Washboard Union

Leading up to their performance at this years Crooks Rapids Country Fest in Hastings Ontario, I had the chance to chat with David Roberts, member of well-known country band THE Washboard Union.

Composed of step-brothers Aaron Grain, Chris Duncombe and best friend David Roberts, The Washboard Union has had over 85 million career streams, 35+ award wins, and 380,000 radio spins, with two top 5 hits and nine top 10 hits. The band has one Platinum and four Gold-certified singles, and Everbound (2020) won them CCMA Awards for Group of the Year and Roots Album of the Year. They are three-time consecutive CCMA Group of the Year winners, and remain the only country group to ever win a JUNO Award for Breakthrough Group of the Year.

David was amazing to catch up with, his warm humour brought out lots of laughs, and his genuine love for his craft was evident in his heartfelt responses to my questions. It is evident these three best friends have some massive friendship connections off-stage, which makes their music that much more cohesive.

With a new album coming in hot July 12th, and their new single Band On Her T-shirt which was released on May 24th, their show promises to be full of new sounds and old favourites.

When I asked David what he thought about heading to Crooks Rapids this summer he said he loves that it is a family friendly event. David encourages families to take their kids to as many festivals and concerts as possible; experience all that music has to offer. David says he still thinks about the concerts he went to in high school and how impactful they were for him. He compares concert going to attending sports games, when your team loses you leave feeling disappointed – but when have you ever left a concert feeling disappointed?

Here are some of the highlights of my chat with David:

How does it feel to know that your song Dock Rock is a go-to summer cottage anthem?

It’s funny, when we were writing that song – cause I grew up in Ontario and cottage country is big out there, and the boys grew up out by Okanagan which is big for summertime fun – hanging out on the dock and doing things. So when we were writing it we were just kind of putting ourselves in that place that we all loved and grew up with, so it was a really natural song. We all have tons of experience to draw from when we were writing it, and then the cool thing was during Covid when that got released – I don’t know if you remember but – we couldn’t do a video so we reached out to our fans and said ‘Hey if you guys could help us out, it would be great if we could see some of your summertime dock life, and just having fun adventures.’ Everyone has got them on their phone, I know I’ve got a ton. So you know, people sent them in – we got thousands of them! Fans really rose to the challenge and it really helped us out because we could actually do a video – and what a great way to do a video, just celebrating the people who love the band and our fans, so it was a great tribute back to them saying ‘this is your summer song’.

If you had to pick one of your songs that best represents your band, which one would be the go-to choice to introduce someone who had never experienced your music?

For me there’s a song that is my favourite and we play it live, it’s a song called Shine. I just love the feeling I get when we sing that one. The fun thing is though, I’m sure if you asked Chris or Aaron they would each have a different song. For me that’s generally one of my favourites, its funny, it can change over time, you know the way a song happens live is a little different than the way it is recorded in the studio. I have songs that I think are not my favourite at the beginning of the tour but by the end I’m like ooh I really like that one.

Did you ever dream of the type of success you 3 are currently experiencing?

I think jumping up and down on my bed, playing a tennis racket guitar, looking in the mirror was probably what every little kid does when playing air guitar right?

Really, I just did it for fun, growing up music was always a big part of my life and same with the boys in the band – they’ve been doing music since they were kids. You just do it for passion and for love. You don’t think a lot about it, you get into high school and play in bands and it becomes a passion. When our band got together we all lived in this big mansion together and we would go down to the basement on Tuesday nights and just play old trucker music, songs from Red Sovine, C.W McCall – just all the old classic trucker songs – we called it trucker Tuesday. I think our very first gig was down in the basement and it was Aarons birthday, so we had an official gig – we were in a band called Run GMC at the time. We were out playing a couple of shows and there was a big producer who saw us, he was actually a big rock producer and he came up to us after the show and said ‘I would love to record you guys, I don’t do country – I’m a rock guy, but I would love to record with you guys’. We were like why is that, and he said ‘you just have fun’. And that’s what it came back to, you know, when you’re a kid you do it cause you have fun, it was a passion. I don’t think anyone in the band ever set out to say I want to be in a successful band, I mean you probably dream about it – but you do it ‘cause you can’t do anything else, its just always there, you don’t feel right if you don’t have a guitar in your hands or you’re not writing something or singing something – its just the passion.

So, you’re the washboard guy, when did you pick up your first washboard, and what motivated you to pursue that sound?

It goes back to that house we all lived in, we would play down in the basement and at the time there were 14 people living in this house, it was a pretty big place, so there were about 10 musicians downstairs at any given time, and everybody had a guitar in their hands – so it was literally a danger of getting hit in the head with the neck of a guitar at any minute. There were so many players – I was like, I need something to protect myself here – we had an old washboard on the wall – it was great, so I just started scrubbing and scraping rhythms on that when drummers wouldn’t show up and it just kind of became part of the band. You know, we never thought we’d be in a band called Washboard Union at that time because it was well before that – it was just kind of a fun thing. And then Chris started playing banjo because there were so many guitar guys – Aaron bought him a book and said, ok now you’re the banjo player. Chris actually learned the banjo and figured out how it worked, and it worked out well – we’d all been listening to old trucker tunes – we love CW McColl and Chris and I are both big Marty Robbins fans.

What are your inspirations and what might we find on your current favourite playlist?

Gosh, we are all just such huge fans of music, our playlists are so wide and varied. We listen to everything – just sounds in general. I guess being a musician you are always hearing things – hearing the sounds of different compositions of music and so many different styles, you can learn so much from so many different styles of music, which I think is really cool now because you see a lot more crossover of things which I love. I get influenced when I hear a bird whistle or a bird call that I’ve never heard before. You just hear things differently. I get excited when I’m pushing a shopping cart through a mall or through a grocery store because of the rhythm it makes on the tiles, I’m like oh thats a cool rhythm – even in the way people speak, in the cadence of their voice and the way it goes up and down, the rhythm and the timing – sometimes you just get captivated, you’ll be listening to someone and you’ll be like wow I’m not listening to what you’re saying I’m just listening to how your voice works – it’s really cool.

You’ve played for some huge crowds, Do you still feel nervous heading out on stage these days?

I used to confuse what I felt as nervousness, but then I realized I’m not nervous I’m just excited. I think those two emotions are really closely related and I think people can confuse feeling nervous for feeling excited. When you make that flip you actually go, oh this is actually a great thing those butterflies in my stomach are actually excitement no fear based or nervous. Then you embrace that feeling of getting excited, ‘cause you’re like oooh something exciting is going to happen. I get really excited before shows, I love it, its such a great feeling when you’re walking out on stage and you look across and there’s your two best friends sitting there – it’s pretty awesome.

Catch The Washboard Union at Crooks Rapids Country Music Fest in Hastings Ontario, August 23 & 24th www.crooksrapidscountryfest.com