Lethbridge is a pretty special place for Marc Sasso, lead vocalist of Toronto based country/ rock/ death country band Elliott Brood, who play a sold out show at the Slice, Nov. 1 with 100 Dollars.
“It’s a very nice feeling,” said Sasso, who plays banjo, guitar, harmonica, vocals.
He and bandmates Stephen Pitkin (percussion, drums, piano, vocals) and Casey Laforet (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass pedals, bass guitar, mandolin, banjo, lap steel,vocals) are looking forward to playing full electrified versions of their new music from their brand new CD “Days Into Years.”
“Lethbridge was the first place we played outside of Toronto. We had a different booking agent then. And we drove three straight days. We didn’t even stop to play Thunder Bay or anyplace else,” he said. In fact they were considering cancelling Lethbridge and going straight on to Calgary.
“I’m glad we didn’t because we played the Tongue n Groove and the people there went crazy. They bought a bunch of merch even before we played and the next night we played to one person in Calgary. So who knows what would have happened if we cancelled,” he continued adding they played Lethbridge three times on that three week tour.
He is looking forward to coming back, this time to the Slice, and playing the new CD, which was inspired by the band’s European travels several years ago, particularly the First and Second World War cemeteries they visited .
“We’re not a wealthy band, so we decided to avoid all of the toll roads in France. And visiting them affected all of us. So one day we were stuck in traffic and said we should record a CD of songs about them,” he related.
“And that was 2006, we released another CD in the meantime, which was good, because it gave us time to think about and revisit these songs,” he continued, adding they have been road testing most of them for the past eight months, which is how they usually operate with new material.
“We’ve been playing pretty much all of them except for two of them. Audience response has been great so far,” he continued.
The CD features electric instruments, like guitars and keyboards, which is unlike their previous efforts.
“Usually we play acoustic instruments but we plug them into distortion pedals. But we decided to treat ourselves and buy instruments,” he said.
And while some may say the CD is a quieter sounding effort along the lines of Blue Rodeo and Wilco, who they have toured with, Sasso says it is their heaviest and darkest yet.
“ I see it as our heaviest and darkest record yet. And while we like Blue Rodeo and Wilco, Neil Young and Crazy Horse are a bigger influence,” he said.
“We definitely didn’t glamourize the war. But lyrically it is pretty brutal in the context of war,” he said.
The band has changed up their stage show to incorporate the electric instruments. He said the band wikll be playing a lot of music from the new CD.
“I guess the big question is what have they got planned for us,” he said of the upcoming show, noting Lethbridge shows are usually pretty crazy.
