Exclusives

Maverick finds out more about Michael Bongertman from River Seven Michael Bongertman is the lead singer and guitarist of the Canadian three-piece rock band River Seven, who released their exciting self-titled debut album in February 2012. With Michael in the band are bass guitarist Peter Anzelmo and drummer Tony Carpino. The band manage to mix the styles and sounds of John Mayer and Maroon 5 with those of Jamiroquai and Simply Red. Their music transcends genres, blurring the lines separating rock, pop, country and neo soul, proving that genres are just there for guidance and direction. My opinion has always been that the music anyone listens to should be put into just two folders-like or dislike. In other words try doing what I do, listen to everything and then make up your own mind what you enjoy. When I met up with Michael, he actually agreed with me on this. “It is the only way to really be a music lover. I find it strange when I meet musicians that only go in one direction and if you don’t love this kind of music then you are no good…kind of weird. I don’t get that? Music is music, does not matter how old or how new, or where it came from, if you like it you like it!” Michael was staying in London for a few days during a warm and sunny period in the middle of March and travelled up to Cambridgeshire to have a chat with me, we met at a little pub called the Lazy Otter on the outskirts of Ely and sat in the beer garden overlooking the River Ouse. Not knowing too much of Michael’s musical background, I asked him to give me a brief rundown of where it all started, up to the present time with River Seven. I asked if his musical aspirations begin at an early age? “Very young actually. I remember my father was a musician or is a musician, he did it professionally in his youth. So ever since I can remember there has been instruments in the house; drums, guitars. So I would sort of mess around with them, you know they were always there. I think my first guitar that my parents ever bought me was probably when I was around ten years old, up to then I would have been playing my dad’s instruments. I was really excited when he got me my own guitar and from there it just took off, I just learnt by ear and then eventually I was put into private lessons, but still learning by ear. At a very early age I was pretty good at actually picking up or lifting songs just from the radio or records and just by hearing them, without even knowing what the chords were called, you know I had a pretty good ear for that. Shortly after that, when I got a little older, I began playing in some bands around Toronto, Canada.” He continued: “I grew up just outside of Toronto in a city called Mississauga, but being so close I would travel in and out of Toronto quite a bit. Then I eventually went to college and I took a music programme for a couple of years, but I never finished because I started touring after my second year, I started touring quite a bit all over the US and Canada with various bands. So I never went back to finish my degree, it just got too busy and I preferred being on the road, I played with many bands and that was sort of how I met the guys in River Seven, as I had played in different bands with them.” When you listen to the debut CD by River Seven you can hear the tightness of their sound, as if they had been together for years (in fact they only formed in 2010); “I have actually known the bass player, Peter Anzelmo since we were teenagers. The drummer, Tony Carpino I met in another group that we were playing in when I was in my mid to late 20s.” So starting River Seven was like a natural progression? “A few years after that I moved to California to live, I was living there for a little while when I got a call from Tony with the opportunity to form this band and to work with this great producer that we have, his name is Terry Brown. He has produced a number of hit bands such as Rush and the Cutting Crew [also Blue Rodeo], the list goes on and on actually. Tony said there is money behind it and that he is a great producer, would you like to come back up to Colorado and do this project, so that is how it kind of got started. So I thought “yes it sounds great.’ I wasn’t really there very long-maybe almost a year and I thought that it sounded too good to turn down, I would have to go back and do it. So that is what I did and we kind of got together very quickly. I had played with them in different bands but not quite like this, this was a new thing.” Once the group was formed it was then down to the nitty-gritty of writing songs for an album. “We all put a lot of ideas on the table and started writing, then we just went from there, from pre-production, studio and kind of grew with that. We are still evolving, the core thing is having played together in different bands, the live part is awesome because it doesn’t really take a lot of rehearsal for us.” As they are friends and therefore very comfortable with each other they find that timing, solos etc come freely on stage, meaning that one of them can change something in a song and the other two will just slip in with the change with no noticeable difference. “We are so