Hidden Gems

When The Blue Stones dropped their Canadian rock chart-topping single “Shakin’ Off the Rust” in 2019, it had already been a good four years since the Windsor, Ontario, duo had first unveiled their DIY debut, Black Holes. That record was revived when it was picked up for a 2018 major-label rerelease that thrust the group onto the Billboard charts on both sides of the border, landed them international tours, and earned singer/guitarist Tarek Jafar and drummer Justin Tessier a Juno nomination for Breakthrough Group of the Year. But as it turns out, “Shakin’ Off the Rust” represented not just the sound of a band itching to move on to its next chapter, but one eager to rewrite its entire playbook.
The group’s long-awaited second album, Hidden Gems, hardly skimps on the bluesy Black Keys-style crunch that turned The Blue Stones into one of Canada’s most promising exports, but the record doesn’t so much look to rock’s past as pop’s future. With producer Paul Meany of MUTEMATH at the helm, the group’s sound opens up to absorb influences from old-school hip-hop, modern R&B, and atmospheric indie with remarkable fluidity, redefining the sonic possibilities of the power-duo format. “When you have a producer come on board, you kind of hope that they take your sound and don't change it too much—they just sort of enhance it,” Jafar tells Apple Music. “And I feel like Paul did exactly that. What's cool about this album is that whether you are a pop music listener or an alternative-rock music listener or a hard-rock listener, there's something in it for you.” Here, Jafar presents a track-by-track treasure map to guide you through Hidden Gems.
Lights On “I think this song is a good palate cleanser for people who have seen us as a rock band from the Black Holes days and have been following our journey to how we've expanded our range of music. When I wrote this, it was more of a straight-up alternative rock song, and then we had these ideas of adding the echo effects and the breaks that make it a really awesome, subtly dynamic song versus 'here's another rock song for you.' It's a testament to what Paul can do. Lyrically, it's about not being ashamed of who you are, demons and all, and being okay with the spotlight being on you, even if it's possibly showing the ugly sides of you.”
Shakin’ Off the Rust “This song was born out of a time where I was just freaking out about writing the second album—Black Holes did relatively well for us, and obviously, your management, your label, and all your fans are looking to you to produce something just as good, if not better than the first album. And this song was the first I had written in this batch of demos where I was finally like, 'You know what? We can do this!’ A lot of our songs tend to follow this formula of just building and building and building. But on this one, it was nice to have that quiet pre-chorus with the acoustic guitars—it almost calms you down before you get to another crescendo of a loud, distorted chorus.”
One by One “On this album, I wrote a little bit more from personal experience. Paul really refocused my priorities on making the lyrics something special and meaningful. Before, admittedly, I thought lyrics were kind of like an afterthought—I was always focused on having good music and a good beat. But this time around, Paul was like, 'No, the lyrics are the last piece of the puzzle that will take your song from being a good song to a great song that somebody falls in love with and connects with.' So I drew from personal experiences on this one. It was a tough one to record, honestly—it just dredges up all these old emotions. But I was definitely happy with how it came out.”
Careless “'Careless' was actually written as an instrumental song. It was sitting on my Google Drive for a few years, but for whatever reason, I thought it was worth it for Paul and Justin to listen to it and see what they thought, and they really, really liked it. Paul was like, ‘Why don't you throw on some lyrics to this?’ And it just ended up being this sort of R&B-infused track that, to be completely honest, Justin and I were pretty afraid of releasing. But this is part of our musical DNA—I listen to a lot of hip-hop and R&B. We just weren't sure if our fans were going to respond well to it, because obviously, it doesn't sound anything like Black Holes. But at the end of the day, I love the fact that we did it, because truly, it is part of who we are. I'm glad we took a little bit of a leap to show our versatility.”
Grim “'Grim' is one of those songs where if somebody were to ask me, ‘What do you sound like?' this would be the answer. To me, it's the most quintessential to the new era of where we are. It's got that hip-hop-infused beat, with just this simple but slick guitar riff. I just kind of let loose on those lyrics—I mean, there's times in the song where I'm rapping. It's all about confidence and swagger and not giving a shit if you're the bad guy sometimes.”
Let It Ride “We love vinyl, and we still approach building an album through the lens of vinyl. We wanted this album to have a Side A and Side B, so we were thinking about what happens when the person walks over to the record player and flips the vinyl over to play Side B, and 'Let It Ride' was just the perfect sort of opener to Act Two of whatever this album is. It's a straight-up rock song—it was written after Justin and I went to our friend's bachelor party in Vegas, so I was a little bit juiced up from that and I just wanted to write a fun-in-the-sun kind of rock song.”
L.A. Afterlife “This is where Paul really lends a lot of his input, because he's such a big fan of that '90s era of hip-hop and the boom-bap beats. But the funny thing about this song is that the bass track was actually recorded at a sound check we were doing before a show in Brussels. The acoustics in the room were so amazing, and I had my phone recording and we were just messing around on a riff, and it ending up becoming the demo for 'L.A. Afterlife,' and it worked so well off the iPhone recording that we just included that track in the actual song. Lyrically, it's like a fever dream. I remember listening to '’03 Bonnie & Clyde' from JAY-Z's Blueprint 2, and he had this cool new spin on what Bonnie and Clyde were like as a couple, and I kind of wanted to write my own little Bonnie and Clyde song.”
Spirit “‘It's very quintessential modern rock, and I just love all the tones that came out of the studio for that one. Lyrically, it's about times where I felt like I was kind of on autopilot and really thinking about what I was doing and whether it was against my moral code or not. Sometimes, I just feel like I'm somebody else—when I look in the mirror, I don't even know who's there. The song itself has this aggressive undertone to it, and I just felt like the lyrics fit that. It also talks about wanting to be isolated. I think people hear the word 'isolation' and they kind of get chills, especially after this past year. I'm a pretty social person to begin with, but I sometimes need to isolate myself. The whole second verse is just about shutting your blinds, locking your phone, turning off everything, and just being alone and letting your own spirit come out. That was something that was very important to me in the last year.”
Make This Easy “This one, to me, is most similar to a song that we had in our debut called 'Magic.' It's definitely more of a relaxed and more of a vibey sort of rock-ballad setting. 'Make This Easy' is like the driving song of Hidden Gems. It's in the same vein as 'Careless' or 'One by One,' but a little bit closer to what an alternative-rock band would do.”
Oceans “I feel like we do have this sort of interesting play on what a rock band is nowadays. And sometimes we do border on whatever the genre of pop is, and I feel like 'Ocean' does have that in its DNA—with an outro, which is always nice to have. Again, we are album fans, and we like to add in album treats, like interludes, preludes, or outros. We definitely want to make the album experience apparent, and 'Oceans' is a nice way to cap off what the album is.”