Autumn, 2001. Harboring an increasingly heartless and suffocating music scene, Calgary, Alberta was becoming a punk rock ghost town. Musical regurgitation abounded as too many musicians listened to too few musicians, and too many acts emulated the same old act. Similarly to what was happening in other cities, a handful of musicians were tactful enough to abandon such emulation for a blatant challenging of what had come before. Thereby, the passion of emotional music was flexed beyond standards that had been set previously and volume, velocity and veracity achieved new heights. But more importantly than this, an even smaller handful of musicians conceded that the real problem with punk rock was that its champions were always trying to usher it another step forward when it hadn't actually been properly acquainted with the past. Forfeiting orthodoxy, these young gentlemen saw the potential for rebel music to meld harmoniously with some of the twentieth century's most eclectic, if somewhat seedy, art forms. After all, why shouldnt the grit of Delta blues, the street poetry of hardboiled fiction and the existentialism of film noir be embraced by a genre that was originally based on unorthodoxy itself? As there is no cogent answer to this question, Rum Runner was birthed out of absolute necessity. Drawing far more influence from Dashiell Hammett, John Huston and Arthur Guinness than from the Clash, the Sex Pistols or the Ramones, Calgary's sons have been performing their musical discourse on other generations pop cultures all over North America since their inception. Of particular mention is the fact that their memorably anarchic live show has been welcome everywhere from the most deplorable dive to the most reputable folk festival. There has also been an increasing propensity to assault living rooms worldwide with the Rum Runner sound via 2004's Association (Longshot Music), 2005's Dead Men are Heavier Than Broken Hearts 7" (Longshot Music) and 2006's Rum Runner in Guns at Cyrano's (Stumble Records/Longshot Music). As music around them continues to evolve, Rum Runner remains hellbent on satiating that niche craving for a sound that looks backwards for inspiration.
