STEAMBOAT: FROM LEFT: Matt Mclaren, Mike Smith, Jay Anderson, Nick Taylor (Christopher Sandes not pictured)

It is a truth universally acknowledged — or at least, it ought to be — that behind every great rock frontman lies an even greater band. Yet time and time again, the talented players who play the largest role in shaping the sound of so many classic cuts in the popular music canon just don’t get their due from the majority of listeners. But once in a blue moon, the unsung heroes lurking in the shadows band together (if you’ll pardon the pun) and gingerly inch out into the spotlight.

Enter Steamboat. If you spent last summer hanging out at the Tranzac, you might’ve witnessed this tight and polished crew of rhythm ’n’ blues bruisers supporting local innovators like Alex Lukashevsky and Sandro Perri. And although the group’s members are celebrating the release this week of their first proper record, a glorious and warm mess of country-infused rock ’n’ soul anchored by the interplay of glowing Fender Rhodes licks and boogie-woogie piano chords, you’ve met Steamboat before.

“Our dream is to become the Wrecking Crew of Toronto,” offers vocalist/lyricist/organist Matt McLaren, who co-founded Steamboat with drummer Jay Anderson. McLaren is invoking the celebrated studio musicians who helped build Phil Spector’s wall of sound, among other things. “We do our own stuff, but we’d love to spend a lot of time backing songwriters we like. I find playing with other people so interesting.”

McLaren and Anderson were instrumental in producing the zany pop orchestrations of Luca Maoloni’s band The Old Soul, and guitarist Nick Taylor (Black Eyes) is a fellow Soul survivor. Anderson and McLaren have also backed up Deadly Snake–turned–deadpan troubadour Andre Ethier, which is where they connected with piano man Christopher Sandes (who’s played with way too many bands to list here). Ex-bassist Andrew Scott (The Bicycles) quit the band because he had too many projects on the go; current bassist Mike Smith moonlights in Muskox.

To paraphrase both the tagline of Standing In The Shadows of Motown (and Alan Cross), these guys are the best-kept secret in the ongoing history of new Toronto pop music.

“Even though I’d love it if it worked this way, you just can’t ask to be in someone’s band,” laughs Anderson. “But when we did the Tranzac shows last year, we figured out how to kind of rope people into playing with us. As awesome as it’d be to be Sandro Perri’s band, he already plays with people. But what if we could be your backup band for the night? We’d learn a bunch of your songs and some covers.

“Everyone in the group is into the idea of being a studio band,” he insists, then adds, “but not studio players. We love the idea of being, like, the MGs, of spending all that time learning each other’s playing styles. So, we can do the R&B thing, but we can also get heavy and do psych stuff. And we have originals too. I hate that classic band description of ‘we’re really all over the place,’ because it sounds like such a palefaced answer, but it really is fun incorporating lots of stuff into what Steamboat is. We’re not original — we just love old records and the way that stuff sounds.”

Though they’ve only played a limited number of occasional shows since 2007 as Steamboat proper, Anderson and McLaren first started trying to make songs together about seven or eight years ago. As Anderson explains, the two would meet up with the intention of playing music together, but they kept getting distracted by listening to records. “It’d be, like, ‘Shit, you have this? Let’s listen to it…. Oh, right, let’s make some music.’”

Steamboat’s songs gradually started to take shape, but Anderson says he and McLaren weren’t close enough to a sufficient number of local players who could play the right kind of classic The Band–meets–Booker T music to help them flesh out a full ensemble. While they could’ve recruited bandmates through the classifieds, the two were more invested in being friends with the people they chose to play music with. Steamboat didn’t take off until they made solid connections with enough like-minded artists to stack the deck.

Both McLaren and Anderson still seem to feel a bit like relative outsiders in the local music scene; consequently, they’re pretty floored by the ecstatic responses their shows have received across the board. After a roof-raising appearance earlier this year at a regular Wavelength night, the series’ organizers added Steamboat to the roster for their recent, massive anniversary bash. The band hope to “celebrate all the great musicians who helped us with the Tranzac shows” at Saturday’s CD-release bash, performing sets with the likes of Ethier and Perri as well as Alex Lukashevsky, Doug Paisley and more.

“It’s pretty funny,” McLaren says slowly. “Jay and I kind of had a joke — or maybe other people said it to us — that we were pretty much just making dad rock. We still ran with it, but I didn’t know what to expect. As it goes on, [responses] seem to be getting even better. I was surprised, but I’m super-happy.”

“I never would’ve thought Wavelength would be so nice to us,” Anderson offers. “I never thought the Tranzac or Dakota would be into us. I love that we’re reaching into all these different scenes — it’s like we’re borderless, in a sense.

“I mean, we’re not by any means claiming to do anything new or anything that hasn’t been done before,” he continues. “The Sadies were kind of around the same age we are now when they started doing what we do. For me, growing up and being a bit younger than them, it’s been really inspiring to see that approach of ,‘We’re gonna be a band but we can also be your band.’ And then to see their 10-year-anniversary show at Lee’s and realize how many local guys have played with them, to recognize that Garth Hudson’s down with playing with them now, and the stuff I’ve heard about them playing with Neil Young…. It’s just really inspiring.”

Email us at: LETTERS@EYEWEEKLY.COM or send your questions to EYEWEEKLY.COM
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1