Take a few musicians with bluegrass roots, grow them up in Canadian soil, nourish them with influences like the Band, Blue Rodeo and Neil Young, and cultivate their talents in the tree-planting camps of northern British Columbia.You’ll get the Breakmen, an award-winning West Coast indie-folk outfit and worthy heirs of the Canadiana tradition.Having already won the Vox Pop Award for Americana Album of the Year at the Independent Music Awards, and having earned two Canadian Folk Music Award nominations for their previous album, When You Leave Town, the band is now embarking on Round Three of its tour to support its latest release, Heartwood.The Breakmen will appear Feb. 9 at the Waverley Hotel in Cumberland.With Heartwood, the band paid tribute to its Canadian roots-rock idols and sought to bring its impeccably crafted songs and tight harmonies to a wider audience — with bigger drum sounds and lots of vintage electric guitar. Since taking the album on tour, the band has gradually evolved the rest of its repertoire to match, making for a show that grabs listeners from well beyond the folk and bluegrass milieu.Heartwood has been praised by the Georgia Straight for the “meticulous craftsmanship of the songwriting, the strength of the lead vocals, and the tightness of the harmonies,” which it says “distinguish the quartet from other Canadian outfits mining a similar vein.” The San Francisco Guardian wrote they “bleed pure Americana,” while Germany’s Folkworld Magazine said the new album placed the band “on top of the Americana scene.”The Breakmen formed in 2005, not long after chief songwriters Archie Pateman and Lee Watson and bassist Matthew Lawson returned from a rare tree-planting contract that saw them all living and jamming in the same camp. To round out the band, Pateman approached Ben Rogalsky, with whom he’d written music for an indie theatre production.Rogalsky is from a musical family — his brother Luke played in the ’90s rock band Mystery Machine — and his brother Matt is a member of the up-and-coming Kingston band the Gertrudes — and he has a degree in music from Simon Fraser University.Rogalsky also has a background in music for theatre and is a former member of the Flying Folk Army. Watson and Lawson were childhood friends from Ontario, who had first played together during summer camp. Pateman, too, is from a musical family and, like Watson and Lawson, had been studying bluegrass as a way of improving his skills on his instruments.Together, the band-members became regulars at Rime, a now-defunct live music joint on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive. They also started playing gigs around B.C. and across Canada, releasing three albums in the process.Though their sound has evolved since the early days, their devotion to songcraft hasn’t. Pateman and Watson are forever studying great songs from all genres and evaluating their appeal in an effort to write original work with the same kind of resonance.Now, with their plugged-in new arrangements, they’ll bring those songs to an even bigger audience. Catch them at Joe’s Garage on Feb. 8 for an intimate show or at the Waverley in Cumberland the following night for a more high-energy dancy event.Pateman, who lives in Cumberland, is excited to contribute one-half of the proceeds from both shows to You Are Not Alone (YANA), a Comox Valley organization that helps families from School district 71 who need to seek medical assistance for their children that they can’t get at home. This unique charity has funded thousands of trips for medical treatment in Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto and even the U.S. and England.When Pateman’s youngest son Clyde was born, the family relocated to Victoria due to his premature arrival. YANA helped his family, and with support of the band, and their loyal fanbase, Pateman is keen to give back.For more about the band, visit www.thebreakmen.com and www.facebook.com/thebreakmen.Tickets cost $12 at Bop City, the Waverley Hotel or by phone at 250-336-8322. Doors open at 9:30 p.m.— Cumberland Village Works

Comox Valley Record