One of the top 100 Canadian songs of the past year is getting a followup.
Bellwoods, the Toronto duo made up of former Birds Of Wales frontman Morgan Cameron Ross and former Lights guitarist Alan Snoddy, lit up the pop charts in February with the peppy radio tune Live It Up. It was also a video hit in part because it was filmed in one rotating camera shot with constantly changing scenes, and people tuned into YouTube in droves to witness it.
Now they are back with the single Fire Escape, a snappy salute to love through thick and thin.
Special guest star Ash Koley joins them on duet vocals, singing the clever lyric lines Bellwoods has quickly become known for.
Well, quickly is somewhat blurry. Although Bellwoods is a new act churning the Toronto scene right now, the two creative forces have been building their musical muscles for years.
Snoddy had his time in one of Canada's biggest indie rock bands, he is also a member of the chic Ontario cover band Tommy Youngsteen (a supergroup he shares with other members of Stars, The Stills and the Sam Roberts Band that plays only the songs of Neil Young, Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen), and his solo album did critically well while attracting the collaboration aid of talented friends like Serena Ryder, The Trews, Sloan, Blue Rodeo and Steve Earle & The Dukes.
Ross, meanwhile, also had built up a solid fan base with his Birds Of Wales project, then he got a successful solo career going on with comparisons to Johnny Cash and Gord Downie coming his way thanks to the gritty single (and its racy video) My Brother Went To Prison, and comparisons to mega poppers like The Script or Maroon 5's Adam Levine with tunes like the endearing lovers' squabble song Let It Go.
There was a string of others - Storybook Romance, I'll Hold Onto Your Heart, Hey There Darlin' - that put Ross in the deepest part of the Toronto show-biz pool.
With his urbane fashion style, penchant for skin ink and withering gaze, he was noticed for his looks as much as his hooks. He got voted third hottest guy in Canada by television network MuchMusic, and that femme fatale in the Hey There Darlin' video is indeed supermodel Tara Gill, Ross's girlfriend at the time.
It's hard to tell if Ross is a sharp dressed bad-boy or an edgy good guy, but there is no conjecture over his songwriting abilities or his recording skills.
He has helped compose big hits for other artists (Bubblegum by Bobby Bazini), co-written with some of Canada's best songwriters (We've All Had Broken Hearts with Ron Sexsmith), and vocally collaborated with heavy hitters beyond just Koley.
Daniel Wesley joined him for Let It Go while I'll Hold On To Your Heart has Holly McNarland as guest vocalist, which comes with an extra side-dish of factoid fun. He first saw McNarland perform at the Backyard Barbecue in Prince George during his first year of university.
He wasn't even a musician out in public, then, just a lonely student of political science and history who noodled on notebooks and guitars in his dorm room.
But one autumn day, the changing colours of the aspens and the ripples of a little lake changed the course of Canadian music history.
It was a crispy September day in 2004 - the 27th, for the sake of music historians - and the annual Rivers Day festival had just been done the day before at what was then Fort George Park. The headline band on the bill that year was Stabilo, from the Lower Mainland where Ross grew up.
"They were my friends. They stayed an extra day and we went up to Shane Lake at Forests for the World and played a bunch of songs on the dock there," said Ross. "I played them a couple of songs of my own and they said 'you should do an album.' I didn't know anything about making an album, but they insisted."
The Stabilo members called in favours to get it all to happen for him "all because of Rivers Day in P.G. For me, pretty much everything started in Prince George."
The first time he performed in public, on the confidence gained from Stabilo, was at a coffeehouse hosted at UNBC "and I was just terrible... the audience was very kind to me. And now we're playing hockey arenas."
You know you've truly made it in the international show-biz industry when you become tabloid fodder. Ross was the centre of some sensationalist ink when he and a celebrity got into a backstage donnybrook.
"Yes, I once got in a fist fight with Matthew McConaughey because he insulted Petunia. That's my cat," said Ross.
"He'd been bothering me all day, and when his handler looked at my phone backstage in Texas, there was this picture of Petunia, and he went too far. Said some things. He'd been really rude to me all week. I'm friends with his wife, just friends, but even if you're a Hollywood A-lister, you still get insecure."
And so does Ross, over how his music is oozing across the country.
Live It Up, especially, blew up the radio stations of eastern Canada. There were two western hotspots - Brandon, where he had some family background, and Prince George where radio station 101.3 The River was happy to put the song in heavy rotation. But his home region in and around Vancouver gave it a cool reception.
On the other hand, some of the publicist personnel working with Bellwoods gave them some interesting news that made them smile.
Ross has no idea who keeps track of such things but "apparently Live It Up is the most played song across Canada for elementary schools, when they play their morning motivational song or their year-end slideshow song. It's a nice legacy thing."
Legacy is a living creature, in creative circles. For instance, another band that played at a UNBC Backyard Barbecue concert while Ross was a student here was Sum 41. One of his best friends and most pleasing collaborator now is their bass player Cone McCaslin.
He is also acquainted with Canadian music industry heavyweight Erin Kinghorn, formerly of Nettwerk Records, head of granting agency FACTOR and now the owner of Toronto arts marketing firm eEK! Productions.
It was Kinghorn, while she was a UNBC student, who invented the Backyard Barbecue concert series in the first place.
Collaboration is one of the most frequently used words in the Bellwoods world. For example, another of their musical brothers is Del Cowsill of the famed musical family The Cowsills. Their frequent drummer is Maurie Kauffmann, who also taps for pop-rocker Lights.
Live It Up was translated into French and made into a francophone hit by chanteuse Odessa Page who, following the musical bread crumbs backwards, is the girlfriend of one Bobby Bazini.
Even the little things have collaborative connections. When Ross needed a dog to star in the video for his solo song Let It Go, the pooch (named Penny) was provided by Justin Rutledge (in 2006 voted Toronto's singer-songwriter of the year by Now Magazine).
Even the band's name, Bellwoods, refers to a Toronto neighbourhood Ross and Snoddy particularly enjoy.
"In Toronto - we are all raised to dislike Toronto - but when I got here, it was the healthiest community of people looking out for everyone else, helping, and seeing the bigger picture," said Ross.
"And that's why people in Toronto do so well nationally and internationally. It's because everyone is there supporting each other."
The support Ross wishes for most, though, is rooted back in northern B.C. Since his days in Birds Of Wales he has tried to route a concert appearance into Prince George. The last time he played in public in the city that gave birth to his music success was that "horrible" coffeehouse experience. He'd like to update his local music reputation.
It actually takes a lot of planning to work any city not on the No. 1 Trans Canada Highway into a rock tour for an indie band. He has been arm-twisting the booking agents he's worked with over the years, but it has yet to work out.
With Bellwoods now on the move in the national music scene, it presents him with another chance.
With Ross closing out his 10th full year in the music profession, he being now one of the most successful Prince George expatriate performers ever, and the city celebrating its 100th year as a municipality, perhaps we can all Live It Up together soon.
