Growing up in the late 90s/early 00s, we always had guitars laying around as my dad used to do some picking back in the 70s and 80s. I always felt this draw to creating music from banging pots and pans to my parents getting me a cassette recorder for my birthday one year.

Around grade 6, I stopped going to school. I felt like I was some sort of outsider on account of bullying, learning difficulties, etc. I was eventually placed in an alternative education program with several other students, where we would learn about going at your own pace or focusing on your strengths and learning styles. We had this music teacher that would come on Wednesdays and was super inspiring. They encouraged me to focus on practicing my guitar and putting my energy into this outlet. This got to a point where every day I would go in and my mornings would just be spent learning new songs or practicing my chords or scales. I think this was the beginning of this life-long journey of putting my feelings, or sometimes even subconsciously putting things that I wasn't even aware of at the time, into my music.

Creating music became a way to get myself through difficult times. No matter how hard things would get, at least I knew I could pick up my guitar and turn whatever I was going through into something potentially beautiful or something that could create joy in those around me. Through my parents divorce this was a place I could escape to. I think even still this is something that is hard to explain to non-art types but I think at the time I didn't even realize its importance. To this day I have a difficult time articulating it.

Fast forward to me starting high school. Obviously I was a little weirdo. Still am! I didn't really fit in anywhere despite trying. But, I now had a certain confidence knowing that at least I was pretty decent at the guitar. I always wanted to play in a rock and roll band but wasn’t taken seriously by any of my peers. Kinda made me a bit sad to be honest. But Thomas Duxbury does not give up! No, no… we go to the Classifieds section of Kijiji! I found a saxophone player and convinced a fellow guitar-playing weirdo at Westdale Secondary School to come meet this sax player off the internet. I’m still friends with both of them today, but due to some obvious creative differences, that “band” lasted maybe 3-4 jam sessions. I went through a few other situations like this until I found Keith Mosfet looking for a bass player. I thought to myself, ‘heck yeah I can learn bass!’ I reached out explaining that I am a proficient bass player in search of a band, and he agreed to bring me in for an audition. I bought the cheapest bass I could find, and we formed a band together.

The band lasted two shows, but Keith and I got to chatting and at this point my guitar chops were actually now something that could be worked with. We discussed the idea of beginning another band. We just need to find a bassist. I had recently become super close with my friend Sadie Kostash (featured on the new track, “Istanbul”), and we began a group called The Retroaction.

This was my first experience in booking shows, playing festivals, releasing music, etc. Armed with this following the breakup of this project, I recruited a number of amigos from the Mohawk College music program to start a new band. I had returned to college for Business Administration to tie this knowledge to my making things work as a musician while also getting a transferable skill.

A bit before The Retroaction split, I had started to get the itch to play bass again. So where do I go? Back to my trusty Kijiji! I posted an ad saying, “bass player looking to jam”, and literally within minutes of this ad going up I got an email from Bruce Cole from a band called The Blank Spaces who was eager to rip some tunes! I get there, and the mastery of chord progressions, melody and songwriting I was met with absolutely blew me away. I couldn’t really keep up so I saw this as an opportunity to practice some drums a bit and maybe try my hand at some more complex bass parts. Ultimately this led to me learning a whole other side of this world: the jam and hang side!

Back in school, bandless but with a good network of jam buds, I immersed myself in all the business things. Got way into accounting for a semester. Absolutely cannot tell you a single thing about it in hindsight. Around December I saw a poster that the Mohawk Student Association was looking for a Mohawk College band to open for The Dirty Nil and Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs for an on-campus event. I think to myself, ‘I could probably talk some buds into this and wing it.’ I recruited Bruce Cole, Sadie Kostash and another member of The Blank Spaces, Zach Ridehalgh, to form a last-minute, all-star band, New Mother Nature.

We learned just enough tunes to pass an audition, and boom! New Mother Nature’s first gig! January 9, 2020, opening for The Dirty Nil and Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs! Two legendary bands, and us scrambling to get a set together for our first gig. This gig went decently, but in the nature of this up and down zig zag progression, we were starting a project off strong when we all know what happened immediately after January of 2020…

Now here I am, back to square one. The world has ended and I have all these songs that I want to do something with. I cannot see my friends. I cannot play shows or create with them. So what do I do? Give up on it all? That code does not exist. I ordered some Rode M5s and learned nine of my songs on drums, bass, guitar and keyboard. I used this cheap, clapped-out interface and a 12-year-old Macbook, and I spent six months painstakingly learning to record and mix tunes while also working around the technological limitations I had. Sadie insisted on being in my little bubble and coming by to record some better bass tracks, and my my I am glad she did, because she laid down some fire! This became the album Back 40 Homegrown.

After Back 40 Homegrown, music had taken a bit of a pause. I feel like I had said what I needed to say at the time. This was until I saw an old four-track cassette machine in a thrift store. From here I set out on a bit of a challenge. I wanted to record a single only using a cassette machine, learning the limitations of this. This challenge led to several singles, with "Istanbul" being the latest.

I was asked what was the moment I knew I wanted to make music, but I don’t think there is a simple answer to that for me. It is hard to explain why I am drawn to this career path with little monetary gain. There is some different type of fulfillment that comes from all this that I have learned a lot of people don’t really get, thus making me a weirdo. For the rest of this story you’re going to have to stay tuned to the adventures of Thomas Duxbury and New Mother Nature.