By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
From June 12 to 15, 2025, Burlington will be host to the annual Sound of Music (SOM) festival once again. The festival has a long history; it began back in 1980 rather more humbly than its current form, as a marching band parade. Since then, scores of musicians, from big names to local musicians, have graced SOM’s stages.
On June 15, local artists YASSiN and Sean Terrio will join those ranks, performing on the TD Main Stage at 2:30 p.m.
Zack Yassin and Sean Terrio have been releasing music since 2020. They met each other a year earlier by pure coincidence.
“[We met at] a local venue in Oakville called the Moonshine Cafe,” Yassin said. “Sean happened to be singing at an open mic for the very first time, and I happened to be going to see this venue to check out the open mic for the very first time.”
“When I walked in, Sean was singing, and I was like, I have to work with this guy,” Yassin continued. “Before that, I was writing, producing, and managing a bunch of different artists, whether it was hip-hop artists, country artists, or pop singers. And I finally decided that I wanted to be an artist myself. Then I met Sean, and I had a few songs I knew his voice would sound perfect on, and we started working together.”
Terrio said that before taking the stage that night, he had never performed publicly.
“It was really just on a whim,” Terrio said. “I knew I could kind of sing, and I wanted to at least go to one open mic in my life. I definitely come from a pretty musical family, and I have some musical friends, but ultimately, I was really inexperienced and kind of raw.”
Terrio said that he had done 20 years of “quiet dreaming” before stepping on stage, and that he had to develop the more outgoing side of himself before embarking on this new career. The result of that development, and partnering with Yassin, is a sound that doesn’t fit into any one genre. Their sound is soulful and bright, with hints of pop, blues, R&B, and even country.
Yassin said that playing SOM for the first time is an exciting prospect.
“I spent my whole life going to the Sound of Music Festival, seeing The Trews, Walk Off the Earth, and so many other artists there,” Yassin said. “So I’m extremely pumped to be playing it.”
The duo put out their debut album Just Try in October of last year. Yassin said the streaming numbers for the album have been a “slow burn,” but that they have been growing every day.
“We’re pretty confident that in time it’ll get like the respect that we think it deserves, and people will love it the way we love it, because we really slaved over that thing and worked crazy hard on it,” Yassin said.
Yassin hopes that events like SOM will help get the word out about the album even more.
The duo operates as independent artists and spoke about the benefits of not being signed to a major label.
“It’s like people are more interested in our brand over our music, which we completely understand, we want to be entertainers,” Yassin said. “But with music labels, a lot of the time we’ve had the experience of like, ‘Okay, we’ll sign you, but let’s change everything about you,’ and we don’t like that. And I’m a very hands-on person in every aspect of the business.”
Yassin said that to him, a label deal is an easy way out.
“It’s just a fast pass to what you hope is something grand,” Yassin said. “But now that’s not even guaranteed with labels. So you might as well build your own team and be your own label.”
Terrio said that signing with a label would feel like settling at this point. He also said that there are many skills that he wouldn’t have learned had he not been forced to as a result of working independently.
As YASSiN and Sean Terrio, the two often post comedic videos to their social media pages, many featuring Terrio performing impressions of public figures and celebrities.
Yassin spoke about the genesis of this content.
“We’re 31 and 30, we’re not TikTok people,” Yassin said. “But as independent artists, we’re like, ‘We need to figure this out to market the album.’ And as we were trying to figure it out, we saw all these other things that other artists are doing on TikTok, like singing your song in your car and stuff like that, but it wasn’t working for us. And we finally just said, ‘Let’s do something that just makes us laugh.’”
“It felt like we were forced, out of necessity, to get ourselves out there more,” Yassin continued. “And then we realized, ‘Oh, we actually love comedy,’ and people seem to like it as well.”
Yassin said that he and Terrio have always shared a similar sense of humour, so it was very natural for them to be funny on camera and in front of audiences.
“It’s so nice not having to force a different online persona to get views,” Yassin said. “It’s literally just us, which we’re grateful for.”
Terrio said that his family moved around frequently in his youth, and developed ways to entertain himself in between making friends, one of which was impressions.
YASSiN and Sean Terrio will be performing at Mills Hardware in Hamilton on June 6, as well as at the Sound of Music festival on June 15.
Click here to find links to their music and social media pages.
