“The first mixtape I remember having, the two songs that kicked it off were Wild Thing by The Troggs and I Want Candy by The Strangeloves,” Michael Rault says before laughing. “I haven’t gone too far past that.” A telling, but not entirely true statement. For it’s not merely the past but the present and the future that are the signposts pointing to the music featured on Rault’s sensational debut for Pirates Blend record label MA?ME?O.
It’s an album stuck in time but pulled kicking and screaming and rocking and rolling and raw and beautiful into today, filled with the R&B and pop of a bygone era, infused with the lo?fi esthetics of a current crop of artists, and packed with songs so timeless, so utterly unfettered by an era or origin that all you can do is listen and get sucked in. “It’s influenced by an old sound,” Rault admits, “but we tried to obtain it using modern techniques and make it applicable to what’s going on now."
Recorded in his hometown of Edmonton and featuring a dream team of local musicians, including his honey?vocalled sister Emily, MA?ME?O is a raucous, retro party record that burns with an energy ignited half a century ago by the surf and sockhop songs and the show?stopping tunes of Little Walter, Lee Dorsey and Bo Diddley — but in which new life is breathed by such contemporary acts as Black Keys and Beck. From the teasing, pleading teen dream opener Call Me on the Phone to the dirty, funky Dorsey homage I Don’t Need No Help Gettin Down and the sweet, wistful, nostalgia?driven slow?stepper The Times When You Were Mine, the 10?track MA?ME?O is a deliriously loosey, goosey jukebox of memories and melodies, but that’s only a mere whisper of the history of the album and the artist behind it, and the past is more than essential to the exciting present and future in front of Rault.
Perhaps it’s best to go all the way back to that upbringing that saw his first Nuggets?like mixtape memory provided by his father, Lionel, a musician and musical historian who helped open doors, both to the past and present, that spurred Michael’s love and his evolution. “I’ve been around music all of my life.” Rault says. And, yes, Rault is out on the limbs of a sturdy family tree that includes his mother, Debbie Williams, a vocalist who gigged around the Alberta capital, as well as his father, Lionel, a musician and radio DJ who made something of a name for himself in the Rault Brothers, an act he formed with his sibling Ron. Michael admits that almost through osmosis, from being around such talented musical kin, he fell in love with the art. He also learned as much about it as one could hope to discover: From basic technical training, which he took and ran with, to the importance of those foundation acts (Diddley, Walter, et al) and even the most colourful aspects of early Alberta rock history. Among the latter, Rault was regaled and inspired with tales of the hall parties that the Rault Brothers and other early Edmonton rock ’n’ roll bands used to play on the — no accident — Ma?Me?O beach of provincial playground Pigeon Lake. In fact, Rault considers his material a “modern interpretation of the rock ’n’ roll that would have been played at those hall shows.” He continues, “And a part of me kinda wishes there were these crazy beach shows that all the kids in Alberta could go to. And this is the music that they’d play if that happened nowadays.”
Perhaps it will reignite some provincial outpouring of retro dance fever, but to limit Rault’s sound to one region would be doing it a disservice and denying its appeal, and, ultimately ignoring the universal story that led him to the here and now which has put him in a pretty remarkable place — especially for a prairie boy whose career aspirations were modest at best. “It’s not like there aren’t people who come from here who get successful in the music business,” he says. “But phone calls from Edmonton about your band to music labels and management aren’t usually that well received. I wasn’t really thinking about it that much because it just seemed easier to play and work on my craft than try to get some big break in ‘the biz’.”
Rault’s big break actually happened to be a handful of little breaks, beginning with his early incarnations as a punk rock performer in acts playing around his home town. One of those early shows included a gig alongside the band of former fellow ’Tonian Ben Stevenson. From there, he began to make a name for himself performing and recording with a constantly revolving group of musicians called the Mixed Signals. Flash forward several years, and Rault and his guitar are asked to back up his old pal Stevenson for a small?town tour opening for Canadian reggae rock heroes Bedouin Soundclash. During off?day soccer games, a friendship grows and the Bedouin crew lovingly dub Rault “maga spragga” (patois for skinny, skinny boy).
Soon after, Rault is on tour out east — staying with Stevenson who had recently relocated to Toronto — and he serendipitously downloads demos of songs he’d been recording for a new album on his host’s laptop. Forgotten by Rault, the tracks wind up in the ears of Bedouin singer Jay Malinowski, who immediately invites the Albertan to open for and backup Malinowski’s solo sojourn out west. More interactions, more discussions, including a meeting as both parties performed amid the volatile protests during the Vancouver Winter Olympics — “Like Beatlemania,” Rault says of the experience, “but in reverse” — and soon, Rault finds himself being one of the early and most celebrated signings to Bedouin’s burgeoning Pirates Blend label. “It was a long chain reaction that took years to move from one part of the chain to the next but when it was all said and done this is where I ended up.”
And where he ended up is here, ready to begin a rise up the ranks in this country’s talented music scene — albeit with a sound and an approach so unique his ascension should be as quick as it is deserved. For his part, the young artist is simply happy to be adding to the canon of a music he’s studied, loved and laboured over for much of his life, and thrilled to have the opportunity to get it out there to all the thirsty ears. For Michael Rault there’s no looking back now. Except, of course, if it’s to help him move forward.
