Hedley lead guitarist Dave Rosin grew up in Prince George, and brings some good childhood memories back to his hometown for a performance Feb. 13 at CN Centre.
During an interview with The Citizen, he remembered winning a PlayStation for being a top paper boy. He sold the game console and bought a guitar with the money instead.
"Best thing I ever did," said Rosin. I'm so stoked to be coming back to P.G. again. I had a great time growing up there and, for a working town, there's so much love for the arts and appreciation for music."
Hedley brings the Vancouver band's fourth album Storms the evening before Valentine's Day.
"The Storms blowin' through," Rosin laughed. "Even though P.G. is landlocked, we're bringing the boat to you guys. I keep wondering, you know, how are we going to get shipwrecked when Prince George is land locked in a bowl? Maybe we can float down the Nechako!"
Hedley is known for never doing the same thing twice, so Rosin knows the last show's audience would see something brand new during this show.
"We have a million little thoughts rolling around in our heads for this tour and our ADD is finally paying off for sure," Rosin said.
"It's just a crazy thing, doing these big rooms. I still feel like we're the band that started off in clubs and theatres and that doesn't seem that long ago. We've only been around for about seven and a half years, so for us to get a chance to yet again come and play our new record in a large room where usually it's filled with hockey fans is so cool. We can play more songs, bring our lights and shiny things to entertain."
Rosin said the band grew up going to shows and seeing what bands would bring for entertainment value.
"If you're going to lay down your 40 hard-earned dollars to come see our show, we're going to make sure you're getting your money's worth and send you home with a song in your head," said Rosin. "We know there's always something more and we try to push the boundaries a bit. This is a really important record to us -- I say that about every one but it really is. People say is sounds like a more mature record and we're growing up and we just hope our fan come along for the ride."
The formula for creating music is always the same, Rosin said. They start with a song, the four band members, including Rosin, Jake Hoggard as lead singer, Tommy Mac on bass and Chris Crippin on drums, go into a room and try to find a way to make it work.
"We try to fill in the lines with different coloured crayons and do different stuff," Rosin explained. "All these songs started off as part of us and what Jake was thinking at the time. So a song like Invincible, the first single on the record, we knew right away that would be a song that would make it on the album."
The tunes and lyrics may get polished or added to by other members of the band, but in the end, the songs' meanings usually change depending on the listener.
"It's always kind of funny, I always say Jake views these songs differently from how I view them, and the cool thing is that somebody else listening to these songs is gonna think something entirely different and that's the cool thing about music," said Rosin. "After we're done recording the songs it's time for someone else to have them."
No matter what the approach, however, Hedley is always filled with the eternal optimists, said Rosin.
"We never want to be cynics, it's really easy to be a cynic in this world," Rosin said. "There's always so much that's being pumped to us you really have to make up your mind about what you value in life and we value friendship, family and love."
Tickets are available at Ticketmaster outlets.
