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The Guv'nor Generals: Gettin' Dirty in the Rose City

There’s an old adage regarding work ethics that goes to the effect that every individual has a choice: they can work hard, or they can work smart. Everyone knows someone who will proclaim that they’ve happily made the transition at one point: “I looked at the situation and decided to start working smart instead of working hard.” Does that mean that the two ethical theories are mutually exclusive? Welland’s own Guv’nor Generals prove that they are not. After each member having paid his dues in successions of bands, they came up with a theory that would help keep their audience hungry for the next performance and, so far according to Frank Roy and Charles Horse, the strategy has really paid off. “We’ve been really selective about our shows - I think that’s the difference,” explains singer Horse. “You get these young bands that get out there and they’re hungry, hungry, hungry. Don’t get me wrong – we’re hungry too but I think, being a little older, we’re learning the business of it more as well.
“These younger kids are dead set on making sure they’re playing every weekend somewhere and abusing the area they’re in. We like to play every weekend, but we really concentrate on selected shows for the Guv’nors – whether it be the Bovine, The Horseshoe or the El Mocombo in Toronto, or here in Welland or in London or wherever – and it’s been paying off because those shows have all been packed.”
“If you can find a band on every weekend somewhere local just chipping away at it, it takes the mystery out of it too. Like, everybody wants to know the band and be buddies with the band, but if it seems like you’re everywhere, it can wear out locally.“ continues bassist Roy. “As much as possible, we try to make it less like a run–of–the–mill show and more like an event.
“We’ve learned over the years how to be strategic about drawing the crowds in and making it feel like an imperative – and it’s working.”
The Guv’nor Generals started – as small-town bands tend to do – very organically. With years of building band experience under each individual member’s belt, the paths of the players crossed occasionally as they’d run into each other around their hometown of Welland but, as those bands dissolved, the members began looking for another outlet and so the Guv’nor Generals were born. “We’d all been playing in different bands for years,” recalls Horse. “Actually, the other guitar player in the band, Kevin [guitarist Kevin Patrino –ed], and I played together in several different bands for years; in high school and things like that. By the same token, Frank and Damien [drummer Damien Smith] have been playing together for about twenty years as well.

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