2005–2006: Early career, Mother The band began in
Heriot Bay, British Columbia in January 2005, when guitarist and vocalist Ryan Guldemond was at music school and wanted to start a band based on vocal-driven pop songs. He recruited his sister Molly along with a friend from college, Debra-Jean Creelman, to accompany his own vocals for the songs he had written, and the trio played as an acoustic act before adding drummer Kenton Loewen and bassist Jeremy Page. The five members started off playing under the name Mother, and in the fall of 2005, they independently released
a self-titled album. This debut album was recorded with
Howard Redekopp, who had also worked with the
New Pornographers and
Tegan and Sara. When the
Vancouver Province rated Mother as one of the top five BC bands to watch for in 2007, they began to receive acclaim for their debut album. Shortly thereafter, Mother landed a nationally broadcast concert opening for
K'naan and the
Wailin' Jennys. In the summer of 2006, they opened for the Australian band
The Cat Empire at the sold-out
Vancouver International Jazz Festival. Later that year, they made their debut in central Canada at the
Montreal International Jazz Festival on June 29 as well as in
Toronto on July 1,
Canada Day, at the
Harbourfront Centre. on January 26, 2009, the band announced the addition of a new singer/keyboardist, Jasmin Parkin. Mother Mother's third album,
Eureka, was released on March 15, 2011. The album prompted a reviewer at the
Toronto Star to describe the band as "evolving into orchestral harmonies and hip hop-influenced power ballads, as if
Adam Lambert had joined
The Dirty Projectors". This album has two bonus tracks; "In The Wings" and "Carve a Name." On January 9, 2012,
Kraft Foods launched a series of television commercials featuring the song "Bright Idea".
2012–2018: The Sticks, Very Good Bad Thing, and No Culture Mother Mother's fourth album,
The Sticks, was released on September 18, 2012. It contains 14 tracks along with 2 bonus tracks "Cesspool of Love" and "All Gone," and was co-produced by the band frontman Ryan Guldemond and producer Ben Kaplan. The album contains 10 tracks and 2 bonus tracks: "No One To Nothing" and "Jump the Fence." Mother Mother played the City of Brampton, Ontario's New Year's festivities at the end of 2016. On November 25, 2016, the band announced their Canadian No Culture Tour. Their tour began in New Brunswick in February 2017 and ended in British Columbia at the end of March 2017. On February 10, 2017, their sixth album
No Culture was released. The lead single from the album, "The Drugs", was released on November 4, 2016.
2018–2022: Dance and Cry and Inside On November 2, 2018, the band released their seventh studio album
Dance and Cry. The first single from the album, "Get Up", was released on September 14, 2018. The band supported the album with the Dance and Cry tour, playing 26 shows across North America, starting on February 7, 2019, in Vancouver and ending March 16, 2019, in Buffalo, New York. The tour included a sold out show at New York's
Gramercy Theatre. Starting in late 2020, songs from their 2008 album,
O My Heart, went viral on the video-sharing platform
TikTok, causing their music to reach new streaming highs. The songs, in particular "
Hayloft", "Arms Tonite", "Wrecking Ball" and "Burning Pile", became popular, with videos including cosplay and gothic fashion. Although no particular event caused the surge, the band's music did resonate with
non-binary communities, as users played Mother Mother songs while discussing gender-related topics. Lead vocalist,
Ryan Guldemond, described the surge as a "high honor and huge compliment whenever it's suggested that our music might serve as an adequate soundtrack to a courageous journey of self-discovery that often rubs against societal norms". Guldemond further reiterated that their early music "really struggled to fit neatly into the industry standards of either a rock or pop format [...] I sang straight from my throat and had a much more androgynous tone. It was very rich with unisexual harmonies, as well as eccentric, quirky, daring lyrics. Perhaps it's just the right time for people to understand that music". Although the band had not planned on making new music, in October 2020, they stated to
Rolling Stone that they were completing their eighth album at
The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver. Dubbed a "pandemic album", it would contain the "energy from the earlier catalog". On April 8, 2021, Mother Mother announced their eighth studio album
Inside, due for release on June 25 on
Warner Brothers Music. The band also released a video for "I Got Love" made up of clips sent in by fans. They released their following single from
Inside, "Sick of the Silence", on June 10, 2021. Alongside the release of
Inside, the band announced the Canadian leg of the Inside tour, which began on December 2, 2021, in Vancouver and ended on May 20, 2022, in Ottawa. The band released the deluxe version of
Inside on January 28, 2022. It included the single, "Life," a sequel to their most popular song "Hayloft," a piano demo for the song "Like A Child" from the main album, and four other new songs. In November 2022, Mother Mother released a single titled "Cry Christmas", along with a cover of "
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". The single was described by the band on
Twitter as "a holiday song for the holiday-disenfranchised".
2023–present: Grief Chapter, Mother EP, DEMMOS, and Nostalgia In November 2023, Mother Mother announced the title and release date of their ninth album,
Grief Chapter, as well as its tracklist. The 12-track album was released on February 16, 2024. On September 28, 2024, Mother Mother released the
Mother EP, an EP of tracks from
Mother which had never been released on streaming platforms. A few months later, on November 14, Mother Mother released
DEMMOS, an album containing previously unreleased
song demos. In early March 2025, Mother Mother announced and released a new single,
Make Believe for their 20th year of making music. It is one of 12 tracks on their 10th studio album
Nostalgia, which was released on June 6, 2025. ==Band members==