Hamilton-based band striving for immortality

Folk-rock quartet Athanase to close out Supercrawl’s Bridgeworks series

Athanase is a French name derived from the Greek word for “immortal.” It is also Jason Baronette’s middle name, as well as the name of his folk-rock group, Athanase.

It’s an ambitious name for a band, which has largely flown under the radar since its inception a few years ago in Hamilton.

Baronette, however, hopes Athanase’s upcoming concert on Sunday, Sept. 26, as part of the Supercrawl Bridgeworks series will help launch the band onto a path that will do some justice to its name.

“It’s our biggest show to date,” Baronette says in an interview. “It’s cool that we’ve slowly built a big enough following that we can play these events.”

The free concert will be streamed online in front of a limited capacity live crowd of 50 from Supercrawl’s new Bridgeworks club venue at 200 Caroline St., just south of Barton.

Tickets to view or attend the free show can be obtained through Eventbrite.ca or the Bridgeworks website bridgeworks.ca.

Athanase took root shortly after Baronette — the group’s lead singer and chief songwriter — moved to Hamilton. A native of Waterloo, Baronette had worked in Montreal as an audio engineer for a website specializing in streaming live events.

Baronette, 34, was attracted to Hamilton because of its lively music scene and formed the core of Athanase with lead guitarist Jake Langstaff. The pair searched for local musicians to fill out the sound, settling on Zach Symak on drums and Konrad Swierczek on bass.

“Hamilton is a huge music town, it’s one of the reasons I moved there,” says Baronette, who recently took up a day job selling real estate in his hometown of Waterloo.

In 2019, Athanase released its first EP “Times Like These,” following it up in the spring of 2020 with a second EP “Between II Shores.” By then, Athanase had started gaining a local following and tickets were selling well for a record release show at Mills Hardware in downtown Hamilton. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled due to the first COVID-19 lockdown.

“We were supposed to do our EP release (at Mills Hardware), but it got pushed as COVID took hold,” Baronette says. “We had sold quite a few tickets before we had to cancel everything.”

Impressed by the group’s songs and its ability to sell tickets, Supercrawl organizers decided to offer Athanase the closing spot in the Bridgeworks series. It will be the band’s first live opportunity to showcase the music from “Between II Shores” as well as new songs Baronette has been working on during the pandemic.

Baronette, who counts contemporary roots acts like Jason Isbell and The Decembrists among his influences, considers himself a songwriting storyteller.

His talents are evident on the track “Wolves,” the lead single from “Between II Shores.” The song drew its inspiration from an incident in 1917 during the First World War when German and Russian soldiers called a temporary ceasefire to hunt down a large pack of wolves which had been preying on their wounded.

Baronette had first heard about the ceasefire on a podcast and further researched its authenticity through a New York Times newspaper account.

“They had to stop the war because of wolf attacks,” he says.

“You had these injured guys in the trenches being dragged away by wolves. It was such a crazy story, I thought it would make a good song.”

Athanase plans to release its third EP “Immortal” before the end of the year, and recently posted the album’s lead single — the roots rocker “Shoreline” — to its website.

“I’m just trying to write music that I enjoy,” Baronette says. “I don’t know if people are going to like it. I just want to play it. The music is how I express myself; it brings me a lot of joy.”