Black Hat Brigade's Pitter Patter Album Launch

Black Hat Brigade are gearing up for the release show for Fathers, the follow-up EP to last year's self-titled debut, as part of the May 28 to 31 Pitter Patter Festival being staged in eight southern Ontario cities.

Fathers has been a year in the making, and Black Hat Brigade had to rely in large part on the donations of friends, family members and fans to pay for its pressing.

Each Black Hat Brigade member plays multiple instruments and takes turns on guitar, singing lead vocals and banging away on a number of varied noisemaking devices during their sets.

"For us, every show's different," says guitarist Bryan David Ward. "We're always set up some random way, and we have to make the melee of instrument-switching work. We have to arrange our sets based on who's playing what."

The Toronto and Brampton-based band often invite friends to come on stage and play with them during "Pictoral History," an upbeat instrumental track from their first EP that features military-style drumming and layered sounds.

"Whatever friends of ours that are in the crowd from other bands, they'll normally come up and grab whatever's not bolted down and play it," says Ward.

"We even had one of the sound guys from Rancho [Relaxo] come up, and he played flute once. That was awesome."

Even those who've seen Black Hat Brigade before should come to their show prepared for a few new aspects. The band are starting to enjoy the challenge of playing cover songs in addition to the instrument-swapping and guests.

"We did one cover around CMW [Canadian Music Week]," says Ward. "We worked this Television song into the end of one of our songs, but we've never flat-out covered a song before. So we're trying to do something fun for the EP release — nothing people won't really expect."

Black Hat Brigade's friends Parlovr, Burn Planetarium and The Balconies will open for their record launch.

"I think we're almost more excited for the bands that are playing with us than our own EP release, but we are excited about it and it's going to be a lot of fun," says vocalist/keyboardist Adam Peterson.

"Start to finish, we're really pleased with the night and hope everyone comes out and enjoys themselves," says Ward.

Admission to all Pitter Patter Festival shows is pay-what-you-can. Check out the event's website for the schedule.

You can see Black Hat Brigade at these shows:

May 22 Ottawa, ON @ Cafe Dekcuf
May 29 Toronto, ON @ El Mocambo w/The Balconies, Burn Planetarium and Parlovr (Pitter Patter Festival)
May 30 Peterborough, ON @ The Montreal House w/The Craft Economy and Parlovr (Pitter Patter Festival)
June 18 Toronto, ON @ The Drake Underground w/Oh No Forest Fires, Amos The Transparent and The Balconies (NXNE)
June 19 Toronto, ON @ Yonge-Dundas Square (NXNE)