Britt Meierhofer is well known as a solo musician, a member of the band Crones, the alterego of music projects like Britt AM and Goodnightmare, but her latest project is a hearse of a different colour.
"This is straight-up political punk," she said. "It's all about taking up space, being loud, shouting about some important topics, and it's original material."
She had a couple of musical friends who shared her passion for this form of making statements, and were excited to slam down some stage thunder. Daniel Nokes and Geoff Dickieson are veterans of the Prince George music scene just like Meierhofer, with band names like Highball Riot and Bindles & Bombs on their resumes. They were between projects at the moment, so they weren't changing hearses midstream when Meierhofer talked about writing and performing together.
"I've had some ideas brewing for some heavier songs, and I wanted to bring that to fruition," she said. "Punk felt like the right way to express those thoughts and opinions. I'm pissed. I'm exhausted by what's going on in the world. Especially as a woman, a performer gets pushed to be all sweet and sugary and surfacy. I don't always feel that way and I don't always write that way. It's nice to not have to be like that, it's nice to shout. it's nice to drop a good hard F-bomb on the stage, and have people connect with that raw emotion."
The music is dark, so that's where the band went to find their name. The trio is known as Wild Hearses. They make their stage debut on Friday night at the Westwood Pub along with buddy band Crones and headliner B.A. Johnston.
"I love our name. I'm a sucker for plays on words, and I had hearses in my brain already because I'm in the market for one to be my new touring vehicle," said Meierhofer.
With Nokes and Dickieson, both of whom take pride in their musicianship, Wild Hearses shows off the more academic side of punk. It's true that, like country music, it is often the starting off point for new musicians still in the garage stage. It is forgiving of players who are more shout than skill. But when well-practiced musicians do apply their talents, it goes to another level.
"One of the reasons punk has been so heavy-hitting is because it has always been a bed for messages of anger and social change," Meierhofer said. "It is an impossible-to-ignore vessel to deliver those messages about life and culture and kicking at structures that hold us back in the world. Sometimes those messages come across as really simple, but really, those ideas are very complex and part of a major social discourse. So it isn't necessarily about easy answers and it isn't necessarily about easy music, either."
Meierhofer said she is the initiator of the songwriting, in a lot of cases, but whatever bones she brings to the table get fleshed out as a group. It is still early, too, she said, with plenty of composition still to come.
They have found themselves in the recording studio already, though. Meierhofer was doing some final mixes and then expected to have a Wild Hearses demo on their Bandcamp website by the end of this week.
Those wishing a personal introduction to their stuff can come out to the Westwood at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10 to get all three acts on the bill.
You can also mark Aug. 19 on the calendar, when the Legion will be the site for Wild Hearses opening for punk legends D.O.A. as a warmup to the Music On The Meadow festival in Fort St. James.
