The Standstills

Musicians often say a band is like a marriage. Comprised of husband-and-wife duo Jonny Fox and Renée Couture, THE STANDSTILLS fit that definition literally. On album number two, the organic and gritty Shockwave, the duo lay their story bare, with intimate and urgent rock n’ roll bombast.

THE STANDSTILLS built a reputation for transcendent anthem-making with an earnestly steadfast formula: gigantic hooks, unapologetically hypnotic grooves, and infectious unabashedly cool riffs.

“We’re a rock band, right?” Couture asks rhetorically, in a matter-of-fact fashion. “So, it’s all about the riff, the groove, and we drove that home on this record. We took time to craft these songs.”

“Those are the things we always come back to,” Fox agrees. “Sometimes we’ll play a groove much longer than another band would, to see how far we need to take it to reach that magic.”

Produced by Neil Sanderson from Three Days Grace and mixed by two-time Grammy Award winner Howard Benson (My Chemical Romance, Santana, Daughtry), Shockwave blends immediately accessible choruses with magnetic layers of depth revealed in repeated listens.

Fox (vocals/guitar) and Couture (drums/vocals) double down on the vibe that drove 2019’s Badlands to international acclaim (as evidenced by the 1.1 million Spotify streams for their track “Wild”), with bright, inviting songs like “Get Right,” “Maple Sugar,” and “Heavy is the Reason.” They asked themselves: what kind of songs do we love? What makes us return to a piece over and over?

The same attitude and ethos drew the pair together as classmates. At first, Couture kept quiet about her drummer background, as she was in school to pursue recording and engineering. But as she got to know her fellow students in the classrooms and hallways, she told Fox about the drum kit sitting dormant in her basement. It turned out the two of them had a lot of artists in common in their respective record collections: Big Wreck, Tea Party, Queens Of The Stone Age.

“The feeling from that very first jam session was so incredible,” Fox recalls. “It was uplifting, a special connection, great communication. We wanted to keep getting together. On the city bus together, we’d listen to the recording of that first session with a headphone splitter. We were just so proud of it. It was the first time we did something creative together, and I was hooked.”

THE STANDSTILLS guitar-driven outlaw rock n’ roll first emerged on a pair of indie releases. From the Devil’s Porch, their 2015 EP, produced three successful Active Rock singles, resulting in a 2016 win for Best New Group or Solo Artist: Mainstream Rock at the Canadian Radio Music Awards.

The duo’s Western-flavored stomp owes as much to the sonic landscapes of Ennio Morricone and the squinty-eyed attitude of Clint Eastwood as the thick grooves of Queens Of The Stone Age or noisy grunge. Badlands produced the fastest charting Canadian single in the MNRK label’s history.

Hailing from the Lake Ontario shoreline city of Oshawa, in Ontario, Canada, THE STANDSTILLS spread their seductive psychedelic stoner rock through extensive travels in just a few short years. Performing alongside Rival Sons, Pop Evil, Eagles Of Death Metal, and Seether, among others, their music is the sum total of their travels, full of triumphant live shows and emotional authenticity.

That commitment to truth-telling led to the revelatory songs found all over Shockwave. “We pushed ourselves to write an album that tells our story. I don’t think we’d done that yet. We’ve touched on it throughout previous singles,” Fox says. “But this one is just like: ‘Here we are.’”

“We didn’t even openly admit we’re married till recent months,” Couture points out.

Like the best filmmakers, authors, painters, and artists of all stripes, THE STANDSTILLS draw from personal experience, resulting in work that connects with people who experience it on deeper levels. Their songs can soundtrack a raucous evening out or a quiet drive alone with equal weight.

“We’ve completely opened and exposed who we are in a way that we’ve never done before,” says Fox. “It felt like the right time. We’ve always gone with our gut instincts. We felt ready to do it. This is the album we’ve been working towards. I hope it connects to people in a deep way, as much as it’s meant to us in the creation and the life experiences that it took to make the album.”

It’s the same philosophy they’ve put into their relationship with one another. “Like falling in love, you can’t force it,” Fox says. “You just arrive. When Renée and I met, I was so focused on making music and getting into the music industry, doing it by myself. But with Renée, I didn’t want to lose that feeling of something greater than self. That’s how love happens. It happens organically. If you don’t jump on that opportunity, you’re not giving yourself a gift.

“If you’re not all in, then you’re not really doing the best for your songs or yourself.”