"For The Love Of Music", an open letter by Earl Pereira (from The Steadies)
From as early as I can remember, music has been intertwined into my life. As a child, I distinctly remember the crackling of my dad's vinyl collection repeatedly spinning greats like The Beatles, Elvis, James Brown, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder and early MJ. Little did I know that these sweet sounds in our household would help influence who I would later become.
During grade school, my oldest brother Efren – whom I looked up to like my idol – was already in a touring band. I would sometimes do lights for them at school dances, and I often day-dreamed about being on stage. When I got to high school, I started my first band that we called Vendetta. When I sang “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty (rip) in front of a sold-out theatre for our school’s annual Talent Night, that was the night I fell in love with the idea of becoming a professional musician.
However, life would take me down a different path.
Facing parental pressure, I enrolled into the historic University of Saskatchewan to pursue Dentistry of all things. These were some of my most depressing times because I knew I didn't belong there, and it was killing my soul to not be doing music anymore. Fortunately, years later, I found two people to jam with and we started gigging in bars around Western Canada during the summers, which was just too much fun.
One day, I decided that I was not going to go back to school and that instead, I would follow my dreams of being a real musician. I wasn't doing it for fame, riches, sex and especially not drugs… but only for the love of music. Even playing in some of the seediest places you could imagine, I still loved it. But my biggest fear was coming face to face with the Canadian faction of the KKK. I've dealt with racism all of life but these threats during shows were next level terrifying. I didn't back down, I pushed through, and eventually we got the crowds to force them out of the bars which felt so satisfying. Right then, I knew that if I could deal with this, then I could deal with anything, and these experiences made me a stronger person for it.
After a couple of more years of grinding, the band – which was known as Wide Mouth Mason – ended up getting signed by Warner Music/Atlantic. Fifteen years later, we released 8 albums, played 2000 shows, had multiple radio/video hits, and toured as openers for iconic bands like The Rolling Stones, ACDC, The Guess Who, Alanis, Van Morrison & ZZ Top while establishing our own following. I had achieved and experienced things that I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams. But something was missing, I wasn't enjoying the ride as much as I should've been. Music was becoming all about business and when combined with creative and personal issues within the band, it had all but taken the joy out of it for me. I’ve always said that when it's no longer fun and you've lost the love, it's time to either stop or move on. After some dark and stressful days, I realized I loved music too much to give up, so I chose the latter.
As extremely difficult as it was to start over again, I embraced the challenge and started my own band The Steadies with my best friend Justin 'Juice' Lee. We created our own sound called 'island-rock', and music was fun again. There was no pressure of labels, management, or agents. We just played and were having a great time doing so. Five years into building the group, we achieved a major goal of becoming an international touring act. We performed all across China and South Korea. It was a dream come true for Juice and I was so happy to share that experience with him. Sadly, he passed away suddenly due to a brain aneurysm 2 months later.
Feeling lost and grieving the death of someone very close to me for the first time, I decided to do something I always wanted to do – backpack across Europe. It was an amazing experience that I'll never forget and I came back with a renewed sense of musical purpose. I was determined to rebuild The Steadies and finish what Juice and I had started. Through good fortune I had found a new band of brothers and we would go on to tour Europe and release our third album. Things were on the up and up, then COVID happened but that wasn't even the worst of it. I lost my number one supporter, my father Efren Pereira Sr. Completely devastated yet again, I was now dealing with two massive losses at once, but I knew my music career was only on pause.
As tough as these last years have been, I feel like I have already gone through the toughest challenges of my life and came out the other side. With the world opening back up, the guys and I are having the best shows and enjoyed the best summer of all time. We’re releasing a new album as 3 EPs – titled “TRIKETRA: Mind, Body and Soul”. It is the best music I've ever made and I can't wait to get back to touring the world. Juice always used to say "the universe will provide", and now I believe it to be true. I am truly having the time living my life and it's all because I'm doing it for the love of music.