The Tea Party and Rouge Pompier

Back in 1990, Jeff Martin, Stuart Chatwood and Jeff Burrows all knew each other and had played together in the close-knit Windsor, Ontario Rock scene. The trio had a marathon jam session in Toronto’s Cherry Beach Rehearsal Studios and decided to keep playing together afterwards.

Once they decided on the name (named for Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs’ legendary has sessions and not that little thing that happened in Boston a couple of hundred years back), they self-released their debut album the year after they formed. Only 3’500 copies of the album were ever made but it was enough to get them a deal with EMI Music Canada, which they signed in 1993.

The album went platinum in its home country the year after its release but it was also their breakthrough hit in Australia, a country where they continue to be very popular to this day. It was with their debut major label album, called “Splendor Solis” that they began experimenting with their trademark Indian music influences.

The band wrote and recorded a lot of the music utilising open tunings and goblet drums to achieve the sound, while still mixing it with their psychedelic blues backing. However, it wasn’t until their third album “The Edges Of Twilight” and specifically the single “Sister Awake” that they truly realized their potential. “The Edges Of Twilight” would be their most commercially succesful album, going double platinum in their home country.

The band would go on releasing albums to great success until 2005, when the band abruptly split due to creative differences. The members would drift into solo careers but they came back together in 2011 for a set of live shows and a new album, 2011’s “The Ocean At The End”. This is a rare act with talent, vision and a desire to create what’s never been heard before, we’re lucky to have them, and they’re a live act to be seen as soon as possible.