The heart of The Paperboys is a trio of gifted songwriters and musicians: Founder Tom Landa, a fedora-hatted vocalist/guitarist/bandleader who immigrated from Mexico to Canada in his teens; Kalissa Landa, a lifelong fiddler/vocalist with a preternatural command of melody; and Spirit of the West’s flautist/guitarist/vocalist Geoffrey Kelly, already a Canadian musical icon when he hopped on the P’boys bus in 1997. 

Though by no means a jam band, The Paperboys reinvent their show every time they step onstage. Once the band agrees on the opening song, there is no set list. The song finishes, the crowd reacts, Landa reads the room, and the journey begins. Every night. The world has changed seismically since 1992, but The Paperboys fan base has stuck with the band, and grown. 

“It goes beyond perseverance,” Landa says about the band’s legacy, “and into some kind of connectivity and resonance we have with people. We’ve created a community.”