Sons of Freedom were a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...

band of the late 1980s and early 1990s."SONS of FREEDOM; Playing in no-man's land". ''

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as ''The Bytown Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris, it was renamed the ''Citizen'' in 1851. The new ...

'', May 5, 1989. The band, consisting of vocalist James Newton,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

ist Don Harrison, bassist Don Binns and drummer Don Short,"Dons Of Freedom and boy-voiced Jim". ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...

'', December 9, 1988. formed in 1986 in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. Although sharing the same name as the Sons of Freedom, a controversial

Doukhobor The Doukhobours or Dukhobors (russian: духоборы / духоборцы, dukhobory / dukhobortsy; ) are a Spiritual Christian ethnoreligious group of Russian origin. They are one of many non-Orthodox ethno-confessional faiths in Russia a ...

activist group, the band chose their name before learning of the existence of the Doukhobor group and briefly deliberated changing it. Because three of the four band members had the first name Don, the band was also sometimes jokingly nicknamed "Dons of Freedom".

Career

Their self-titled debut album was released in 1988 on

Slash Records Slash Records was an American record label originally specializing in local punk rock bands, active from 1978 to 2000. It was notable as one of the first and most successful independent record labels in alternative music, before its eventual ac ...

, and was supported by a cross-Canada concert tour. The album was marked by a hybrid rock-funk style which was described by critics as a cross between

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...

and Gang of Four. They won the

CASBY Award The CASBY Awards were a Canadian awards ceremony for independent and alternative music, presented annually by Toronto, Ontario radio station CFNY, currently branded as 102.1 The Edge. CASBY is an acronym for Canadian Artists Selected By You. The ...

for Most Promising Group in 1989, and were shortlisted for the Juno Award for Most Promising Group at the

Juno Awards The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...

of 1990. The band's second album ''Gump'' was released in 1991 on

MCA Records MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc., which later became part of Universal Music Group. Pre-history MCA Inc., a powerful talent agency and a television production company, entered the recorded music business in 1962 w ...

in Canada and Chrysalis Records in the United States. The album debuted at #1 on '' Chart'', Canada's campus radio charts, and spawned "You're No Good", the band's only single to chart in the ''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

'' Top Singles chart. After being dropped from their record labels, the band broke up in 1993."Sons of Freedom reincarnated". ''

The Province ''The Province'' is a daily newspaper published in tabloid format in British Columbia by Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network, alongside the '' Vancouver Sun'' broadsheet newspaper. Together, they are British Columbia's on ...

'', March 25, 1994. Harrison, Binns and Short initially joined with singer Jen Wilson under the new band name Black Eye Buddha, although Sons of Freedom briefly reunited in 1995 to tour in support of a rarities compilation, ''Tex''.

Later work

Binns, Short and Harrison subsequently joined with

Lee Aaron Lee Aaron (born Karen Lynn Greening; July 21, 1962) is a Canadian rock singer. She had several hits in the 1980s and early 1990s, such as "Metal Queen", "Whatcha Do to My Body", and "Sex with Love". Early life Aaron was born as Karen Lynn Green ...

in the band 2preciious, and with

Dave "Rave" Ogilvie Dave "Rave" Ogilvie is a Canadian record producer, mixer, songwriter and musician. The former member of bands Skinny Puppy and Jakalope started his recording career in Vancouver working as an engineer at Mushroom Studios. He has been described by ...

in the project

Jakalope Jakalope is a Canadian Indie pop/ rock group, formed in 2003 and named for the mythical creature of the jackalope, and started by noted Canadian industrial musician and producer Dave "Rave" Ogilvie, most famous for his studio work with such act ...

. In 2007, Newton launched a new project called Rat Silo."Freedom's Newton gravitates to new band". ''

'', February 4, 2008. The band consisted of Don Binns (bass), Finn Manniche (guitar), Dave "Oz" Osborne (keyboards) and

Sean Stubbs Sean R. Stubbs is a Canadians, Canadian musician. He has served as the drummer in the industrial rock bands Numb (band), Numb and Jakalope, and the punk rock band SNFU. He has also been a member of alternative rock singer-songwriter Bif Naked's ...

(drums). On October 4, 2014 the four original members performed a reunion show to a sold out crowd at Vancouver's Imperial Lounge."Shows you'll want to see: Temperatures cool down, but the world of arts and entertainment heats up as we pick the best". ''

'', September 14, 2014.

Discography

''Sons of Freedom'' (1988)

Track listing: *1. "Super Cool Wagon" *2. "The Criminal" *3. "Mona Lisa" *4. "Dead Dog on the Highway" *5. "Holy Rollers" *6. "Shoot Shoot" *7. "Judy Come Home" *8. "Is It Love" *9. "Fuck the System" *10. "This Is Tao" *11. "Alice Henderson"

''Gump'' (1991)

Track listing: *1. "You're No Good" *2. "Dreamgirl No. 1" *3. "Call Me" *4. "Circle Circle" *5. "I Can See" *6. "USA Long Distance" *7. "I Don't Care Anymore" *8. "Jesus and Jim" *9. "Girl Can't Help It" *10. "Dreamgirl No. 2"

''Tex'' (1995)

Track listing: *1. "Walkie Talkie" *2. "I Want You" *3. "Hit It" *4. "Heaven" *5. "Yer Too High" *6. "I Believe" *7. "Sugar High" *8. "Blind Children" *9. "I'm Burning" *10. "Help Me" *11. "Underneath Yer Window" *12. "Wrong Direction" *13. "Best Friend" *14. "You Don't Belong" *15. "Don't Come Back" *16. "Blowakisstry This"

References

External links

Sons of Freedom
Official website
Sons of Freedom
at Myspace {{DEFAULTSORT:Sons Of Freedom) Musical groups established in 1986 Musical groups disestablished in 1993 Musical groups from Vancouver Canadian alternative rock groups 1986 establishments in British Columbia 1993 disestablishments in British Columbia