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55 B C B U S I N E S S . C A O C T O B E R 2 0 24 L a u r a B al d w i n s o n not the type of artist I am. I'm a hard rocker. So I got up there with my electric guitar and my heavy, distorted guitar sound, and I just played the songs as they were written," Bellerose says. "It was great." Midnight Sparrows is a solo project in the sense that Bel- lerose is the singer, songwriter and lead guitarist. But it's also a collective in that he's sup- ported by session players on an ad hoc basis. As a result, the band's music is a culmination of Bellerose's creative influ- ences since childhood: it com- bines elements of classic rock, power pop and old-school heavy metal. Growing up in St. Albert, Alberta, a young, shy Bellerose could be spotted jamming to the tunes of Ozzy Osbourne Blair Bellerose has been performing in bands since he was a kid in junior high. But the first time he took the stage as Midnight Sparrows, it was just him and his guitar in front of 100 people at the Legion in Prince George. "It's not uncommon for people to get up on stage with just an acoustic guitar and do songs, but that's not me. That's URBAN LEGEND Empowering Indigenous people is musician Blair Bellerose's jam by Rushmila Rahman W E E K E N D W A R R I O R and Judas Priest in Iron Maiden T-shirts. He first picked up the guitar at 11 years old, and while the bands that he's played in since—Death by Slinky in high school and Sol 3 as an adult— nurtured his love for guitar, it wasn't until he started writing and singing his own songs ("just for the sake of being creative," he says) that he real- ized he had more than enough material to make an album. "That's when I made Mid- night Sparrows' first album." He released Rock & Roll City in 2020 and Born in the City two years later. Both albums reflect Bellerose's life as an ur- ban Indigenous person: on the second album's eponymous song, he explains, "it talks about how I'm Indigenous, but I was born in the city, and that does not take away from my Indigenous Indigeneity." I was born in the city Do you think that I'd be better off dead? Like all them Hollywood Injuns With feathers on their heads Bellerose supports his community both creatively and tangibly: as the director of operations for the Abo- riginal Community Career Employment Services Society ( ACCESS), Bellerose plays an instrumental role in helping urban Indigenous people build skills and find work in Metro Vancouver. He first got involved with ACCESS as director of employment services shortly after it was incorpora ted as a nonprofit in 2002. Now, with a team of 45 and five offices across Metro ACCESS is an Indi- genous training pro- vider based in Metro Vancouver. Its employ- ment and training pro- grams and services are designed to help urban Indigenous people overcome barriers and find opportunities in a variety of indus- tries. The organization began as a cooperative venture in the late '90s and incorporated as a nonprofit in 2002. Now, with five locations around Metro Vancou- ver, it's funded through the Government of Canada's Indigenous Skills and Employment Training Program. WARRIOR SPOTLIGHT QUALITY TIME

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