BIOGRAPHY

He kinda likes things rough, unpolished and crude. He always cheers for the underdog and the little guy.  He won't throw most stuff away because he feels it just needs a second chance, so he tries to fix it. He admired poetry but found it was better when set to music. Once upon a time, he had lofty designs, but he traded them all for simple things.  Family, home, love and music.  Brian Tremblay lives simply and makes simple music. 

A guitar-playing hockey player with a Gibson SG taught him his first chords on his new Fender guitar.  In High school, while working on one of his productions, he fell into the orchestra pit fracturing both wrists and concussion. It left him with an injury that made him adapt his guitar playing.  As age sixty approached, faced with his mortality and becoming a grandfather, the guitar came back to him. Brian resurrected withered old songs, and then he dug even deeper.  He found his poetry and his turning of a phrase in songwriting. 

Brian's songs are heavily influenced by the songwriters who lived on the outside of the Nashville scene.  He took their raw, unpolished styles and incorporated them into his lyrics and simple melodies. His songs are recorded just as simply.  Many artists want their recordings to sound pure and pristine. Brian wants his to sound like they were recorded by Ralph Peer. 

Tremblay is currently touring two shows and albums. The Neighbourhood: Songs & Stories of a Blue Collar Raising has projected visuals of the photographs that Brian captured on a vintage camera and black & white film, which he processed and printed himself.  "Since this is about nostalgia, I thought creating the images on the cameras I used to use would be perfect for the theme." The songs lay Tremblay's soul bare. A Hole Where You Used to Be was written for his late sister, who passed away in 2022. He Wasn't A Hero is a love song to his father, and Why Momma, Why delves into his relationship with his mother. I Knew You'd Be All Right was inspired when Brian found out he was going to be a grandfather.

The other show and album, to be released in January 2025, is called In the Tracks of the Black Bear and commemorates his family's connection with the Algoma Central Railway. The album is a love letter to short-line railways everywhere and folks who build and work on them. It contains six original songs about the ACR and six very early traditional railroad songs.  The first single, The Washout, will be released on November 2, 2024.