Burn The Louvre

Burn The Louvre is a four piece indie band, all born and raised in Hamilton, ON. Here's what band member Jordan Speare has to say:

"My younger brother Dylan (21 years old) and myself (24) split the frontman duties down the middle, with myself playing rhythm guitar and my brother on lead guitar (he's always been better than me haha). Our drummer Raul Gutierrez (21) has been a great friend of ours since elementary school, while our bassist Chris Carranza (24) has been a great friend of ours since high school. We essentially grew up playing music together, forming bands in high school, learning what it takes to be in a band, and through our mistakes learning what it takes to be in a successful band.

After some time apart working on different projects, the four of us all got together again and the timing was just too perfect. It only felt natural to be working together again.

With influences ranging from indie rock pioneers The Pixies to modern indie darlings Arctic Monkeys, along with a healthy dose of Canadian flavour (think: Arkells, Sam Roberts Band, July Talk, Death From Above 1979) we like to think we offer something for everyone whether you're into our style of music or not.

Our goals for 2015 are to record another album (be it another EP or a full-length debut) and to establish ourselves as one of the city's elite rock n' roll acts alongside the likes of Young Rival, The Dirty Nil & The Zilis (which are some of the local bands we especially admire)." - Greater Hamilton Musician

Burn the Louvre’s Post Romance

Jordan Speare (vocals, guitar), Dylan Speare (vocals, guitar), Raul Gutierrez (drums) and Nathan Smith (bass) are one of the newest outfits on the scene, releasing their debut EP together before their first gig.

“We’ve been in bands together all through high school,” muses Dylan Speare on the relationship with his brother Jordan. “He’s only three years older than me so we’re pretty close in age, we’ve been writing for this project for about two years so this release is a long time coming. All four of us are Hamilton born and raised. I went to elementary school with Raul. He’s a phenomenal drummer and who better to ask to be in the band. We met Nathan through mutual friends in the summer.

With an interesting moniker, the band is still fielding questions on their genre.

“Raul and Jordan are big fans of the movie Fight Club,” explains Speare. “In the book by Chuck Palahniuk, there’s a line in there that says, ‘I wanted to burn the Louvre and wipe my ass with the Mona Lisa’. I thought what better band name than Wipe Your Ass with the Mona Lisa? They didn’t think that would really sound too good and we went with Burn the Louvre. One of our main concerns is some people it sounds like the name of a metal band — while we have some metal influences; we’re definitely any indie rock band.”

Recorded in their own basement studio and then mixed at Iguana Studios by the Ascot Royals Tal Vaisman, BTL take pages from the likes of the Pixies at one time to the Arctic Monkeys another and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros for yet another. Burn the Louvre has a varied musical palette on their debut EP.

“We’re definitely influenced by the Arctic Monkeys and other British bands of that nature,” assures Speare. “Of course, Canadian bands like Death From Above, July Talk and Arkells. But each of us has completely different influences and we try to combine them all together — it gives people a different taste here and there from song to song so it doesn’t just pertain to one particular audience. It’s nice to broaden your horizons to other audiences. A lot of the songs have to do with growing into love and growing out of love. Not to say that this is just for people going through a break up. A lot of the feelings we were feeling about at the time on that particular subject. We like to keep certain themes between the songs because it ends up telling a story in a way.”

“We’re confident in our songs,” adds Speare. “In previous bands we’ve been in, you play a few gigs, you build a little bit of a fan base but most bands fall out of the scene. We thought what better way to break out of the scene by releasing some awesome tunes and people can have a copy and get as excited as we are about it. We as a band, as music fans, like buying hard copies of music and we want to help that industry out; we don’t want it to die out.”

With their first gig together being a CDEP release party, Burn the Louvre is excited about quickly ramping up their musical career together.

“It’s going to be an awesome party,” smiles Speare. “It’s going to be a lot of family and friends hopefully all having a good time with hopefully some new faces and new fans. It’s going to be a cool indie rock show with some punk in there and some psychedelic rock thrown in – it’s going to be great.

“We wanted to make sure everything was the way we wanted for this project and that’s why it took so long to make this CDEP,” adds Speare. “We wanted to make sure the songs were good. But now it’s good to go. This is a long time coming – believe me, we’re going to be ready.”

Burn the Louvre Saturday November 22 at Absinthe with the Human Orchestra, Dizzy Spells and AxDxDx. Doors are at 9pm and $5 gets you in. Facebook.com/burnthelouvreband - VIEW Magazine