Belfast Rockers Unquiet Nights Return With New Single "Last Days Of Rome"
Luke is becoming a Canadian citizen because of his great-grandfather, James Cameron. James enlisted with the 236th New Brunswick Kilties in the First World War. When the battalion was broken up in Europe, he went to the front with the 72nd Battalion (Seaforth Highlanders of Canada) through the German spring offensive of 1918, then joined the 4th Canadian Machine Gun Corps in time for the Hundred Days at Amiens. He came home with a new middle name. For the rest of his life he called himself James Clark Cameron, after his trench commander, Lieutenant-Colonel John Arthur Clark, the man who went on to found the Vancouver law firm now known as Clark Wilson. In 1939, at 51, James offered to serve again, and a letter from Lester B. Pearson at Canada’s High Commission in London survives from that time. He went on to serve in the British Army through the Second World War, earned the War Medal and the Defence Medal, and stayed in the reserves until he was 66. Using Canadian war diaries, family letters and photos tied to the Eaton family’s Kawandag estate in Muskoka, Luke pieced his great-grandfather’s life back together, and it led him to Canada.
Happy to set up an interview, or anything else from me, and thank you, as always, for considering.
Best,
Eric
Unquiet Nights’ Luke Mathers, the Belfast Rocker Behind “Last Days of Rome,” Follows His Great-Grandfather’s War All the Way to Canadian Citizenship
For most of his life, Luke Mathers knew his great-grandfather only through a few family stories. The Belfast singer and guitarist, frontman of the rock band Unquiet Nights, had heard that James Cameron fought for Canada in the First World War, and that he’d taken his middle name from a commander in the trenches. Then came the letters, the photographs and the war diaries. This Remembrance Day, the man who started out chasing a family mystery is on his way to becoming a Canadian citizen, more than a century after James first put on a Canadian uniform.
James Cameron’s war began with the 236th Battalion, the New Brunswick Kilties raised by Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Guthrie. The battalion recruited across New Brunswick and New England, and James’s path to it was anything but straightforward. Family records show he faced a bigamy charge in Boston, and Colonel Guthrie arranged for him to go to the front lines instead of to jail.
When the Kilties reached Europe, the battalion was broken up to reinforce units at the front. James was posted to the 72nd Battalion (Seaforth Highlanders of Canada), and from March 10 to July 27, 1918, he held the line through the German spring offensive. On July 6, the 72nd won the Lovat Cup at a military Highland Games in Tincques, France, taking first place in the tug-of-war and the pole vault. Its pipe band placed first among all Canadian battalions. Three weeks later, James moved to No. 3 Company of the 4th Canadian Machine Gun Corps, just in time for Canada’s Hundred Days, the string of victories that began at Amiens and helped bring the war to an end.
Luke’s research also solved a family mystery. His grandfather always said James had taken his middle name from a commander in the trenches, but “Clark” never appeared on his birth certificate. Canadian war diaries pointed to the answer: Lieutenant-Colonel John Arthur Clark, the 72nd’s commanding officer, who later became a brigadier-general and founded the Vancouver law firm now known as Clark Wilson. After the war, James Cameron called himself James Clark Cameron for the rest of his life.
When war came again in 1939, James stepped forward once more. A letter from Lester B. Pearson, then working at Canada’s High Commission in London, survives from that year, and it became one of the keys to Luke’s search. James enlisted in the British Army on September 21, 1939, at 51. He served with the Royal Army Service Corps and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, and by 1942 he was a corporal in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He was awarded the War Medal and the Defence Medal, and he stayed in the army reserves into the early Cold War, until his final discharge in 1954 at the age of 66.
The paper trail kept growing. A 1985 letter from the Ministry of Defence confirmed his Second World War medals. It arrived months after the death of James’s wife, Minnie Bowden, and Luke believes it was her papers that first sent his grandfather searching for the father he’d known only in pieces. Family photographs also point to a connection with Kawandag, the Eaton family’s summer estate in Muskoka, and the Muskoka Lakes Museum is now reviewing them.
Luke has spent more than 15 years making music of his own. He formed Unquiet Nights with drummer Rodger Firmin above Belfast’s Limelight club in 2010. The band earned support from BBC Radio 1 and BBC 6 Music, toured nine countries while based in Italy, and saw Sky Italia use their song “George Best City” as the soundtrack to a recurring documentary series. Their 2024 album, ‘Seasons in Exile,’ drew praise from The Belfast Telegraph and Hot Press and airplay on Kerrang! Radio and TotalRock. Their new single, “Last Days of Rome,” is out now. It’s a song about time, art and the tension between what lasts and what fades, and it took 15 years to finish.
A century ago, James Cameron crossed the ocean to fight under a Canadian flag and carried his commander’s name home with him. This winter, his great-grandson is making the same journey in the other direction, choosing to call Canada home in his memory.
Belfast Rockers Unquiet Nights Return With New Single "Last Days Of Rome"
MP3s, WAVs, Photos, Bio, and All Assets Here
Spotify I YouTube I Soundcloud I Website I Wikipedia I Bandcamp I Facebook I Instagram I TikTok
Unquiet Nights are marking the next chapter of their story with "Last Days of Rome," a standalone single out now, and one that carries the weight of six years the band spent living and working in Italy. Fronted by vocalist and guitarist Luke Mathers alongside drummer Rodger Firmin, the Belfast formed group built the song around a place, and a feeling, that shaped them as much as any studio ever could.
Mathers wrote "Last Days of Rome" out of long stretches spent sitting on walls and marble steps around Rome during his twenties, absorbing what he calls the city's particular relationship with time. "You don't have to be religious for Rome to have an effect on you," he says. "You become aware of the vastness of time and how art lasts longer than cynicism." That awareness pulled him toward the tension between the eternal and the ephemeral, a word he first learned while living there, and the song settled into a conversation between two characters weighing permanence against everything that fades.
The lyric draws directly from two of Rome's most striking landmarks. In the Non-Catholic Cemetery, home to the graves of Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats, stands William Wetmore Story's Angel of Grief, a sculpture Mathers considers among the most beautiful in the world, both physically and in what it represents. In the song, one character turns to the statue and asks the other, "Would you be so, with your head hanging low, if underneath instead it was me?" a line Mathers says unlocked the rest of the song almost immediately. The chorus carries a similarly universal charge, landing on words that Mathers believes anyone who has been in a long relationship will recognize: "This could be the start of an empire, or maybe these could be the last days of Rome."
The song's roots stretch back further than most listeners might expect. Mathers and Firmin first began working on the guitar riff in 2011, once hoping to have it ready in time to support Russell Lissack of Bloc Party at London's Scala. It wasn't finished then, and it wouldn't be finished for another 15 years, until Mathers found himself sitting on a marble step near the Foro Italico in Rome and the pieces finally came together. The finished track was recorded at the band's own Credential Sound studio in Northern Ireland, with Mathers handling vocals, guitar, mellotron, bass, and production, Firmin on drums and percussion, and mixing and mastering by Neal Calderwood at Manor Park Studio.
Unquiet Nights have spent more than 15 years building a career defined by persistence and steady evolution. Formed above Belfast's Limelight club in 2010, the band earned early support from BBC Radio 1 and BBC 6 Music, with Phil Taggart calling their sound pure rock and roll and Tom Robinson praising their debut album, 'Twenty First Century Redemption Songs,' as a fine first outing. Years spent based in Italy brought the band nine countries of touring, national television appearances alongside Sky Italia's use of their song "George Best City" as the soundtrack to a recurring documentary series, and a devoted Italian fanbase that has stayed with them since.
That momentum carried into 2024's 'Seasons in Exile,' a deeper dive into progressive rock territory inspired by Mathers' lifelong love of bands like Genesis. The album drew praise from The Belfast Telegraph, Hot Press, Pure M, Record World International, and The Sunday Life, and racked up more than 103,000 Spotify listeners in its first year, with the single "This Is My Oxygen" earning the band airplay on Kerrang! Radio and TotalRock.
With "Last Days of Rome," Unquiet Nights open the next phase of that story, the first in a planned run of new singles, proof that some songs are worth waiting 15 years to finish.
Comentários
Postar um comentário