Who is this guy?

He kinda likes things rough, unpolished and crude. He always cheers for the underdog and the little guy.  He won't throw most stuff away because he feels it just needs a second chance, so he tries to fix it. He admired poetry but found it was better when set to music. Once upon a time, he had lofty designs, but he traded them all for simple things.  Family, home, love and music.  Brian Tremblay lives simply and makes simple music. 

A guitar-playing hockey player with a Gibson SG taught him his first chords on his new Fender guitar.  In High school, while working on one of his theatre productions, he fell into the orchestra pit, fracturing both wrists and causing a concussion. It left him with an injury that made him have to adapt his guitar playing, leaving him with some mobility issues.  As age sixty approached, faced with his mortality, the prospect of becoming a grandfather, and rotting in a dead-end sales job, he wandered through the new Long & McQuade and impulsively purchased a 12-string guitar.  Brian resurrected withered old songs, and then he dug even deeper.  He found his poetry and his turning of a phrase in songwriting. 

Brian's songs are heavily influenced by the songwriters who lived on the outside of the Nashville scene.  He took their raw, unpolished styles and incorporated them into his lyrics and simple melodies. His songs are recorded just as simply.  With musical influences ranging from The Beatles to Hank Williams, the music flowed.  This led to his exploration of roots and Americana music. The Band led him to Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle.  The old traditional country led him to Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and the traditional folk movement.

Tremblay currently has two albums out.  The Neighbourhood: Songs & Stories of a Blue Collar Raising is based on a series of photographs that Brian captured on a vintage camera and black & white film, which he processed and printed himself.  The songs tell the story of growing up in a blue-collar neighbourhood and being raised by a WWII veteran father and his war bride mother. 

His second album, In the Tracks of the Black Bear, commemorates his family's connection with the Algoma Central Railway.  His father worked for the railroad, along with uncles and cousins, after the war.  The album is a love letter to short-line railways everywhere and folks who build and work on them. It contains six original songs about the ACR and six early traditional railroad songs. 

Tremblay's third album, Songs For the Modern Cowboy, will be out in the first quarter of 2026.