Family Tragedy Leads Reuben Bullock to Reinterpret Band's 2014 Debut Songs
Earlier this week, Reuben Bullock of Calgary's Reuben and the Dark performed at Vancouver's St. James Hall as part of the anniversary tour celebrating the band's 2014 debut album, Funeral Sky. The emotional performance marked a profound turning point for the musician, who nearly didn't make it through the show following the recent death of his older brother Ben.
A Ceremonial Performance
"It felt just like a ceremony," Bullock revealed in a phone interview with Postmedia from his home near Joshua Tree, California. "It felt like the whole audience was holding me in a place where it was OK to just break down. I've never done that on stage before."
Ben Bullock passed away in late January, making the Vancouver performance the first time Reuben had sung the tracks from Funeral Sky since experiencing this profound personal loss. While the songs were originally penned more than a decade before his brother's death, they have taken on new meaning and now seem strangely prescient to the musician.
Songs Transformed by Grief
The stripped-down ballad A Memory's Lament contains particularly poignant lyrics that have gained new resonance. The chorus begins with the line, "Well, I buried my brother," which now carries a literal weight Bullock never anticipated when writing it.
"Singing these songs for the first time with that context, it just exploded my heart," Bullock confessed. "I don't even know how I got through it because I realized how much of this music had just been not only me processing everything, but preparing me in a strange way."
Most songs on the album were originally written as a way for Bullock to process trauma from his Calgary childhood, where he and his two brothers were raised in a stiflingly religious household. Ben had struggled with addiction and mental health issues for years, experiencing periods of homelessness and hospitalization. Despite these challenges, he served as Bullock's primary muse for songwriting.
A Shared Journey Through Darkness
"It was a lot of the themes, a lot of the reason I write about pain and suffering and overcoming things and dark and light," Bullock explained. "He was really struggling with addiction when we were young and went through things that kids shouldn't go through. I've been listening to all these songs in such a different way."
The musician described an almost mystical connection with his brother that transcended their biological relationship. "Him and I were like soul twins, moreso than just being brothers. He is me and I am him. Our whole lives have just been spent vicariously through each other's experiences."
Even the album title Funeral Sky now carries deeper significance. "I knew how close I was to losing him when I was young, and it was so traumatizing to me that I think I processed it and almost experienced it in all of these songs as a way to normalize these feelings I was having," Bullock reflected.
A Roadmap for Grief
The experience of performing these songs after his brother's death has revealed unexpected layers in the music. "It feels very, very surreal to now be sitting with these songs that seem to almost be a roadmap for grief that I didn't know I was going to have to go through," Bullock said.
Hearing the songs has been difficult for the musician, but performing them has proven nearly impossible at times. Yet through this painful process, Bullock has discovered how his art created years ago has become a vessel for processing fresh grief, demonstrating the enduring power of music to both anticipate and heal emotional wounds.
