Today's post was supposed to be this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, with the former local hard rock solo project Stone Smyth randomly selected for the honours last month. However, I am going to slightly delay it so we can belatedly take a look at frontman Troy Isaac's interview with Adrian Vilaca on his series Across The Tracks on local internet radio station The Borderline! This interview premiered on May 29th of last year, fifteen months before Troy lost his battle with cancer, and alas, I didn't knew he did an interview with The Borderline until shortly after his passing. Better late than never, and this will help with additional context and information for when the Defunct Profile on Stone Smyth goes live! Before this interview, Adrian hadn't met Troy before, but he first came to know who he was via his presence on the 1998 compilation CD "Local Steel", where he played "A Long Cold Rain Comin' Down".
Troy starts the discussion by elaborating on how he first got into playing music as a kid in British Columbia, what instruments he played early on, and his early run in the band Angel Dust. In his youth, he lived in West Germany as a time while his stepfather served in the military overseas, and he played in a band named Machine Head (no relation) while living there. He began songwriting at about 15 years old in the late 1970s, and followed a normal career path as opposed to chasing the musician dream, but eventually started recording his own music, and was taking advantage of at-home recording software now that it was much more affordable and accessible than it was. Aside from guest female singers, all of Stone Smyth's music was purely a solo operation. Troy next discusses the recording experience for "A Long Cold Rain Comin' Down", which led to the "Local Steel" release concert at the former Peachy's.
The re-recording of that song by Stone Smyth (now titled simply "Cold Rain") is played in full at the 9:45 mark, with the interview picking back up at around 14:50. After discussing why he re-recorded the track, Troy discusses the sounds and styles he liked incorporating in his music, Troy talks about some of the favourite concerts of his as an attendee, and his far flung times living all over Canada, before setting up the second full song played in the interview, Stone Smyth's "Hanging Onto Fire", which comes on 19:20 into the episode. The second half of the interview begins at 23:20, with Adrian asking about Troy's one-man operation and recording process, with Troy aiming to take Stone Smyth to live concert stages (it is sad that he never got to realize that goal), while addressing how the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns affected his music plans back in 2020.
At this stage of his life, Troy was focusing on doing what he loved artistically rather than money, and this leads into the third song played during the episode, "Last Chance Mountain" (27:15). Adrian picks things back up at 30:40 by talking about how much he likes Troy's new song "Summertime", and asking about what kinds of messages Troy wanted to convey in his original music. He did note that he wanted to have uplifting messages in his music more than political or divisive content. "Summertime" is played on air at 34:15, with the interview resuming at 37:40. When asked about his then-future plans, Troy noted that he had a stage setup built for eventual live gigs, and eight more songs (as of May 2024) ready to release, while also acknowledging the rings that he wore to the interview. After setting up the final song to be played on air ("Hari Cari"), we hear that at the 40:40 mark, and the last segment of the interview beginsat 44:05.
To close, Adrian asks where we can hear Troy online, and he finally addresses where the Stone Smyth name comes from here, specifically a play on "blacksmith" without using the same spelling as Aerosmith, and he used the name for his own studio and planned guitar line as well. Troy was also hoping to begin shooting live videos in the fall of 2024, Nice casual interview that helps explain a bit about who Troy was and what he was aiming for with his music, and it is a shame that he passed at just 63 before some of his bigger future plans could be fully realized. Hearing this finally will be good to fill in some blanks for our Defunct Local Band Profile, but give the full Borderline interview a listen at this link or above, and R.I.P. Troy!
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