Fernie stoke/folk band Shred Kelly are psyched to be back in Lethbridge to play an all ages show at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Saturday, July 17.
A lot has changed since they last played Lethbridge in 2018. Keyboardist/ vocalist Sage McBride and her husband, banjo player/guitarist/ singer Tim Newton have a new child together and their latest album “Like A Rising Sun has been nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award for best rock artist.
“We have a new baby, though she’s two-and-a-half now. She’s already walking and talking,” said McBride adding they have been bringing their daughter on the road with them.
“We have a road nanny with us. Though it’s been nice to spend a year at home with her instead of always touring,” she continued.
“It was difficult times during the pandemic when we didn’t have any other support in our bubble. Now we’re touring again, we’re loading in at 4 or 5 p.m. and can spend some time with her and she’s usually asleep while we’re playing,” she continued, noting they are concentrating on smaller weekend tours and staying close to home.
“We‘re doing 15 shows in 24 days. But because we didn’t know what was going to happen or even if live music was going to be allowed, we’re staying close to home,” she said, adding fans are really enjoying the shows.
“I find a lot of people really appreciate seeing live music now that they haven’t been able to see any live music for a year and a half. So I hope it continues. People took it for granted, because there was something every week and then there wasn’t anything and they realized how much they missed it,” she observed.
“We don’t play a lot of all ages shows other than events like Love and Records. It’s great to play all ages shows, watching three generations watching the shows,” she said.
“This is the belated CD release party. This is the first chance we’ve had to play these new songs live. so we‘re playing five or six songs from the new CD. We‘re playing for an hour and a half. We start early and try to be done by 10 p.m. so the minors don’t get kicked out,” she said.
The new CD “Like A Rising Sun” has more of a rock edge than their previous CDs.
“We still come from a folk background, but Tim has been writing more on acoustic guitar rather than banjo, so when we go into the studio, they either become folk songs or we can amplify everything and they become rock songs. This time they turned into rock songs. We’re writing new songs but they aren’t ready to play them live yet so we have no idea which direction they’ll go,” she said adding the new CD has been well received.
“ We don’t really know how well received the new music is until we play the songs live. But people are dancing to the new songs and they’re digging the videos,” she said, adding they have been getting a little radio play in CBC, Sirius XM and some College radio stations.
“ It’s been hard to get hold of people during Covid because people have been working remotely,” she said.
She is excited to tour with band mates Newton, bassist Ric Behan, who fills in for bassist Jordan Vlasschaert, guitarist Ty West and drummer Ryan Mildenberger who joined the band since they last played Lethbridgein 2018. They were an immediate hit when they started playing in 2009 especially in Lethbridge where they became instant fan favourites with their blend of high energy folk music and rock and roll.
“Jordan started his own business. He got his masters degree in psychology, and he opened his own practice, so he can’t tour all the time. So Ric fills in. He plays Tim in the video for “Looking For.” Our road nanny plays me in it,” she said.
They channelled the energy that they normally would have put into touring into creating videos for six of the songs off “Like a Rising Sun.”
“We‘re usually touring, so videos are usually an afterthought. But we couldn’t tour during Covid, so we made six videos which is more than we’ve made for any other album.
She is proud of the work they did on the videos.
“Dead Leaves was the only one we did pre-pandemic, so we could have a cast and crew,” she said, adding they recorded the follow up, “Disconnect ” last spring on their cell phones and sent the footage to their videographer. They animated “Underground,” recorded “Take Me Home on their front porch and used time lapse photography and filmed “Looking For” last summer when restrictions loosened with a small cast and crew.
But they had a lot of fun making “Roman Candle Eyes.”
“After writing our two hundredth song about our daughter, we decided we should make a video about an expectant father who faints and has crazy dreams, so we rented some costumes and got to dress up and just be silly,” she said.
They are excited to tour again.
“We were supposed to tour with the Dead South, but that tour got cancelled because of Covid. So we’ve re booked that for November or December,” she said.
Shred Kelly play the new Owl Acoustic Lounge stage, Saturday, July 17 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20.
— by Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
