupent davantage d’espace que d’autres instruments plus traditionnels. Quant à la chanson titre de l’album, elle se veut un hommage au grand-père maternel de Rice, qui a émigré avec sa famille d’Irlande du Nord jusqu’à Montréal. - Bruno Coulombe

this is a video interview with Richard Dagenais of Global News

http://globalnews.ca/video/1959013/bud-rice-live - Global News

this is a television spot -

http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/musicians-take-to-the-porches-saturday-in-ndg-1.2350158 - Christine Long

Bud Rice is a folk-man at hear. Not necessarily in the style, leaning towards soulful rock and roll, through which where multiple influences are blended, but in the process. The musician and his band put-up a new album, Belfast, named after the capital of Northern Ireland. Rice‘s music is roots-settled but stands afar from mere revivalism, rather pouring authenticity and exploring different avenues through acoustic ballads and upbeat tempo.

Belfast is my favourite record to bike to these days; aware that cycling with headphones on is forbidden, not to say dangerous activity, I would opt for a smooth, mellow, invigorating and quiet enough to not cover the traffic sound, giving you focus to keep your eyes on the road. - Christelle Saint-Julien

I walked into the Divan Orange on a rainy Monday night to a crowd of less then ten people. The orange sofa was nowhere in sight, so I naturally went towards the bar. The first people I met were Bud Rice, Dave Gossage (Guitar) and Marc Beland (Drums). We spoke about this evening’s song selection, which was written on a napkin. I was happy to hear that they were a local band, playing many songs from their debut album, Belfast (reviewed HERE).

The band was joined by Jo Lorgis (Bass) as they performed “Toxic Wonder” (the only song not on Belfast) as well as “Dying to Know”, which is one of the funkier songs from their album. “Meet Me in the West End” features blues influences much like the next song “Maybe Tomorrow”. They ended their set with “Belfast” with its catchy blues influenced hooks.

I spoke with Bud Rice after the show about the Montreal music scene and I asked what neighborhoods are of particular interest, musically.

Bud Rice: The Plateau and the Mile End are where things are most happening musically, and I mean in abundance. Any night you can catch such wonderful & different music that can spike your interest or make you run for the door. The intriguing thing is that it’s going to be different and hopefully new.

Montreal Rocks: How has Montreal influenced your sound and lyrics?

BR: I was born and raised in Montreal so it’s hard to say how the city has shaped me musically. It’s a combination of the great people I’ve met in this city, the boiling summers, the brutal winters, the eclectic musicians that walk around, the shows I’ve seen, and my family. It’s all I have really known, so maybe I have to travel a little more to fully appreciate how much Montreal has influenced me on a subconscious level. I believe it’s one of the greatest cities in the world. There is an energy here that doesn’t exist in the other places I have been, something I crave whenever I am away from home.

MR: “Belfast”, a great song off the album of the same name, speaks of your Irish heritage. You speak of the “romanticized man, the Irish insane”. What do you mean by that?

BR: It’s a reflection on my grandfather Hugh, how he can be perceived after a couple drinks. It’s romanticizing his faults rather than his good traits, but the good traits are the things I try to remember about him.

MR: In “Who I Am” you speak of “compensation from your scars”. Do you feel that music, specifically the lyrics, are a way to open up about personal scars so as to let them heal?

BR: I do feel that songwriting is the only outlet for me and what I may struggle with. It is revealing of my personal life, the good and the bad. I don’t feel that the writing process heals any wounds or emotional baggage I may carry, simply just makes them known to me.


I enjoyed the set and it prepped the crowd that was slowly swelling for our Australian visitors, DMA’s. I look forward to seeing Bud Rice perform again, a couple of great shows coming up. Find out more at budricemusic.com. - Randall Wark