In a vintage Montreal studio cluttered with ’60s and ’70s recording gear, Hooper and his band spent two days capturing their debut album almost entirely live off the floor. The first taste of that session, My Favourite Mug, arrived this week as the latest single from Super Duper, the Montreal-based songwriter’s debut full-length that dropped last week. The track is exactly what its title suggests: a love song to a coffee mug. It’s an “anthem for homebodies,” as Hooper calls it, finding warmth in the small, everyday rituals that anchor us when everything else shifts.
Born and raised on a small island off Canada’s west coast, Shane Hooper grew up steeped in music. His father played in platinum-selling band The Grapes of Wrath, while his mother was half of indie-folk duo Lava Hay. That early immersion shaped his songwriting from the start: Hooper reached the CBC Searchlight Finals while still in high school. Now based in Montreal after time in BC and Toronto, he’s embedded himself in the city’s indie community, working with members of Fleece, the Nora Kelly Band, and Pastel Blank on Super Duper.
The album draws on the melodic storytelling of ’60s singer-songwriters, filtered through a grittier, imperfect ’90s lens that gives the songs their lived-in feel. Recorded at Mixart Studios, a veritable time capsule of the ’60s and ’70s era tucked into Montreal, the sessions brought together a circle of local talent: Angus Watt on electric guitar, Rachel Silverstein on piano and Wurlitzer, Isaac Seglins on bass, and Ethan Soil on drums, with Max Frazer producing and adding guitar. Most of the bed tracks came together in just two days, with many vocals performed live alongside the band rather than overdubbed later. The result captures what Hooper describes as “a nostalgia for a past you never lived,” balancing edgier moments with softer, ballad-like turns.
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