Click here to listen to Outlaw Social
With the release of their debut CD, a seven song e.p., they’ve gained airplay and top twenty charting status on Canadian national community and campus radio charts, in additional to high praise from critics, promoters, audiences and peer musicians.
Outlaw Social brings innovative songwriting and exceptional singing and playing to every performance - their repertoire includes beautifully constructed original songs set alongside traditional material reinterpreted in a modern folk style. The band members first met years ago at kitchen jams and gigs with other musical partners, but late one night in the fall of 2004, Catherine Black and Pharis Patenaude cornered Oliver Swain in a bar - a week later, they had their first show in Victoria, B.C. As a trio, they whet their sound in Victoria bars, concerts, and theatres until late summer 2005, when Adam Dobres' amazingly tasty electric and acoustic guitars joined in; Kendel Carson, a vibrantly "hell-raising fiddler," graced the group with her steel trap bow just shortly after.
Click here to listen to Outlaw Social
The clan has lifetimes of playing between them, and each one has spent years honing their particular sounds in the festivals, halls, bars and living rooms of North America, Europe and Asia. Their past & present incarnations have involved work with phenoms Scruj MacDuhk, The Bill Hilly Band, The Paperboys, Ridley Bent, and Daniel Lapp among many others. In this incarnation of kick-assedness, they are: Adam on acoustic and electric guitars, Catherine and Oliver on the clawhamer banjo, bass & singing, Kendel on the fiddle, and Pharis on guitar & singing.
As a founding member of The Bill Hilly Band (The Bills) and long time member of Scruj MacDuhk (the Duhk’s) and Louisiana’s own Red Stick Ramblers, Oliver Reuben Swain has been at the forefront of North American folk and roots music for almost a decade. Winner of two Prairie Music awards and a Juno nominee, Oliver has played Festivals, Concert Halls, Living Rooms and Dance Halls across North America and Europe. Ollie recently acquired a lawnmower, and his lawn has never looked or smelled better! We couldn't be more proud!
Starting with a spoon and bowl in the high chair her dad built, Pharis has had a very happy musical education. Through many years of music lessons, stage time and band rehearsals in the family Rambler station wagon, all that time of big open phrases and Italian arias collided with Johnny Horton (and honestly, Bob Dylan and Iag Bari) to lead to some significant stylistic mishmash. As a child and adult, she's sung at country music and folk festivals with the Patenaude Family & other folks, performed kids' songs and operatic concerts for thousands, and recorded with highly respectable and disreputable folks. She likes old time and other twangy music because it’s best when you play it with others. She also teaches music and writes songs frequently. Pharis recently had one of her photos named Redneck photo of the week in an online Redneck photo group.
Adam Dobres is a quiet, slightly eccentric, unassuming guitar wizard. Music is part of his lineage - his grandfather was a master violinist, his father managed a band back in England, and encouraged Adam to play many different styles growing up. Starting at age 15, Adam's interest in Jazz music became a passion, and this morphed into his propensity for any style of music that gravitates to him - celtic, old country, blues, folk, bluegrass, and on it goes (you should hear him play death metal)... His playing has brought him across Canada and the United States with groups Moody, Penner & Swain, The Seams, Ridley Bent and others; accompanying Daniel Lapp, he's travelled across Canada and to the Celtic Connections Festival in Scotland. Adam is the source of that mysterious sound coming from the side of the stage, a.k.a. the electric guitar.
The music began with her first piano lesson and since then she's been weeding through instruments like it's nobody's business and even tried to build a few. She finally settled on mandolin, clawhammer banjo and bass, although if prompted she'll challenge all of these with praises for the kazoo. Her love of musical experience has taken her from majestic cathedral to seedy Yukon bar and if you find her broken down on a back road in BC, please stop by and play a tune! After much searching, Catherine recently acquired the proper in-between mini-seat for between the front seats of her van - it's lovely, with the right pattern of blue and green plaid. The woman has style!
Kendel recently successfully acquired over five hay bales and a nice saddle for the Outlaw Social cd release show in Victoria.