Guelph roommates talk music and creativity
What started as an EP for a high school creative writing class transformed, under careful and almost obsessive attention, into Beach Bodies’ first full-length album Onward & Downward. Beach Bodies is a five-member act made up of Brock Bourgeois, Jamie Gibson, Corben Grant, Isaac Grant, and Matt Morgan. The Ontarion sat down with Corben Grant and Jamie Gibson, both University of Guelph students, to talk about adolescence, the city of Guelph, and creating something important.
Sierra Paquette-Struger: How long have you been playing music together?
Jamie Gibson: We’ve known each other for probably 10 years. We’ve probably been playing music together since seventh or eighth grade, [but] we didn’t actually form Beach Bodies until about two years ago.
SPS: What was the inspiration for Onward & Downward?
Corben Grant: We’d always loved albums that weren’t just some songs but were albums. Once we made the band, it became more of a creative effort. We really pushed to have everyone in the band contribute.
JG: I was always hell-bent on creating a really cohesive narrative.It was a very difficult thing to do because I didn’t want to become a dictator in terms of what the album was going to be. A lot of what Onward & Downward has done, even with the cover art, is to show this weird pluralism full of different emotions and ideas because it’s five different people with five very different lives making it. We wanted to have an album that reflected that heart but also that diversity of experience.
SPS: How have U of G and the city of Guelph influenced you as artists?
JG: I was in this creative writing class with Kelly McCullough for this arts initiative called “Made in Guelph.” That was an instrumental step towards the band and my own education. I decided to make an EP for this class and it all kinda spiralled from there. [Will Wellington] was the first person to give Beach Bodies a review anywhere and it was at The Ontarion when we were still all in high school and we thought it was the coolest thing ever.
CG: I didn’t even enter downtown Guelph until like, the eleventh grade when we saw a show on Carden Street. It just blew my mind. Seeing all these cool people playing music and that really changed my whole perspective on this city.It partly influenced my decision on why I decided to stay in Guelph [for university] because I realized it’s a cool place for a young person like me who’s into arts and stuff.
SPS: You use a lot of different media and musicians. Where does the ability to work with a variety of different people and different things come from?
CG: I always loved these full arrangements so we really wanted some horns and some strings to take it from what the band did to something we couldn’t have done on our own. It’s bigger than just us.
JG: It wasn’t a five-guy unit. We decided to sacrifice some opportunities to create a record that we were really proud of and that made an impact. Speaking to collaboration, we just exploited—for lack of a better word—a really wide range of talented individuals who weren’t just ourselves. There’s something exciting about all these parts and fragments that shouldn’t work together but if you put it together in just the right way, it makes complete sense.
SPS: Do you have any advice for young students and fellow creators?
CG: When you’re a kid and you start a band and people call you a “high school band,” go as hard as you can and dream big. If you’re in high school, start a band. I want to see some young Guelph bands. I heard some kid was bad mouthing us saying he’s gonna start a band and it’s going to be way better than Beach Bodies, and I was like, “That’s awesome! I’m not mad! If we inspired you to make something even better than us, go for it. I wanna hear it!”
Photo courtesy of Brady Bourgeois.