Stone Idols

Stone Idols was a rock band from Newmarket, Ontario, with Steve Peyton-Warren on vocals, Terry Peyton-Warren on drums and vocals, Bryan Duffy on guitar, Andrew Cormack on bass and Russell Soares on keyboards and percussion. Their one known album, Lullabies For Junkies, came out on Limit Records in 1997.

Three of the five had played together in Naked Research. That band released a self-titled album on Strawberry Records in 1995 and by the spring was working outside Ontario, including a week-long stand at The New Palace in Halifax. Their song ‘Sexy Thing’ went out on the Canadian Hott Tracks promotional service the same year. Whether Naked Research simply became Stone Idols is unclear.

By 1997 the Peyton-Warrens and Soares were playing with Bryan Duffy, who had come up through North Bay, London and Toronto, and bassist Andrew Cormack. In May of that year RPM reported that Page Music had added Stone Idols to its roster. The band was based in Newmarket, maintained an early website at drown.org and was managed by Nanci Malek at Bentertainment.

Lullabies For Junkies (Limit Records L000-620) held eleven songs: ‘Fibreglass’, ‘Masquerade’, ‘The Water’, ‘Sky Is Falling Down’, ‘Jaded Loose Reflection’, ‘Most Beautiful People’, ‘Ordinary You’, ‘The Patch In The Black’, ‘Burn’, ‘I Can’t Save You’ and ‘All I Have To Give’. Terry Peyton-Warren wrote all of the lyrics and most of the music. Duffy shared the music credit on ‘The Water’, and Soares, Peyton-Warren and the band shared it on ‘Ordinary You’.

Mike Kerwin produced the album across several Ontario studios. Brad Nelson engineered the bed tracks at Wet Shark Motel with Mark Erlenmayer and Larry Knowles assisting. Kerwin did the edits and all overdubs at New Market Multimedia, assisted by Mike Miller and Jeff Pizer, and played bass on ‘Burn’. Michael Jack engineered the Hammond B3 at Pizazzudio, and Brad Bobesich added strings to ‘Jaded Loose Reflection’. Nelson and Kerwin mixed at Wet Shark Motel, and Jack mastered the record at Pizazzudio Mastering Labs. The band played Pearl and Premier drums, Zildjian A Custom cymbals, Roland, Yamaha and Akai keyboards, Paul Reed Smith and Seagull guitars, Ibanez basses, and VHT and Trace Elliot amps. Squeeze designed the artwork, with photography by Gordon Hawkins.

The CD was glass mastered by EMI MFG. and pressed by EMI Music Canada, with Page Music Distribution in North York handling Canadian distribution. The back cover bears the MAPL logo and a Canadian manufacturing statement, and Limit Records Inc. holds both the © and ℗.

The booklet thanks Limit Records, Page Music Distribution, Brad Nelson, Michael Jack, the staff at MetalWorks and Pizazzudio, and John Redmond at Polygram, along with a long list of musicians, music stores and supporters. Stages, The Palace and Smooth Hermans are named, as are 94FM Thunder Bay, VideoFACT, FACTOR and the Songwriters Association of Canada. Tom Cochrane gets thanks for unknowingly lending the band some of his equipment.

Duffy joined See Spot Run around the time of ‘Weightless’ and stayed for several years. He later moved to Las Vegas, where he kept performing and recording, and Terry Warren has been involved in some of his later recordings. Russell Soares turned to composing and producing, building a career in film and television music alongside instrumental releases under his own name.

-Robert Williston