Hamilton hardcore heavyweights Counterparts on pre-emptive ‘eulogies’ and their success outside Canada

Counterparts vocalist Brendan Murphy doesn’t know when this will all come to an end. But with his band’s latest album he knew he wanted to say his goodbyes.

“When I was writing (the lyrics), I had a whole bunch of things in my head and in my life that I thought of, and about how eventually one day they’re going to be gone,” Murphy said while sipping a drink in a Hamilton bar. “Whether it’s like my cat or like my relationships or like my friends or the band.

“When someone dies and you say goodbye, they can’t hear it. So I wanted to do something beforehand so they can at least know that I cared and that they had an effect on my life.”

It’s a theme that rings loudly throughout the Hamilton metalcore acts’s seventh record, “A Eulogy for Those Still Here,” out Oct. 7.

Counterparts, who consistently channel that early-to-mid-2000s melodic hardcore sound of screaming vocals, punishing breakdowns and intricate riffs, aren’t strangers to change.

With every album they’ve released since 2010 there’s been some kind of lineup shuffle. But now it’s the closest it’s ever been to the original, with founding guitarist Jesse Doreen back in the fold. Rounding out the lineup are guitarist and singer Alex Re, who rejoined in 2019, bassist Tyler Williams and drummer Kyle Brownlee. Murphy is the only one who’s never left at any point in the band’s nearly 15-year history.

And when he talks about the “end,” Murphy doesn’t exactly mean it only in the morbid sense, though his lyrics and his dark humour might suggest otherwise to his 45,000-plus Twitter followers. After yelling into a microphone for more than a decade — whether with this band or more recently with the chaotic metal group END in the U.S. — the 31-year-old Canadian has seen a fair number of things come and go in his life.

“The idea of losing both bands was the scariest thought in the world. And then with COVID, I kind of did,” Murphy said. “But I did write the record sort of with that in mind and thinking, like, ‘OK, would I be cool with it being the last one?’”

Murphy reiterates that he doesn’t actually know if it’s going to be the last Counterparts album — “probably not,” he said — but the conflicted, dark and bleak feelings of that possibility inspired some of the writing.

In the single “Bound to the Burn,” Murphy grapples with the exhausting and expensive nature of being a globe-trotting member of a heavy metal band. In another, “Unwavering Vow,” he screams about strange visions of imagining another person’s death.

And perhaps the most personal song on the album — “Whispers of Your Death” — is a tribute to his late cat, Kuma, so fondly regarded on social media by the band’s fans over the last couple years. “Make your cancer mine,” Murphy emotionally yells over the track.

“I’ve never gotten so many messages from people just being, like, ‘Thank you for writing this song,’” Murphy said about its relatability, adding he was overwhelmed by the “insane” amount of support from fans — including a GoFundMe — when his pet was in a veterinary hospital.

Most of those supportive fans, however, are probably not from southern Ontario, let alone Canada. While Murphy is known for emphatically calling out Hamilton — or more specifically its area code of 905 — to packed venues, he acknowledges that a lot of the band’s followers come from the U.S., U.K., and even across the Pacific in Australia and Asia.

The band found its footing in the burgeoning southern Ontario scene of the 2000s — a foundation laid by heavyweights such as Alexisonfire and Silverstein — but its footing is now elsewhere. Over the summer the band played massive festivals in the U.S. and the U.K., and won’t play its first Canadian dates since 2019, including one in Toronto, until its headlining tour later this fall. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as even some of the most popular Canadian bands have difficulty making a dent south of the border.

Murphy doesn’t really have an explanation for why it’s like that. The band will take it, but they’ll never forget where they come from.

“The southern Ontario scene took a hit kind of around the time that we were starting to play more and becoming, you know, like a real band,” he said. “I don’t really know why. I don’t know why it happened. I wish it didn’t.”

Perhaps it’s Murphy’s candid handling of his social media channels or the conversations he routinely has with fans that aid the band’s popularity outside of Canada. Murphy never shies away from professing his love for K-Pop and English rock band The 1975 — far cries from what some people might call the “scary” sounds his bands perform — or even fighting back against critics who say something unfavourable about him, his friends or his music.

In fact, he’ll publicly roast you for it. Even at live shows, if he’s not feeling the energy of the crowd, he’ll let them know. And it’s that kind of brutal honesty that resonates with a lot of Counterparts fans.

“I’m not hiding anything and I’m going to be fully transparent,” Murphy said. “And people appreciate it because they feel like we’re not some, like, entity or mysterious band. They’re just like, ‘They’re f—ing normal.’”

For the most part, it’s all in good fun and fans catch on to that. It’s the endearing enthusiasm for Counterparts that keeps the group going, and Murphy knows metalcore, hardcore punk, “screamo” or whatever you want to call it will always be his “first love” when it comes to music, even if he often jokes about what a ridiculous concept it is, screaming into a microphone for a career.

“I’m always going to have a soft spot for the world that both these bands are in,” he said. “It’ll always be cool.”

SHARE: