Former Primrods, XL Birdsuit and Twin Fang frontman Paul Coutts is just getting more mysterious with age.

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Paul Coutts & Cowls feat. Chris Vail with Bil Hetherington & The Asian Tigers
Marquee Room
Saturday, March 6 - Saturday, March 6

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Seven years ago, Paul James Coutts packed his bags and headed to Edmonton, and Calgary hasn’t quite been the same since. Coutts first entered the local spotlight as the magnetic frontman for the Primrods, before they signed with Geffen and nearly made it to the proverbial big time. From this auspicious start he formed The New 1-2 and then XL Birdsuit, with four releases between them and a legacy of live shows that left an indelible mark on Calgary’s musical history.

Coutts emigrated to the northern city of champions for non-musical reasons, but stayed for a mixture of the practical and the musical. “Why not be in a place that suits my lifestyle more in a sense? I can afford a house up here,” he says, unapologetically. He also finds the musician pool a little more fluid and flexible. “Up here it’s a little different. Everyone who plays one style of music, you see them in 10 bands and they’re all kind of rootsy, but maybe they’re really into death metal or classical music. Everyone’s got a real gear-shift up here.”

He quickly hooked up with drummer Penny Tentiary as Twin Fangs, and the duo toured incessantly, further expanding the legacy. For the past couple of years, Coutts has been playing with Tom Murray and Scott Lingley, the seasoned rhythm section of former Edmonton faves Old Reliable, whose members shift gears from earthy roots rock to full-on metallic crunch.

“It’s exciting to be playing with two other people who have been playing as long as I have,” Coutts says. “I’m kind of, I think, more of a caveman who just happens to listen to jazz and death metal and stuff.… I think I’m trying to discover my sound as much as they’re trying to discover what I’m talking about. They’re part of that discovery.”

Paul James Coutts and Cowls falls somewhere between Twin Fangs and XL Birdsuit — it’s a bit more raw and direct than the latter and a bit more rounded and sculpted than the former. Coutts sums it up as simply “heavy and rhythmic with a bit of melody.” Tom Murray alternates between standard bass guitar and the upright bass.

“It gives it a more unique timbre — it’s bowed most of the time,” says Coutts. “He’s not playing rockabilly. I think when you use instruments that are maybe used for other styles or to generate particular tones for other genres of music and you change their use, sometimes the experiment doesn’t work, but when it does, it can add a lot of depth and a more patient melody to the songs.”

It has been more than a year-and-a-half since Coutts has performed in his hometown (the last time was two Sled Islands ago). Chris Vail, who formerly helped fill in the front end of the birdsuit, will join the trio onstage. Optimistically, Coutts hopes to have a new release out for general consumption in some form by July. Don’t expect him to mellow out anytime in the foreseeable future.

“I still go to all those shows, crusty punk shows and thrash shows and all that,” he says. “I’m definitely a lifer when it comes to that stuff — lifer slash deather.”