Benjamin Caldwell is excited to bring his new band The Folk Road Show to Casino Lethbridge, Aug. 12.
Caldwell, who usually plays Lethbridge solo or as one half of the duo Broken Down Suitcase, is joined by Dominique Fricot (the Painted Birds), Olaf Caarls and Peter Van Vliet ( Port of Call music) and Nick Petrovich who also plays drums in Bend Sinister.
“But we make him stand up and sing. He plays a kit that we built out of parts of other kits,” Caldwell said, just pulling into Winnipeg for a show at the Times Changed High and Lonesome club after a 12 hour drive from North Battleford.
Caldwell said the band formed naturally while he was touring Europe in 2014.
“Dom and I were touring Europe and Peter was in Europe at the time so we asked him to extend his stay and play with us. Originally we were just going to play solo in a songwriter in the round, but we ended up playing on each other’s songs, so the band evolved organically,” he said.
They are about to release their first album together in the middle of their latest tour.
“It doesn‘t officially come out until the 23rd of this month, but we have some with us and they’re selling well. We’re all going in the same direction, ” he said.
“I’m looking forward to returning to Lethbridge,” Caldwell said.
They recorded their new CD in Lethbridge with the Coal Creek Boys’ John Paul Smith.
The album will be released and distributed by Texas based record label Classic Waxx which Smith works with.
“ There are no drums or bass on the album. It’s a collection of songs we all brought to the table,” he continued, adding they are starting to write songs together.
“ JP was excellent to work with and we recorded it pretty much live,” he continued.
They are already planning on recording the follow-up at the end of this tour.
“We have some time after our Vancouver show, so we‘re going to take four days of 16 hour days and record it. Then we have to fly to Toronto for seven shows in the Toronto area, “ he said.
He noted the Folk Road Show is focusing on touring.
“ We‘d love to have someone booking us in Europe and another person booking us in North America. Because we’re doing that ourselves and Dom is doing a great job,” he said.
“ We can each do solo set then the set as the group, he said adding it is great to have the option to open for themselves. They are excited to bring their music to Lethbridge
“JP hooked us up with the Casino show too. We have a three hour show at the Casino, so we’ll probably do that there,” he said adding they only have the one show at Casino Lethbridge as they are also playing the Roots Stock festival in Didsbury on Saturday.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
