Brendan McLeod, unofficial ringleader of The Fugitives, Vancouver’s foremost poet-folk ensemble, has reason to be tired.

Fresh off a literary festival on Vancouver Island, the guys and solitary gal of The Fugitives are in full tour mode, frantically promoting Find Me, their new five-track EP.

The foursome are no strangers to the open road, having spent the better part of the last three years touring the globe together.

As art has the tendency to imitate life, the content of their latest venture draws heavily on that experience, with the album’s theme of communicating and forging connections with strangers.

“It came about by accident,” McLeod said over the phone from Vancouver. “It comes out of [a] tradition of telling stories. Find Me is about a park ranger.”

The band’s lineup, which features SLAM poetry champion and CBC poet laureate Barbara Adler, novelist and fellow SLAM champion McLeod, Vancouver solo artist Steven Charles and balalaikaist Adrian Glynn, has gone through many changes since its inception.

“[We look for people] who can hold their own on stage and do their own thing,” McLeod said, regarding the band’s incredibly talented arrangement.

Since the member seem to work in such different mediums, sitting down to write a cohesive album can be challenging at best, and a full-out brawl at worst.

“If a song gets past all four of us, that’s a good litmus test,” McLeod said.

The result is a surprising auditory experience, blending elements of bluegrass, jazz, folk and spoken word.

The band heads back into the studio this December to finish recording their upcoming full-length album, the title of which is still a point of heated discussion.

In the meantime, the Fugitives keep their fans updated on their every move, thought and mood shift via Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and fugitives.ca, the band’s homepage. 

With the release of their video for Breaking Promises, the EP’s opening track, they asked fans to write in with their own promises.

The response was overwhelming.

“We are inundated [with promises],” explained McLeod.

Though they all live in Vancouver, the band is truly at home when barreling down stretches of highway, trading Dylan Thomas quips in the backseat as they go.

They are new age pioneers, unabashedly forging a new sound, and exploring new mediums to do so.

Published in Volume 64, Number 13 of The Uniter (November 26, 2009)