The dusty trail is Dusty's trail, and it leads her back to northern B.C. where she grew up.
Dusty Exner - the girl from Grassy Plains, Burns Lake and Prince George - has been punching the puke out of the punk scene for years, now, as the frontwoman from punk-rock band Kill Matilda.
They formed in Vancouver in 2007, moved to Montreal, then for the past couple of years have been kicking their boots off in Toronto. But they have become a true international act with routine gigs in Mexico and frequent tours of the United States. She called The Citizen this week from Louisville, Kentucky, in between U.S. concerts to talk about her long anticipated return to her home city. Louisville is also headquarters for the band's record label Little Heart Records.
She (on guitar and vocals) and her bandmates - Mykel Exner (bass) and Marcus Luk (drums) - will play at the Westwood Pub on Oct. 17.
"We will always come back to Prince George, P.G. is awesome, and so is Burns Lake," said Exner.
She can well remember their last gig in P.G. It was St. Patrick's Day in 2014. They headlined the show with Crones, Jamie Bell and Mediocre Minds on the undercard. (She also remembers the Burns Lake gig from that period, too, because it was held in Jeff Likkel's barn.)
So much has happened since then, like the decision to trim the band from four members to a trio.
"It's just so much easier and more efficient to make decisions with fewer band members," she said. "Mykel and I are married, so our schedules and interests are basically the same, so we only have to coordinate everything with Marcus."
The other notable development was the hotly anticipated release of their latest album. It was finished not long after that previous P.G. appearance, but they kept it to themselves and only set it free into the world a couple of weeks ago.
"You never want to put that much effort into something and have your fans go 'hmmm, not your best work' so we made sure it was ready, and we made sure the band had the audience for it. We spent a lot of time building up the band's fan base so we would have someone to release it to when we did go for it," said Exner.
The tracks on the disc, an album they call Songs Of Survival, were production collaborations with heavy industry hitters like Scott Ternan (engineer and production work with 54-40, Mariana's Trench, The Odds, etc.), Ben Kaplan (acclaimed performer and leader of The Casual Smokers band) and GGGarth Richardson (studio production for Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nickelback, Motley Crue and many more).
"Working with GGGarth really taught me a lot about the process of music," said Luk. "He showed me how to capture the energy of the song, bring it to a point and have it swell when you need it to. And the tighter, simplified sound of the band since we became a three-piece makes us more direct, so I'm much better at feeling those moments in the music and really hitting them when the time is right. GGGarth was a big part of that."
Mykel Exner said he has matured as a player and as a member of the band family over the years, so releasing the album now feels especially right.
"I think we are more professional and it took us awhile to get there," he said. "We have evolved into a touring band, not just a travelling party. It is our job to bring the party to the stage, we have to deliver on that, but at the same time you have to learn how to handle the road, appreciate what we have when we have it, and we have learned to roll with the punches. We enjoy the high points of having a good show, nothing is idealized anymore, we don't feel the strain and the stress of the grind like we used to, and we get to consider it a personal reward to be able to go from town to town and meet people who appreciate what we're doing."
They got a surprise in Indianapolis when that city's independent music magazine named Kill Matilda the city's Best Non-Local Punk Band for 2015. It came with a trophy they have been faux-bragging with ever since.
Acclaim like that makes all the red tape of getting government approvals to perform on American soil worth it. That, and there is another major-market audience every few hours in any direction down the highway. In Canada you can drive all day and burn up any band profits just in fuel to move to the next gig.
Exner said the paperwork is a pain, but getting caught doing concerts without the approved permits can cause American authorities to ban you from crossing the border for five years, and it's no idle threat. They know of fellow musicians to suffer this fate.
Now they also have Europe in their sights, but not until after they burn through some of the United States and Canada before making a hard southern turn for Mexico on Halloween.
Special guests The Nailheads from Montreal will also be on the bill at The Westwood, as will their old friends Mediocre Minds. Tickets are $10, doors open at 7:30 p.m., showtime is 8:30 p.m.
