The Glorious Sons, courtesy.

Brett Emmons said all he wants is to travel the world and play music for a hundred years with his band, The Glorious Sons. The Ontario, Canada band has twice topped Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart and is known for its energetic rock show back home. It has opened for The Rolling Stones, The Struts and Greta Van Fleet.

The Glorious Sons are now touring their recently released album, Glory, which they recorded during lockdown, but it didn’t come easy.

“We tried to record it four times,” singer-guitarist Emmons said.

The first few attempts by the septet, which includes his brother, guitarist Jay Emmons, drummer Adam Paquette, keyboardist Josh Hewson, bassist  Peter Van Helvoort and guitarist Steve Kirstein, didn’t feel right and the band scrapped them. Emmons said the band wanted a cohesive-sounding album and wasn’t there yet.

“I wanted to be as precise as possible,” he said.

It was also important to Emmons that the songs were about something meaningful. The Glorious Sons have songs about mental health, drug use and other weighty topics. When he connects with other artists, he looks to them for meaning. And to him, songwriting isn’t a job but rather a therapeutic process.

“I don’t really like songs that aren’t really about anything,” he said. “When I put my headphones in, I want to be moved.”

Being in The Glorious Sons has given the Emmons brothers an opportunity to to be around each other constantly. It’s certainly “had its trials and tribulations,” he said, but both have the necessary love and respect for each other’s contributions that makes it possible to play together. Jay has started doing a lot more singing as of late, he said.

“He’s always had an incredible voice that mixes really well with mine, because he’s got my kind of rasp,” Emmons said. “Everybody in the band is an incredible writer and musician, and pretty much everybody can sing, too.”

The band members are looking forward to visiting the bars and coffee shops of San Francisco while they’re in town next week. Emmons said he’s has fond memories of time spent in the Bay Area. The last time The Glorious Sons were here, he went fishing. The band traveled with their own barbecue and Emmons grilled the fish himself, even if, he said, deboning isn’t one of his strengths.

“I made fish tacos, but they were very bony,” he said, laughing. There’s no grill in the van this time, but Emmons, a fishing aficionado, said he could always throw his catch back into the ocean.

The Glorious Sons don’t have the same radio presence in the U.S. that they have in Canada, but Emmons said the band is built for the long haul and that he’s confident that word of mouth will carry them forward here.

“The way that we succeed is we move you,” he said. “It’s going to be people telling their friends to come to a show, and then that just builds … on itself.”

He pointed to John Prine as an inspiration not only musically, but also for career building. The late folk and country artist was in his elder years before he started getting fully recognized for his work. If that’s how long it takes, it’s still worth it, Emmons said.

“I’ve got no false notions that it’s not going to be a long journey and sometimes a hard one,” he said.  “I know I’m right for this. This is what I’m what I’m good at.”

Follow Rachel Alm at Twitter.com/thouzenfold and Instagram.com/thousandfold.