Some bands just click with a community. When Books & Company proprietor Owen Lubbers announced during a recent live music event that Shred Kelly was coming back to his concert hall, a roar of approval spewed out.
It's been a few years since the Kootenays-based band got the Cold Snap Festival bouncing, and they were well liked even then from previous performances in P.G., so there is an appetite for their show on Saturday night.
Shred Kelly keyboardist/co-vocalist Sage McBride practically blushed through the phone upon hearing of the spontaneous cheer at the mention of their name, but she admitted the five of them had been looking extra forward to Prince George as well.
"We have a great time in P.G., and we've also played a lot of festivals in the area, so it's always fun to come up there," she said.
The band comes packing their fresh new album Sing To The Night, which is already catching on all over Canada. It's their third package, and the second one recorded in Toronto with buzz-producer John Critchley (he was the frontman for 13 Engines and has produced acclaimed acts like Elliott Brood, Dan Mangan, The Once and others). The construction quality is high, and the songs all have the usual Shred Kelly sparkle.
For those not yet familiar with the group, they pound out a concoction of stuff they call "stoke folk," which brings in elements of hard rock, acoustic folk, synth-pop, melodic drums and banjo. They are frequently likened to Mumford & Sons, which isn't a pure comparison but not bad company to keep.
For what it's worth, said McBride, they had been using rock banjo for years when someone sent them a link "to this great band that sounds a lot like you guys" so they affably wonder if the British chart-toppers had been sneaking peeks at them.
Part of Shred Kelly's broadly expanding appeal is the richly layered but brightly painted music, and part of it is their personality. The five of them let their innate happiness boil to the surface, and that is evidenced in their concert appearances and in their popular videos. Often these videos involve 80s clothing, a lot of snow, forested mountains, and much skiing.
These themes recur so often, one starts to wonder if they aren't subliminally advertising for their hometown of Fernie.
"We do love Fernie! I am in a video where I am actually an advocate of Fernie; it's on the Fernie tourism website, so you may not be wrong," she said with a faux-wicked laugh. "We all came here in different ways and fell in love with the place. We call Fernie the sixth member of our band."
So does Fernie get jealous when you travel to other mountainous towns like Prince George and give the musical love?
"No, no, we're in an open relationship. We can play wherever we want. Fernie doesn't feel threatened," she said.
The instruments have an open relationship too. None of them are dominant, all of them flow to the surface from time to time. The banjo is handled by Tim Newton, who also provides other stringed instruments.
The drums, another key element to the Shred Kelly sound, are tapped by Ian Page Shiner. Jordan Vlasschaert plays bass, harmonica and other instruments as needed, while Ty West is the primary guitar player. Lead vocals also moves among the members.
Many of music history's biggest bands swapped lead singers from song to song: The Beatles, The Eagles, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Blue Rodeo. Some have confessed this was in order to avoid each other in the songwriting process when their friendships ran foul. McBride got a big laugh out of that. These folks all enjoy their music-making company, and it wasn't even a way to preserve each one's voice from over-singing. It was just a symptom of their collaborative songwriting process.
"It definitely helps on tour to rest the voices from song to song, but that was never the intent at the start, but on the road it is helpful," she said. "There is no rhyme or reason, it's just about the flow of the album or the live set.
"On this album we worked a lot more on collaborative songwriting," she added. "We'd all get together and just build a song from the ground up during jam sessions, which is different from our past processes where someone would come in with something formed together, more or less, and if the band liked it they would add their own parts. I think everyone feels a closer attachment to the songs when you do it the full-on collaborative way. This album came from an experience we had together, at the beginning of every song."
Shred Kelly collaborates with the Prince George audience on Saturday night at Art Space, upstairs at Books & Company.
