Beaumont Music Festival: River Poets interview

River Poets, originally hailing from Manitoba, were a duo of brothers, Jo and Cabel Johnson, but now include Mike Burke on bass and Marty Zooks on drums. The River Poets make narrative folk-rock, detailing Canadian stories. 

On how they find stories to detail in their songs, Cabel said “usually I’ll hear someone talking about something or after a show, sometimes someone will come up asking questions about a song and tell me a story they know about something else. And then I go down the rabbit hole.”

 Zooks added that there’s an “emphasis on storytelling.” Cabel said that sometimes in the news, or articles too.” With Jo adding that literature is a big inspiration for stories as well. 

The band said that they sometimes detail a story as is, or they use a metaphor. “Some of them are just inspired geographically too,” Cabel said. 

The band pointed out that Jo is actually a teacher as well, giving context to the band’s music leaning to Canadian history and Canadian stories. 

The band said they were once described as if “Great Big Sea and Blue Rodeo had a baby.” And they said those bands are their inspirations. “We grew up listening to a lot of The Hip, Blue Rodeo, and Great Big Sea,” Cabel said. 

“We try to make it as unique as possible because it’s very common that folk groups start sounding the same,” Zooks says

Burke said he personally is more inspired by Van Halen, and Zooks added that he’s inspired by heavy metal. “That’s why I have ten toms,” Zooks joked.

Because the group began as an acoustic duo, when Burke and Zooks entered the project, songs ended up being changed to fit the new styles. 

“Moving the songs away from just the acoustic to incorporate these other sounds has been a journey,” Zooks said. “Cabel plays mandolin and banjo as well and with all these sounds, we try to make it as unique as possible because it’s very common that folk groups start sounding the same.” 

The band says they’re currently recording. The project is currently unnamed, Cabel said “we’re currently working with songs independently first. Going back and forth to make it sounds like it belongs to an album and then reflecting on the EP as a whole.” 

The band’s website says their goal is to record an album where each song represents a different Canadian province or territory. 

They currently have a self-titled EP of six songs, released in 2020 while the group was still a duo. The upcoming release is planned for fall of 2025.