German duo Sea+ Air promise a veritable “circus” of excitement and a cornucopia of instruments when they make their Lethbridge debut, April 4 at the Diaz Restaurant (635 13 Street North).
The husband and wife duo Daniel Benjamin ( who sings and plays Concerto Guitar, Drums, Cymbals, Bells) and his Greek wife Eleni who sings and plays harpsichord, organ bass pedal, drums) decided to do something different while cutting costs.
“When you tour with a band it is expensive, so we decided to see if we could make the band sound as big as possible with only two people,” he said.
“It’s artistic. It’s really interesting. We really concentrated on writing good songs, which is something we think is really lacking in music today. Bands release an album and there is one good song on it and the rest sound the same,” he observed.
We worked on these songs for five years. We wrote about a hundred of them and chose the best of them,” he said.
Their first Canadian tour started rough with three shows in Quebec, Montreal and Ottawa, but picked up after two dates during Canadian Music Week in Toronto.
“It’s our first tour and it started really bad. It was weird in Montreal and Quebec City, we have five people there and the PA broke in another one so we couldn’t even play,” Benjamin continued.
“ But we had two shows during Canadian Music Week, so we got to hang out for five days and experience Toronto,” he continued adding it has only gotten better.
“We had to decide whether to play one show in Vancouver or play three in Saskatchewan. We chose the three in Saskatchewan,” he said from Lloydminster.
“And it feels like it was the right thing to do,” he continued.
Tour is different in Canada compared to Europe, where they are based out of a village near Stuttgart.
“Germany is a good place to be. We can play 40-50 shows within two hours of us. If we have a show in the Netherlands, we can play two or three on the way there and then come back home for a week and get powered up,” he said.
“In Canadian the drives are longer. But it’s really interesting. To get to Lloydminster we drove through five hours of prairie and all of the sudden a city pops out. It is interesting,” he said. Drives, though longer, are a lot easier.
“It’s really relaxed when you drive here. In Germany , it takes your full concentration. Well you have to concentrate here too, but it’s a lot more flat here and you don’t feel so exhausted after a drive in Europe,” he said.
“And we have to travel in a car because we use a real harpsichord,” he continued adding they weren’t able to bring the harpsichord for their Canadian tour.
“’Is funny. We have a little keyboard with a harpsichord sample , so it sound like a harpsichord. We found out you can buy a harpsichord here so when we come back, we’ll probably buy one,” he continued.
“We’re just really excited to come and play and hope people will have an open mind and come out,” he continued.
The all ages show begins at 7 p.m., April 4.