There is something about a cabin in the woods that inspires Vancouver area alt-country/ folk group The Sumner Brothers who will be making their Lethbridge debut at the Slice, Oct. 3.
They have recorded two studio albums in cabins with professional producers and engineers including their most recent “I’ll Be There.”
” It’s all we know. We love recording in cabins. There’s no distractions, just us and our producer and engineer. It‘s just a lot of fun,” explained guitarist/banjo player keyboardist Brian Sumner, who along with his brother Bob on guitar, make up the Sumner Brothers.
“The first one was recorded in a cabin on Galiano Island with our friend Ben Brown. This one was recorded in my dad’s buddy’s cabin in Merritt in the mountains,” For the current tour they have stand-up bassist Joseph Lubinski, though they will sometimes tour with a drummer.
“ The latest album is a natural extension of where we are. We think it is really reflective of our show,” he continued.
They have two streams of albums — digital only albums which were recorded in their garage and have become underground sensations among the college crowd, and the cabin series, which are hard copies, which they can sell at shows.
“They are also more polished sounding,” he said of the cabin series.
Yet the songs on the CD are seldom played live.
“Both my brother and I write songs, so we have hundreds of them to choose from. And we can only play one set a night, so we’d rather play new material,” he reasoned.
“ This album took a long time. It took over two years. These are songs we’ve been playing live for years. We went to the cabin three times to record it,” he said.
They have never played Lethbridge before.
“Yesterday is the first time we’ve even driven through Lethbridge because it’s not on the One (Highway One) and we usually stick to the One. But our friends in the Deep Dark Woods are always telling us we should play Lethbridge, so we’re looking forward to it,” he said from Swift Current.
“We’re a folk/ rock/ kind of alt country band. We get a lot of inspiration from country songwriters like Willie Nelson,Townes Van Zandt and Merle Haggard,” he described.
The live show depends on the band‘s line-up.
“ We’re playing with a stand -up bass player Joseph Lubinski. When we have a drummer, I don’t want to say it is more of a rock, show because there is still a lot of banjo, but with the bas player it is just lot more focus on the songs,” Sumner said.
“Folk -rock is the best way to describe it,” he said. He plays banjo, guitar and harmonica while his brother plays guitar and sings, but will also break out a banjo.
