Toronto-based singer-songwriter and guitarist, Stephen Stanley may most immediately be known as a founding member, lead guitarist and vocalist with acclaimed, early 90’s alt-rock band, The Lowest of the Low. The groups undeniable and “genuinely timeless album” (Exclaim!), Shakespeare My Butt..., earned gold record status and saw the band share stages with the likes of Billy Bragg, The Violent Femmes, amongst many others. Fame took the band on a relentless, highly pressurized and ultimately, band-fracturing tour schedule. Stephen was featured in the group’s recent documentary, Subversives that was released in September of this year. Stephen ultimately, had his own mark and music to make and The Stephen StanleyBand became his focus. He’s assembled a collection of trusted players and has gone on to log monumental shows with the likes of, 54•40, Bob Mould, Cracker, Lee Ann Womak, Jake Clemons, Willie Nile, The Jayhawks, and Lloyd Cole. He’s played festival stages in Germany, and toured across the UK and Ireland. The Stephen Stanley Band’s new album, Before The Collapse Of The Hive (Wolfe Island Records) is brimming with raw, unflinching urgency, steadfast observation and soul-searching storytelling that highlights Stephen’s immediate world: those he loves, and those he’s lost. Recording the album on on Wolfe Island became an integrated life experience. Start and stop times were not regimented. “Often, we’d go and play a set at the Hotel Wolfe Island (co-owned by album producer and album contributor, Hugh Christopher Brown) and recording would just take place around the timing of the show.” Except for Kate Fenner, Michael Blake and Ron Hawkins, outside of his band, everyone who played on the new record lives on Wolfe Island. A wonderful stable of players and singers, deeply affected the sound of this new work, produced again, by Hugh Christopher Brown.