“Close your eyes and picture the most decrepit shed you can imagine,” ‘Big Baby’ Brian Weadick enthusiastically encouraged. “What would liven it up? Punk rock. Think about punk rock rocking out the speakers in that decrepit shed. That is what we are doing.”
NNSL Media sat down with three of four members of emerging new rock band Big Independent, self-proclaimed inventors of a new genre called ‘shed punk’ (think The Stooges or The Ramones within the confines of a basic backyard shed, they insist).
The band will make their debut at The Raven Pub on Dec. 9 on a bill with Gnarwhal and Frog Poison, presented by Funny Farm Music.
Made up of Weadick on lead guitar, Big Independent also comprises ‘Big’ Mike Westwick on guitar and vocals, ‘Big Jesus Don’t,’ or JD, on bass and ‘Big P.p.’ Peter Adourian on drums. The quartet pride themselves on being middle-aged men trying to, on one hand, simply make noise in the North with any local, familiar inspiration they can find while, on the other hand, revive a rock and roll scene that has been nearly non-existent in Yellowknife in recent years.
In an effort to make the case that rock and roll can be drawn from everyday Yellowknife culture, the band’s name is a common reference to the Independent grocery store located on Old Airport Road. Additionally, the group has released a debut album of 10 songs which draw inspiration from everyday observations and experiences — from posts on Yellowknife Rant and Rave to Yk Classifieds to Ramen noodles.
“I think our name came about somewhat haphazardly and there is kind of a double entendre to it in that there are a lot of local references in the songs we write” Westwick explained. “The name also sounds like we are big and important and independent and it is a pretty ballsy name if you don’t know the full context. It just rings off the tongue.”
The band members hope to leave local audiences satisfied with a rocking good time.
“People come to shows to have their faces shredded off and that’s we are going to do,” Weadick promised, with bandmate JD adding that the group is “very dedicated to facilitating a high-quality dance opportunity.”
Reviving rock
For months, the four musicians have been honing and tightening their performance skills on Thursday nights in undisclosed sheds around town with a messianic aim to revive Yellowknife rock. Much of the effort to corroborate, however, came about with a less-than-pleasant backstory toward the end of Weadick’s run with Big Brian’s Country Club — a popular act in local establishments between 2016 and 2021.
“Toward the end of Big Brian’s Country Club, we were putting on a lot of different kinds of workshops: songwriting workshops, two-step workshops and teaching guitar,” Weadick recalled. “Another one of the workshops was that we put on a Tex Mex/country/south of the border down Mexico way workshop in my van.”
That workshop, led by a former band member, drew the current Big Independent members together but resulted in disaster as all suffered from severe diarrhea from food ingredients afterward. Big Brian’s Country Club ended with the removal of a former band member but led to the formation of a new act.
“What goes down must come up and that is how we all met and ended up talking music,” Weadick said. “For quite a while, though, we had nothing to talk about other than the diarrhea experience and it took a long time to recover.”
As the group was bonding, Westwick bought a new home. All members agreed its accompanying shed would make a great place to practice punk music and from there the band took form. Since then and as the weather has gotten colder, the group has found other sheds around town where they can hold jam sessions and build on the shed punk image.