Whiskey and Lead

Instant Rivalry to launch new album at the Regent

After a long and sometimes frustrating journey, the County musical duo of Caleb and Megan Hutton, also known as Instant Rivalry, is set to release their much-anticipated country album at a special gala performance at the Regent Theatre on December 5.The duo have been performing since their high school days, and originally started by playing alternative rock. They had a CD out while in their late teens and their song The Highway was a favourite on the college radio scene, making it into the Top-10 on the indie charts. Their musical career started partly as a consequence of Caleb being severely bullied at school. He endured emotional and physical abuse, and was badly beaten by his tormentors on a couple of occasions, the effects of which he still carries to this day. He found some solace in playing his guitar. “The only enjoyment I saw him getting out of life were these small moments when he was playing guitar in his room or at the recreational outreach centre,” says younger sister Megan. “We’d do these coffee-houses when we were in high school, and those were the only times you’d see Caleb with anything close to a smile on his face.” Caleb and Megan started a garage band with a couple of their friends, and they played together until 2009, when the band broke up. It was at that time the family visited Nashville and Caleb, in particular, became hooked on country.

(L-R): Megan Hutton and Caleb Hutton of the group Instant Rivalry are set to launch their first country album at the Regent Theatre on December 5.

Over the next few years, the pair honed their craft and began writing and playing their own songs. In 2015 they won the Next Country Music Star competition and as a result got to play on the main stage at the Havelock Jamboree. The following year they won the Backroads Country Talent Search. While Megan says they had a strong stage presence, she credits their success to the songwriting. “We always did original songs, when everybody else was doing covers,” she says. “We believed we were in the business long enough that we outgrew covers.”

“It was very important to us to play the songs that we wrote and to get honest feedback from the judges.” Their success led to them working with such country stars as Michelle Wright and Bruce Good, but there was also some pressure on them to adopt a “Top-40” sound when it became time to move to the next level. They spent a lot of time and effort and a lot of their own money in recording studios in Toronto and elsewhere. “Nothing was sounding the way we dreamt it would, and the way that our vision planned that it would,” says Megan. “People wouldn’t listen to us in recording studios, and a lot of money was wasted because we wouldn’t settle. We had something to prove. These songs were our songs, and they had to sound that way.”

Although it was discouraging, the pair stuck to their principles. They had a vision, and they had a dream about just how their music should sound. “We wanted to be able to capture what we do live, to capture that essence in our recording,” says Caleb. “It was about a year and a half ago, and we were sitting down in another recording studio and another recording plan fell through. We were so flustered and tickedoff and we thought, ‘Why not just book a place where we can hire the musicians, where we are the boss?’ and that’s what happened. We picked the best musicians in Nashville—Grammy winners, professionals. We were able to book a room and play live off the floor to get the raw sound, all that movement and dynamics. I think the little nuances, the little mistakes, that adds to a human performance.” With the recording session in hand, Caleb spent the next few months actually producing the album in their County studio. “In the ’60s and ’70s, music just had this movement to it, you felt like you could reach into a song and live inside it for three minutes. We wanted to capture that in all our songs,” says Megan. “Between Caleb’s genius in recording and sound producing and my songwriting, I’m really happy to say that we found that.”

Caleb and Megan had their first professional gig 12 years ago, and as a brother-sister duo their talents complement each other perfectly. In fact, a conversation with them is almost like speaking to one person. They seamlessly pop into each other’s sentences without changing the train of thought. The difference lies in the tone of voice. Caleb’s voice is thoughtful and reflective, mellow but not quite soft, somewhat akin to the qualities one might find in a sipping whiskey. Megan’s voice is more attention-getting. She’s a straight-shooter who cuts to the heart of the matter—a cowgirl’s handy six-gun. And that is the how the name of their new album was chosen. Whiskey and Lead has been a long time in the making, but Megan and Caleb kept true to their dreams to make this project a success. Although they are backed up by a nine-piece band, the music is not a departure from the sound they have played, but is instead an expansion. They will be bringing that sound live for the first time to the Regent on December 5. Listeners to County Radio have been able to get a preview with the release of their single Ho-Down last Thursday, and although the sound now comes in complex layers, it is still the Megan and Caleb of Instant Rivalry. They are a bit cagey when it comes to how they will be doing future live sessions, but promise that the release party at the Regent will be a blast. “There will be fiddle, a little steel and a lot of stringed instruments,” says Megan. “We’re going to move you, one way or another.”

Tickets for the event are available at the Regent box office.