Vancouver experimental pop band Behind Sapphire don't mind experimenting with their music or their appearances.
“For this tour, we dyed our hair white. We all have dark brown hair, so it took about four times,” laughed guitarist Matthew Mazankowski from a tour stop in Calgary.
They will play Medicine Hat, then the Owl Acoustic Lounge on Wednesday, July 13.
“We like to be spontaneous, but the change has drawn some odd attention,” he said.
That spontaneity translates to the music as well.
“We are kind of an acoustic driven, experimental pop band from Vancouver,” he summarized. They wear their influences on their sleeves, ranging from ’60s harmonies driven pop like the Beatles and the Beach Boys to modern singer songwriters like Jason Mraz.
“We write music that is easy listening but still upbeat. It’s easy listening, but you can also dance to it. We like to make things interesting for ourselves,” he said.
The band has played Lethbridge twice before, once at the Slice and the second time at the Owl Acoustic Lounge.
“The first time, our singer Grant lost his voice because he was doing something silly with it, making weird sounds. So he couldn’t sing. He only did one or two songs. the second time at the Owl, it was packed. We were pretty shocked to see so many people,” he said.
They are looking forward to returning to Lethbridge.
“That’s what it is all about, touring and meeting new people. So we’re really excited about it, ” he said.
“We’ve got some new songs, so we’ll be playing some of them and we’ll be telling stories about being on the road which can be entertaining,” he said adding they are also working on recording a new CD.
“We‘re looking forward to it. it’s a concept album and we’re not telling many people about it. We’re keeping it close,” he said adding the new music is very different.
“We’re influenced by the music we’re listening to at the time. On the last album we lots of layers. We had an orchestra. a friend of ours did the orchestra for it,” he said. The new music is similar, though not as heavily orchestrated.
There is no cover for the show, which also features Jasper Sloan Yip and his violin player.
