Music

Toronto punks Brutal Youth will never forget their Newfoundland roots

by Mark Teo

This is the first in a three-part series exploring Canadians who’ve moved to Toronto to pursue their musical dreams. First up? Newfoundland’s Brutal Youth, a melodic hardcore band that fuses pop-punk with Gorilla Biscuits-style singalongs.

Unlike so many wide-eyed Toronto emigrés, who move to the city dreaming of living atop a Queen West storefront while continually repressing their smaller-town upbringing, Newfoundland expats Brutal Youth have nothing but nice things to say about St. John’s, NFLD. “Now that I’ve been living in Ontario for three years, I can’t even keep up with all the bands that are popping up back home,” says drummer Kaitlyn Victoria Bean. “The bands are endless, and the people are overwhelmingly supportive and generous. If it was easier to tour more frequently there, we never would have left.

“I’ll never forget where my home is. I miss it so much.”

Nonetheless, Brutal Youth—a melodic four-piece who, on their Stay Honest LP, display a penchant for 7 Seconds-style singalong hardcore—picked up and moved to Toronto. Things weren’t initially easy, of course. “Toronto is such a big place filled with so many outstanding musicians. It’s difficult to pop up out of nowhere and expect people to give a damn,” Bean says. “I think in Toronto, more so than anywhere else I’ve been, it’s incredibly important to network.”

“Brutal Youth has been pretty focused on a DIY attitude since the start, so it made it a little more difficult, but if you can get in contact with a couple people who have been around the scene for years, and know the right bands to play with and the right venues to book, then it can get you started in the right direction.

With persistence, the band began to unlock the opportunities provided by Toronto: They managed to bring the band to nearby cities—going as far as Montreal—and tripped down to the U.S. on weekends, while maintaining their jobs. They’ve encountered “inspirational” people at every turn, including sound engineers, producers, and bands (duh). And, upon establishing themselves in Toronto’s punk scene, they landed high-profile opening slots for bands that, Bean admits, had the band “starstruck”:  They’ve opened for Boston hardcore legends American Nightmare, and they’ll be opening for the Dwarves and the Queers this month.

“We’re definitely glad we put in hard work,” says Bean. “I never thought we’d have the opportunity to play with bands like that. We’re all in agreement that, even if it’s not necessarily permanent, moving to Ontario was very good for us.”

Yet for all the band has planned around Toronto—Bean promises a new seven-inch EP is down the pipe, and the band’s demoing a dozen songs or so—Brutal Youth haven’t lost their Newfoundland identity. And it’s especially evident when they run into other islanders in Hogtown.

“There’s actually a massive expatriate community developing in Toronto…. Seeing a familiar face in such a large city is always especially comforting,” says Bean. “I know there have been times where I’ve actually run into people from St. John’s who I wasn’t even really friends with when I lived back home. But when we seen one another here, we’ll always at least give each other a wave or a smile and nod.”