By Glen Herbert 

He’s hazy on how it all came about, but when he was boarding at RLC, Morgan Barrie '97 got a band together, they went to Toronto for the Battle of the Bands, and they won.

The band was called Two Cents: Morgan (lead guitar), Scott Tweedie '94 (vocals), Chris Higgins '97 (bass), Ross McDonald '94 (rhythm guitar), and Tyler Pullen '96 (drums). The prize was a recording session in the Q107 studios. “I was 15 or 16. It was pretty neat for us.”

The competition, he says, was “just bands” rather than a school competition. They were likely the youngest there. “We put together an album of all original music and we covered 'Comfortably Numb' for the cover song. I think I have a tape of it somewhere in my basement.”

"Mr. Christopher, no doubt at all."

“It was a pretty cool experience. It helped shape me, and reaffirmed that we were doing OK. And that even at that young age, we were writing decent music.” Barrie is very relaxed as he talks about this—I reached him by phone at his home in Owen Sound—but it’s hard not to be excited hearing him. For anyone growing up in southern Ontario in the '80s and '90s, Q107 was the big deal. It was a harder, more authentic, more edgy version of 97Rock. The whole thing–becoming a band, going to Toronto from Rosseau, recording in a studio—just seems so reminiscent of the era. Of a time when video hadn’t entirely killed the radio star. When garage bands weren’t only a thing, but they still had that aura of dreams coming true. It was the 90s, after all.

When I ask who he remembers from the faculty, Morgan says, “Mr. Christopher, no doubt at all. He’d always come up and say ‘MISTER BEEEARIEEEEEE! Have you been smoking MISTER BEEEARIEEE?’ And he’d grab a pressure point on your arm. He was quite the character. I really liked him. There is no one else in the world like Mr. Christopher!”

Morgan was on the hockey team—RLC had one then—and they travelled to games with other independent schools. He says they did pretty well, despite the small size of the roster. “I’d go and play the junior game and, because we didn’t have enough players, I’d play the senior game after.” More often than not, they would show up looking a bit like the Bad News Bears: the lovable, spirited underdogs. “We were known as the rough ones,” he says. “There is definitely that sense that we were the black sheep of the private school world.”

‍"I really flourished."

“We didn’t leave too many stones unturned,” he says of his time as a boarder in Brock House. There were invariably work hours (Mr. Christopher wasn’t wrong) when they’d shovel snow off the roofs, or do other things that students would never be allowed to do today. “But I really flourished in a smaller school setting,” he says. “One time Mr. Pettigrew pulled me aside and gave me a real boost of confidence.” Morgan doesn’t remember what was said, though the memory of how he made him feel remains vivid. “It was just a really nice pep talk and it definitely made me reflect on my actions, and what leadership means.”

He was back to the campus during the summer, just to have a nose about. “I had a look around, just had a nostalgic moment.” He went down to the sail dock near Immigration Point where they used to hang out. “It’s really developed now,” he says, given the creation of the marina and the construction going on there. “Where the little church used to be”—it’s still there—”and back in the day there was like an old boathouse and some picnic tables. … It was sort of just past the line where teachers would leave us alone.” Un hunh.

"... as the seasons changed ... "

Morgan went on to Brock University but dropped out to buy a van and become an itinerant ski instructor. “It was pretty fun!” He then earned a degree in sound engineering and worked for the Discovery Channel. He says “as the seasons changed” he became a recruiter in the automotive industry. He then got a job working with youth with mental health challenges on a farm. He’d take them rock climbing—that’s been a passion of his throughout his life as well—and other trips and experiences.

“I eventually left that and joined up with the conservation authority.” That’s where he is now, as Operations Manager of Grey Sauble Conservation Authority. There are 172 kilometers of trails, and he oversees those, as well as the infrastructure and capital projects. “This year we built a bridge over one of the trails. So, I wear many, many hats, but it’s great because I’m outdoors a lot of the time.”

He’s also still doing music, and indeed always has. Over the years he’s worked with others, made recordings, and toured. “It was kind of a fluke really. My dad wanted to do an album, and I had my sound engineering background, so I put together a full album in my living room. And I thought, that’s kind of neat. I should do the music that I’ve done.” So, he did. “And it became a thing. Some people got a hold of it and, the next thing you know, I’m on tour in Europe.” He loves all of it—the writing, the studio work, the playing for people. “I’ve been really lucky. It happened later on that I was playing bigger festivals, and theatres. I was basically in my 40s. It’s been a really nice bonus.”

RLC can seem a lifetime and a world away, but he says that “I feel like that’s where I really grew to know who I was.” He later learned that he has dyslexia, and while he didn’t know it then, that’s what made public school difficult. “At Rosseau the smaller classrooms were really helpful for me. And then we’d have to do homework every night for an hour, and I just realized that I needed to work harder. And that I wasn’t dumb. That I’m smart, it’s just that I learn differently. I gained a lot of self-confidence.”

He did. And he won the Battle of the Bands. At Q107. “It’s been a real adventure,” he says thinking back on it all.

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Morgan Barrie lives in Owen Sound with his wife and two children. You can catch him headlining at the Roxy in Owen Sound. Visit him online at https://morganxbarrie.com/ or on Spotify as Morgan X Barrie. You can also catch him at the RLC Celebrating the 90s event on May 11 at the Muskoka Discovery Centre in Gravenhurst.