The show must go on, as the saying goes. Helen Hamilton was all too familiar with that well-worn showbiz adage last September when her regular guitarist dropped out at the 11th hour before a gig.
Scrambling to find a replacement, Hamilton tapped Charlie Stenner, formerly of the duo Ellie & Charlie, to fill in. Without so much as a rehearsal under their belts, the pair's unfamiliarity evidently wasn't noticeable to the crowd at the FireRock Lounge.
"It just clicked," says Hamilton, vocalist and keyboardist for the duo that now plays under the name Little Earthquakes. "I remember announcing halfway through our show that this was the first-ever time we had played together and people were amazed because there was definitely a chemistry.
"I knew straight away that we were going to get along musically."
That sonic union has paid dividends for Little Earthquakes in the short few months they've been together. Their stripped-down, mellow sound, which Hamilton describes as "lo-fi alt-pop," has earned them a bi-weekly residency at The Longhorn and pushed them through to the finals of the 2019 edition of Whistler's Music Search.
It was before that annual battle of the bands that Hamilton and Stenner decided they weren't going to conform to the cover-heavy, saccharine pop aesthetic typical of Whistler's bars and clubs.
"This was a conscious decision," Hamilton says. "The decision Charlie and I made was that we were going to do what we wanted and not try and please a crowd. What I firmly believe is if you are doing the music that you really, really love, no matter what it is, it's going to be an honest, soul-fuelled performance. I suddenly had a switch in my mind after doing covers for the last two years that I've been here that I would start playing music that was way more what I liked. It was really nice to do that in the competition because we literally didn't care."
That's not to say Little Earthquakes don't take on covers, it's just that they have to be injected with their own style, and they have to push boundaries. (You can find Little Earthquakes' stirring live rendition of Sharon Van Etten's "Every Time the Sun Comes Up" on YouTube as a prime example.)
"It's a case of finding a good middle ground where we're covering songs that people know but always adding our own style to it to make it more enjoyable. It's got to be challenging as well," says Hamilton, adding that she's playing keys more than ever before, while Stenner has incorporated a MIDI keyboard and looping into their songs.
She believes Whistler audiences, both local and visitor alike, have an appetite for more musical creativity and experimentation, and it's up to bar managers and promoters to take risks on acts that may not fit the cookie-cutter resort mould.
"I always say we do our own thing and if you're looking for party tunes, it's not going to be us. But a lot of people say to me, 'No, I really like hearing more of an original sound,'" she says. "I just think people, maybe the locals more but probably the tourists as well, are happy to hear something as long as it's good, it's something original and sounds sweet."
Like many a Whistler artist before her, Hamilton has a smorgasbord of side jobs to help make ends meet. Working primarily as a makeup artist, she is also a barista at Mount Currie Coffee Co., organizes regular vintage pop-up markets, and has even lent her vocals to commercials in her native U.K., most recently for luxury watchmaker, Patek Phillippe. ("When they relicense it, you don't have to do any more work, but you get paid again!" Hamilton enthuses.) But the Whistler grind hasn't stifled her creativity. In fact, it's only heightened it.
"I found in Whistler that I've been more inspired and more creative than I've ever been, and I think that's because of the downtime you do get here," Hamilton says. "You've got to work hard and play hard, but it's an inspiring place to be. And when you meet the right people, like Charlie, it's just way better than any other time in my life in terms of creativity."
Catch Little Earthquakes at the Longhorn on Feb. 5, and every second Wednesday after that for the remainder of the winter. The duo is also looking to release more video content coming up, with plans to launch a YouTube channel.
