Kate Boothman, singer and guitarist for alt-country act Sunbear, might be a city girl now, but the Kendal, Ontario, native can’t seem to get away from horses – even when living and working in the big smoke.
“I grew up riding horses,” says 29-year-old Kate Boothman over a pint following a recent gig at Toronto’s Dakota Tavern. “I got my first pony when I was four. I quit school really early and ended up just working on horse farms because that’s the only thing I knew how to do. I would ride other people’s horses from the city that didn’t have time to come exercise their horses. I just ended up riding horses in the neighborhood.”
At the age of 17, Boothman found steady work at Annelies Horn’s Kendal Hills Stud. “I stayed at Kendal for quite a long time and it’s a really nice community,” she says. “I made a lot of friends. My parents have a farm near there and I have three horses of my own. I spend half the week out there and half in town. But working with horses is the opposite of rock n’ roll, you know? At Kendal Hills, you’re up at 7 a.m. -- well, I was. Annelies is up at all hours of the night, especially in breeding season delivering foals -- and then you’re done early and home to bed.
“Now, I wake up at one in the afternoon and, I don’t know what time it is now [it’s well after midnight], but I just finished work. It’s a total paradigm shift. An early morning in the country working with horses is like late nights in the city working with drunk people.”
As boozy patrons stumble through the bar with a wobble, Boothman maneuvers easily through the tale of a day in her old life on the stallion farm. “There were nearly 90 horses on the farm. Mostly mares. We’d do breeding in the spring, and when I worked there we would have anywhere from three to five stallions. The mares would come off the track on layup or be there for breeding. In fall, I would take yearlings to consignment sales and the horse auctions at the tracks. I still do that every fall, but I stopped working full-time when I was 24. I realized I had been working there a long time and was maybe getting a little bit old to risk getting hurt bringing in all these yearlings.”
While working at Kendal Hills Stud, Boothman was bequeathed an integral part of her band Sunbear -- her horse, Neil, who was featured in a music video for the single City Escape and recently posed with the band for a promotional photo. “He’s named Neil… after the gold rush,” laughs Boothman. “You know, the Neil Young record? His sire is Gold Rush.
“Annelies moved over from Germany nearly 30 years ago with her husband,” she explains. “When they came over from Germany, they brought this stallion over named Goldschlager. Annelies father was a massive dressage coach in Germany, and as a wedding gift, he gave her this stallion. His family is famous for having bred Olympic show jumpers…”
Her eyes sparkle with mischief as she carefully peels off the layers of the piece.
“Anyway, Goldschlager was 26, which is very old for a stallion,” giggles Boothman. “Towards the end when Goldschlager was starting to get a bit too old for the job, I said to Annelies, ‘I want a horse by him’ and she said, ‘Kate, you find yourself a good mare and I’ll give you a breeding from Goldschlager.’”
Another pull on her pint and she picks up the pace, ever so slightly. “I talked to my boyfriend, who had some coin, and we got this beautiful mare named Phaedra,” lilts Boothman with a smile. “Well, actually, her name was Tantalus when I bought her, but yelling ‘Tanti’ across the meadow was ridiculous -- so I changed it to Phaedra, who is a character in a Lee Hazelwood song called Some Velvet Morning.
“So, I had the mare and I tried to breed to him,” continues Boothman. “Goldschlager, who was white, came over here from Germany with a white mare named Duktuane who was also white -- and they loved each other.”
The spry but elderly Goldschlager was nearing the end of his days as a stallion, but a chance to be near his beloved Duktuane would often coax the necessary readiness from the old fellow. Knowing the depths of Goldie’s affection, Boothman smartly steered the stallion by Duktuane’s stall on the way to collection.
“So, I was like ‘alright, he’s ready!’” It was a long barn with a sharp turn at the end to go over to the phantom collector. We’re going down the hall and I’m yelling, ‘he’s coming, he’s coming’ and there’s this round bale at the end of the hall before the turn and I thought he was going to take the turn and slip and plow me into the wall. But Goldie jumps onto this bale of hay…”
In an instant, the moment was gone. Goldschlager never made it to the collector.
“We couldn’t breed him again after that,” squints Boothman in anguish. “He just wouldn’t do it. But he had a son named Gold Rush. So I bred Phaedra to Gold Rush and got the horse I always dreamed of as a little girl.
“He’s now five years old and I ride him in music videos and he stars in photo shoots,” grins the musician, practically bubbling over in delight. “My dream is to shoot a video of me riding him bareback through Toronto... to portray these conflicting worlds, which are my worlds -- the farm and the city.”
Boothman’s first few sips of the music scene uncorked a taste of success with the undertones of heartache. The singer/songwriter experienced some joy first time out with a band named The Real Priscillas, who worked feverishly in the local bar scene. It wasn’t long before all the late nights paid off. “We lasted seven months and by the end, we opened for Wilco at Massey Hall,” she recalls.
Playing at Massey Hall is the musical equivalent of a horse graduating from morning qualifiers to racing at Mohawk. The experience was bittersweet, though, as the band broke up in the studio while making their first album.
“So I started a band called Horse with some of the more sensitive songs I had written,” says Boothman. “But everyone in the band was in other successful touring bands, so we were going nowhere.”
Undaunted, Boothman continued to play solo shows under her own name and was eventually introduced to bassist Ian Russell, who also plays in the popular alt-country act $100. “$100 made their record with [producer] Rick White. His former wife Tara White is my best friend. We all used to live together,” she says.
Russell and Boothman were introduced at a Neil Young concert and immediately hit it off. With the addition of drummer Michelle Josef, Sunbear was complete.
Russell’s rhythmic repertoire adds a nostalgic twang to drummer Michelle Josef’s backbeat, and the liner notes make reference to a veritable who’s who of Canadian indie music. The new album was recorded in Greg Keelor’s studio, and the Blue Rodeo veteran worked the recording boards. Keelor’s influence is not lost on a disc that includes guests like Kathleen Edwards, Holy F*ck’s Graham Walsh, Sean Dean of The Sadies and uber producer Ian Blurton. To aspiring musicians, those names ring out like stars... but to Boothman, they’re simply friends.
“Much like the horse industry, the music industry is a small community and if you’re around it you just know each other,” says Boothman. “I met Ian Blurton fifteen years ago at a Blue Rodeo show and we’ve been good friends ever since.”
Oddly, it was Neil, the unsung hero of Sunbear, that made the connection with Blurton for their sophomore record Moonbath. “I was like, ‘dude, can you come in and record over-dubs on my record?’” recalls Boothman. “Ian knew I had horses and he’d made the C’mon record, which was called Beyond The Pale Horse, and he said, ‘can you take some photos of your horse for our record cover?’”
Neil, the unlikely galloping grey media star, found his way onto the cover of a record in a modified drawing of a photo, and Boothman had her over-dubs. “I spent $1200 on tape and $2000 on wine,” laughs Boothman. “I made sure everyone had the best time ever. We all got together, we’re all friends and we’d have some drinks and some food. The whole thing happened in six days.”
Standing front and centre on the Dakota Tavern stage, a blond Boothman strums her guitar with purpose. As the band launches into Desert Valley Nights, her posture is ever so straight as she sings upward into the microphone amidst the opening lines of the tempest.
I’ll keep my eyes on the road, even though
I don’t know where to go.
I’ll keep my eyes on the road, through the ice and snow, riding it in low.
Her eyes open wide and as she sings her knees begin to bend. Ian Russell, on bass, revs the engine on a song that might otherwise be country but for Boothman’s determined vocals. This is a driving song, and the chorus has some flying turns.
It’s taking its time this wine, but I’m settling in.
The music’s in time with the street and it’s snowing.
The music is sweet, but it’s frantic, and the last chord rings as final as a finish line. There’s a little bit of Mazzy Star to Boothman’s sound and the reference isn’t lost on the winsome singer.
“A lot of people say Mazzy Star,” she agrees. “It’s funny because I got a call about a year ago asking me to open up for Hope Sandoval (lead singer of Mazzy Star). So, I did a show at the Mod Club with her in Toronto and again the next night in Montreal. After the Montreal show she invited me on her bus and by the end of the night she said, ‘why don’t you come to New York with us’?”
It wasn’t meant to be, as Boothman had travelled to Montreal without her passport and was forced to miss out on a New York to California spree. Still, the moment lingers. “Maybe subconsciously she’s an influence,” admits the artist. “One of my favourite tapes when I was 14 was their Among My Swans cassette. I can hear it in that we both really like reverb in our vocals but she’s a little more ambient than I am.
“And I break stride quicker than she does,” she adds with a laugh. “She doesn’t break stride -- at all.”
The songs on Sunbear’s second album, Moonbath, are spacious and the lyrics explore a heartbreak more likely than not inspired by the demise of her long-term relationship with a musician that spanned nearly a decade.
“I started writing music five years ago when I moved out from my boyfriend’s farm -- he was a tremendous guitar player,” Boothman admits. “He had a studio and there were incredible musicians around me all the time… but when I moved out I had a guitar and I moved into my new apartment and I learned to play I Want You Around by The Ramones. It’s super easy... like three chords. And then I started to write my own songs.”
Like any artist, Boothman sees her faults first.
“I’m a little monotone in my delivery,” she deadpans. “I think I’m a little grumbly… I know I have this ethereal quality to my voice. But it works with the music. It goes well together with the music because it’s me.”
The complexity that makes up Boothman’s musical pedigree resonates throughout this varied album. Her pondering tones allow the melody to carry the meandering All The Time; the psychedelic tinged Unrequited takes the listener on a trip beyond the path of traditional country music and into the open spaces beyond; sweetness is sacrificed in the lament of Wanting You in favour of sincerity, which only adds to the authenticity of the emotion. It’s apparent that Sunbear took no shortcuts in crafting this record and its subtle melodies are readily absorbed.
With the album receiving critical acclaim locally, Boothman has hit the trails. She’s touring with Sunbear across Canada, as well as having made a recent solo sojourn to New York. Recently, she opened for Fran Healy -- lead singer of Scottish indie heart throbs Travis -- at Toronto’s Mod Club.
“I want to be on tour all the time. I want to play music,” yearns Boothman. “It’s the best job in the world. I love travelling. I’ve always had this nomadic spirit. Maybe that’s why I feel confined by the city,” she adds in a moment of surprised self-realization. “At the farm, there’s so much more space. I can see for miles.”
By Keith McCalmont