TRIBZ Releases "Young Love," Pop-Rock Ballad Inspired by Guitarist's High School Romance

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Guitarist Earl Johnson wrote the song about his high school sweetheart Linda and their Motown-filled Friday nights.

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Hamilton and Toronto's TRIBZ have released 'Young Love,' a pop-rock ballad that trades the band's usual social urgency for something quieter and deeply personal, a trip back to first love, sweet sixteen and the memories time can never fully take away. For a band built on more than a century of combined musical history, it is a fitting turn inward, tracing the story all the way back to w here guitarist Earl Johnson's own journey in music truly started.

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The song comes directly from Johnson's own life. The melody had been living in his head for years, its chords deliberately written to capture the excitement and simplicity of being young, and the lyrics draw from his real first love, a girlfriend named Linda he dated for about three years through high school. Introduced by his best friend Mike, who was dating Linda's friend Wendy, Johnson and Linda were in the same grades, walked to and from school together every day and spent Friday nights dancing to Motown on the radio, the kind of romance that feels, at sixteen, like it could never end. 'We were high school sweethearts, from the day we met, walking hand in hand, everyw here we went,' the song begins, building to the hook at its centre: 'Young love, thought it would last forever, forever would you be mine.'

The relationship eventually gave way to the pull of music, and at 18 Johnson left high school to go on tour with the legendary King Biscuit Boy, the first step on a path that would carry him through the founding of the cult rock band Moxy and, decades later, into TRIBZ itself. He still has Linda's picture. Decades on, that memory became the seed for 'Young Love,' proof that even a life spent on the road never fully lets go of w here it began.

That sense of history runs through everything TRIBZ does. Frontman Errol Starr Francis won a JUNO for his 1989 hit 'Angel' before stepping away from his A&M Records career at its peak, a story now told in the acclaimed documentary 'Temple of Love: The Erroll Starr Story.' Johnson's own résumé includes founding Moxy, whose 1976 debut featured Tommy Bolin on lead guitar and whose touring days included AC/DC opening for them in Texas in 1977, alongside dates with Black Sabbath and Santana. Bassist Donny Hill has recorded and toured with fellow JUNO winner Murray Porter and shared stages with Blue Rodeo, while drummer Dave Davidson brings more than four decades behind the kit, including a long run with The American Rogues. Together they represent one of the more quietly influential lineups working in Canadian music today.

TRIBZ was born from that shared history colliding in a pandemic era garage jam, and the band has carried its founding spirit, different backgrounds coming together as one unit, into every release since. Earl Johnson and Donny Hill are proud members of the Six Nations Tuscarora and Mohawk communities respectively, and Errol Starr Francis is an adopted member of the ASMINTI Anishinabek Metis Nation, a mix the band has always described as different tribes uniting under a single message of love, hope and empowerment.

Since their self titled 2024 album, TRIBZ has moved fluidly across styles, from the blues rooted reflection of 'True Love' to the grief and healing of 'Memories,' the reggae inflected call to action of 'Save the World' and the southern swagger of 'Long Black Cadillac.' 'Young Love' marks a different kind of turn for the band, less a statement to the world than a memory shared, the sound of musicians with decades behind them still finding new ways to be honest.

With 'Young Love,' TRIBZ offers a reminder that behind every legendary career is a much simpler story, the one about the first person who made you believe forever was possible.

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwmusic/article/Photos-TRIBZ-Release-Pop-Rock-Ballad-Young-Love-Inspired-by-Guitarists-First-Love-20260918)._