The effect that music can have on the soul is unique, as it speaks to people of all ages. Just hearing a song makes you tap your fingers or feet to the beat, or sing along even if you don’t know most of the lyrics.
Passion for music started at an early age for Matthew Ouellette, a musician originally from the Mallaig-St. Lina area. After high school, Ouellette moved to Edmonton to try and make a name for himself. He is now the lead guitarist and backup vocalist of emerging Edmonton alternative rock band, Dead Honey.
However, to get to the bottom of Ouellette’s story, we have to go back to the farmhouse just northwest of St. Lina, where it all began. When he was 11, Ouellette found an old acoustic guitar in his older sister’s room that sparked his curiosity.
“My sister wouldn’t even let me touch it, so I had to sneak around and when she wasn’t around I’d go in practice with it,” said Ouellette.
The next summer, Ouellette went out to visit his mother in New Brunswick. “My mom’s boyfriend had a guitar, so I spent a lot of time that summer practicing. We were out for a walk one day and we decided to peek into a pawnshop, and that’s where I bought my first electric guitar. It looked like a fender Stratocaster but it said ‘Epiphone’ on it. It was kind of an odd guitar actually.”
After picking up his first guitar, he practiced two hours a night every night, and after listening to the riffs he’s written for Dead Honey, it’s not hard to figure out that his hard work has paid off.
When Ouellette moved to Edmonton, he joined a band but he soon noticed that they didn’t all have the same motivation.
“I was in a band that wasn’t really ambitious enough for me, so I looked on Kijiji.”
As fate would have it, Ouellette found the other members of Dead Honey through the search. A couple of the members had played together previously in other bands, and knew each other personally.
After officially forming in December of 2014, the band began playing and practicing with each other in January of 2015. The band has made a lot of progress over the past year, being honoured by #Yegmusic Magazine as the best band of 2015, best new band of 2015, and the band to look out for in 2016.
The future of this band is certainly bright and the members continue to work hard to advance their skills and promote their band. A year ago, the band recorded a few singles, but Ouellette says that those are now less relevant to their style.
“We recorded those three demo tracks about a year ago, but they don’t really sound like us because as our band has built up some more chemistry together, our style has gotten a little heavier.”
The change in style will be evident on two new songs the band has just professionally recorded. Members are waiting to have them mastered before being released together as the band’s first EP.
Right now, Dead Honey plays shows at small venues throughout the Edmonton area. This past Saturday, the band was the headliner of a “Bands of YEG” event at the Mercury Room, featuring five other aspiring rock bands from the Edmonton area.
Dead Honey will be playing more shows in Edmonton and the surrounding area in the future and the places and times will be posted ahead of time on the band’s Facebook page, Dead Honey. Coming up on April 22, at Bohemia on 97th street in Edmonton, Dead Honey will perform along with The Dropouts and No Room for Subtlety.
With the success of Albertan artists such as Corb Lund, Loverboy, Brett Kissel, High Valley, Paul Brandt, Emerson Drive, Nickelback, as well as Tegan and Sara, Ouellette and his bandmates hope to have Dead Honey become a household name in rock music across Alberta, Canada, and one day, the world.
