The Evergreen District of the BHS (Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Indiana, Oregon and Washington) is historically not a competitive powerhouse in the society. No EVG chorus has placed above ninth at International in the last 50 years, and the number of EVG quartets that have won international gold can be counted on two fingers (I’ll let you do the math). But when in 2005 a young quartet named Realtime, hailing from Vancouver BC, showed up in Salt Lake City to compete at their second International contest, there was a lot of buzz about their potential to win it all. With their first spectacular set, they solidly confirmed these rumors, and four more songs later they found themselves being crowned the 2005 International Barbershop Quartet champions.

In Realtime’s case, they truly were “international” champions. Tim Broersma (tenor) was born and raised in Lynden, WA, Mark and Tom Metzger (bari and bass, respectively) were from Vancouver, BC, and John Newell (lead) came all the way from Brisbane, Australia to compete.  Needless to say, it took a good deal of work to make everyone’s vowels line up, and that level of practice is evident in their sound. Realtime is known for their tight, clean sound, characterized by constant bright overtones and a chord-focused feel.

Here’s a video of Realtime performing their signature “Come On Get Happy” at a December 2007 show in Burnaby, BC. Note Tim’s clean, piercing tenor and John’s smooth lead timbre.

Realtime released two albums in this configuration, “Four Brothers” and “Ain’t That a Kick”. Between these two albums it’s already easy to see their trend away from music falling comfortably under the barbershop umbrella. Though they still kept barbershop classics on “Ain’t That a Kick”, they covered Smashmouth’s “I’m a Believer” and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ “Come Back to Me”, songs that you would generally not hear from a barbershop quartet. For the year and a half after their international win, they continued to push the envelope on what a quartet could do.

Then in December of 2007, Realtime released the unexpected news that John Newell was stepping down from the quartet to spend more time with his family. To replace him, Tim’s father Doug Broersma (an accomplished Evergreen District barbershopper) was asked to sing lead with Realtime. Though there was originally some resistance to this member change, considering that it would inevitably change the iconic Realtime sound, the new foursome blew audience members away at the 2008 QCED show and Doug became an accepted part of Realtime.

One of the songs that quickly became a calling card of Realtime 2.0 was “Midnight Serenade.” It featured Doug in his wheelhouse, with an upbeat rhythm and a killer tag. Here they are performing it at the 2008 BHS International Convention in Nashville.

Now the quartet’s penchant for the avant garde really began to take off. No longer content with more standard vocal jazz, they began branching into big band music and consigning poor Tom Metzger to singing fewer words and more walking bass lines than ever before. When they sang at the 2009 International Convention, they dazzled audiences with an outstanding arrangement of Dave Brubeck’s jazz standard “Take Five” and a ridiculously awesome adaptation of the Real Group’s arrangement of the big band classic “Flight of the Foobirds” (no words in the whole song), as well as the barbershop that we know and love. They’ve recorded another album, titled “Take Five”, which isn’t available for sale yet.

Here’s a video of Realtime singing “Flight of the Foobirds” at the Halifax Harmony Homecoming in 2009.  For those of you wondering what the audience thinks is so funny, here’s the context: Tom decides that as a bass, he must be the best at singing without words so he challenges the rest of the quartet to try their hand.  This ensues:

Unfortunately, earlier this month Realtime’s stellar tenor (Tim Broersma) decided that he didn’t have enough time to keep the quartet and its busy international performance schedule in his life and stepped down from the group. Realtime is now accepting auditions for their new tenor, and will likely be competing again at International under a different name (having replaced two members). So if you think you have what it takes, go to their website and put in your name for consideration.

No matter what happens in the future, Realtime will always be focused on pushing the boundaries of four-part male acapella, redefining what is possible within the constraints of the style. If Realtime is ever in your area, do yourself a favor and go see them sing. They are definitely a world-class group, and we’re honored to have them as representatives of the Evergreen District.

- Drew Osterhout