Press release –
JUNO Award-winning group The East Pointers (Tim Chaisson and Jake Charron) kicked off the celebrations for their new album Schoonertown with a packed, oyster-shucking blowout at Toronto’s Noonan’s recently, surrounded by friends, industry and lucky contest winners. Now, they’ve officially releaseed their fourth studio album on Nettwerk.
Already celebrated internationally as musical trailblazers, The East Pointers have come home on their newest offering. Equal parts origin story and statement of craft, Schoonertown captures the moments that shaped their youth: nights out with the boys, the dizzy rush of first love, sprawling families and small towns, bleak winter stretches and kitchen parties, vinyl records and tape decks, every mistake, every late night, every long drive, beer and cigarettes and fights, laughing until you can’t breathe, ambition rising like a king tide, the piss and vinegar of youth, and the sun emerging so bright over the horizon you have to shield your eyes. It’s the devastation and exhilaration of growing up, set to music.
Alongside the album, the band shares their new single, “Ecstasy.” The final release from the record, the song captures that sudden rush of adrenaline and the floating, expanding feeling of falling in love out of the blue.
The East Pointers are currently on tour in the UK & Ireland and will soon return to Canada for a 25+ date tour with their longtime friend Alan Doyle. They’ll wrap up the run of dates with their biggest hometown show on April 25th in Charlottetown.
The journey to Schoonertown began a year ago with “Anniversary,” a modern folk-pop anthem about overcoming addiction and celebrating fresh starts. “Eleven years ago, our late band member Koady made major changes to improve his mental health, including becoming sober,” shares Charron. “This song celebrates those wins, big or small.” With rich instrumentation, a driving beat, and shimmering harmonies, the track looks toward brighter days.
Continuing their long tradition of East Coast myth-making, Schoonertown is a natural evolution for the band. It is a jubilant and honest reckoning with heartbreak and victory, loss and return. Still channeling Koady as a writing partner, Tim (fiddle, vocals, guitar) and Jake (keys, guitar, vocals) alchemise years of love, grief, travel, and friendship into an album of 12 new songs that captures heroic joy, sharp pain, courageous expansion, and a triumphant homecoming, all while preserving their signature ability to pack dance floors and celebrate the beautiful struggle of being human.
Schoonertown was recorded at SpaceCamp Studios, Charron’s basement setup, with a focus on capturing the freewheeling spirit of an East Coast kitchen party while blending in contemporary production. The album was produced by the band and mixed by award-winning producer Derek Hoffman.
Music from the album has already amassed more than 4.5 million streams, contributing to an impressive 46 million streams across their catalogue. It has been featured on Amazon’s Brand New Music, with an accompanying billboard at Toronto’s Sankofa Square on release, and has received playlist support from Apple’s New Music Daily and Today’s Acoustic, as well as Spotify’s New Music Friday Canada, Folk & Friends, and Highway One. The album has received additional media buzz from CBC Radio, Spill Magazine, NEXT Mag, Americana UK, and more.
Between touring, dad duty and running their Goolaholla! festival, The East Pointers continue to connect with fans with inventive Celtic-folk reimaginings of pop favourites, including recent covers of ‘Iris’ (Goo Goo Dolls), ‘Man I Need’ (Olivia Dean), and ‘Daisies’ (Justin Bieber).
JUNO Award-winners The East Pointers are innovators within the ever-evolving genre of modern folk, crafting a joy-conjuring, dancefloor-shaking, roof-rattling fusion of folk, pop, and dance music. In the studio, six records have captured the furious energy of their live shows, adding to the legacy of East Coast folk while lighting a path for a new generation of music lovers.
Since their debut album, Secret Victory, took home the 2017 JUNO Award for Traditional Album of the Year, The East Pointers have cemented their place as a defining voice in contemporary folk music. Their music, streamed millions of times over each month, has been featured on television, film, and broadcast, and their acoustic performances on social media have been shared by the likes of Ed Sheeran and Mumford & Sons. They regularly light up stages across Australia, Japan, the UK, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand, the USA, and Canada, and each fall they bring that energy back home to Prince Edward Island, where they host Goolaholla!, a festival celebrating music, community, and the spirit of the East Coast.
For more information, visit www.theeastpointers.com.
