When Tim & The Glory Boys take the stage, they bring with them a refreshingly new take on the bluegrass and country music that inspired them in their early days.
“We call our music canoegrass and it’s bluegrass with Canadian sensibilities built into it,” says Tim Neufeld, the band’s frontman, vocalist and lead guitarist. “It’s inspired by the flatlands of Manitoba and the hills of British Columbia with a little bit of maple syrup in there as well.”
Neufeld is joined on stage by Colin Trask (dobro/percussionist) and Brenton Thorvaldson (banjo/guitar) and their fun-filled, boot-stomping style has taken the country scene by storm.
The two-time JUNO Award-winners have become mainstays at the Canadian Country Music Awards, having been nominated in 2021 for Group of the Year and Rising Star, and nominated again in 2022 for Group of the Year. In 2023, they won both Album of the Year and Music Video of the Year.
But while the band’s sound is fresh, fun and exciting, they are by no means newcomers to music.
Neufeld actually started as the lead vocalist for the contemporary worship band Starfield, which he founded back in 2000 with his brother Jon.
They released three independent albums and four other albums with EMI / Sparrow Records and toured to critical acclaim before putting the band on hiatus to pursue solo projects.
That solo career turned out pretty well for Neufeld as his first solo album, Trees, earned him the GMA Canada Covenant Award 2013 for Modern Worship Album of the Year and the 2014 Juno Award for Contemporary Christian/Gospel Album of the Year.
Following that success, Neufeld formed Tim &The Glory Boys back in 2013. In the beginning the group was considered a Canadian Christian band but it wasn’t long before their focus shifted to more of a contemporary / bluegrass style. In a noticeable pivot in 2014, the group released The Joy. The album targeted a wider audience and was the beginning of what the band is today.
And what, exactly, is a Tim & The Glory Boys show like?
Well, to begin with, it’s easy to get lost in the sheer exuberance of their performances – these boys are having fun.
Their high-energy, infectious blend of bluegrass and Canadian Country have audiences laughing, foot stomping and generally having a great time.
Yet there are still some vestiges of the band’s spiritual roots – a feature that only serves to deepen the emotional connection with their audiences.
“Those are the songs in country that speak to me the most,” Neufeld says. “They’re songs of love and family and it’s cool to hear feedback from fans expressing those same emotions. That’s ultimately why we do this.”
But there’s still a lot of foot-stomping going on.
Their latest album, Canoegrass, The Tour, features a reinterpretation of a 1988 Billy Ocean hit and fans love it.
Entitled “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Truck,” the song puts a new spin on the catchy lyrics of Ocean’s classic. A lighthearted rendition with a fun country rhythm, it pays homage to the original anthem with new energy and vibrations.
“I first heard this song back in 1988 and had the idea to turn it into a country version,” Neufeld says. “The idea would fade but it kept coming up and in the end, we reached out and got all the permissions we needed and made it happen.”
And fans are happy that they did. The song has the ‘ear worm’ capacity that makes it the perfect road trip song – the kind of song that just gets stuck in your head.
That might be quite appropriate as the band’s Canoegrass tour will have them travelling across the country to play at venues from the prairies to the mountains.
See Tim & The Glory Boys locally when they appear at the at the Beban Centre in Nanaimo Oct. 2 and Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney Oct. 4.
Tickets and more information can be found at timandthegloryboys.com.
