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Overnight

OVERNIGHT with CATRIONA STURTON at Holy Oak Café (1241 Bloor West, 7:30-9:30 pm) and Duffy’s Tavern (1238 Bloor West, 10:30 pm), Saturday (February 28). $8-$10. overnightmusic.ca. 


Beautiful things can sometimes emerge from tragedy.

Earlier this month, Carla and Lynette Gillis released their band, Overnight’s, debut full-length, Carry Me Home. It’s chock full of Black Sabbath riffs contrasted with delicate Fleetwood Mac-inspired harmonies, but the alt-rock album is most influenced by a family tragedy and its painful aftermath.

In 2008, their older sister Darlene – the second eldest of four girls, the wild child who took them to an Alice Cooper concert as preteens and introduced them to Slayer – died in a car accident at the age of 34.

“This project was basically us going through the grieving process,” says Lynette over the phone. “It was quite cathartic and the most collaborative [Carla and I] have ever been in terms of songwriting.”

For the better part of two decades, the two sisters have explored multiple musical personalities together. As young teenagers in Halifax in the early 90s, they formed the all-girl rock band Plumtree, toured Canada and wrote the song Scott Pilgrim, which inspired the eponymous comic book series. 

They later moved to Vancouver, made catchy indie pop music under the name Bontempi, before eventually settling in Toronto, where Carla is currently music editor at NOW.

The process of making this new record, translating their grief into lyrics and illuminating the words with music was a tumultuous, healing experience, and perhaps the only way to fully confront their feelings.

“If you’re really grieving, there’s a couple of different ways you can go. You can keep [your feelings] to yourself, or you can face them openly. [This album] was us being open and vulnerable and trying not to worry about what people will think of it, trying to put judgment aside,” says Lynette.

The Gillises wanted Carry Me Home to be relatable, celebratory and playful, something that headbangin’ Darlene might have gotten a kick out of.

But most importantly, they wrote it for themselves.

“When you’re making something that’s about a person or for your own personal reasons, the nice thing is you stop worrying about what other people might think, because you have your own reason for why you’re making it.”    

Listen here.

music@nowtoronto.com | @SamEdwardsTO

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