The band is called West My Friend but for frontwoman Eden Oliver, tours of these parts could invite a slight name change to Home My Friend.
Oliver is originally from Terrace, and her sister is high-profile Prince George eco-entrepreneur Diandra Oliver (she was co-proprietor of Home Sweet Home Grocery and other ventures over the years). Northern B.C. is deeply familiar territory even though she and her band are stars of the active folk music scene in Victoria.
"We love the north and touring B.C.," Oliver said. "I grew up in the north. We're excited to be coming back. Terrace is six hours away from Prince George, but it's a neighbour town. And it looks like you're driving through The Shire, it's ridiculous how beautiful it is."
West My Friend is also getting a Terrace appearance in, on this tour, getting Oliver back home for a rare visit to the home territory.
"We are going to play at my high school, which I'm excited about. It's going to be weird. And good. I'll get to see my old band teachers again," she said.
West My Friend may be considered an ambassador band for music education. All four members are highly trained in classical performance, composition, music education and fields of study like that. It shows in their presentation. The music might be rooted in folk and alternative genres, but their abilities shine in richer tones than the average act. This ain't no garage band.
"For the first year or so we would switch instruments all the time," said Oliver. "We all studied instruments at university, got classical degrees, in instruments we don't play in the band. So we are all multi-instrumentalists who would switch all the time. That's why soundmen (the technicians in charge of concert microphones) hated us. We kinda needed to settle down so we all picked (a smaller number of instruments)."
Oliver plays guitar, primarily, for this band's purposes. Alex Rempel plays mandolin, Jeff Poynter plays accordion and Nick Mintenko plays Bass. They all sing and provide vocal elements to their songs.
That dexterity and trained understanding of music is partly what attracts other high-caliber performers to work with them. Few mainstream acts could hope to convince an acclaimed choral group like Vox Humana Chamber Choir to invest time and creative energy in them like West My Friend did on the song Shape Of A Home - a haunting and vocally vulnerable song in which Vox Humana factors heavily.
It was recorded in the sonically fertile space of Oak Bay United Church.
"Alex, our mandolin player, actually sings with them. And we've known Brian (Wismath, choir director) for awhile and he's sort of mentioned 'if you ever need a choir...'," Oliver said. "I wrote that song, Shape Of A Home, when I was in Banff. I was in the musicians-in-residency program at the Banff Centre, and every studio they have has a great grand piano in it. They asked me what I needed and I said 'oh, just a piano or a keyboard, something I can chunk out chords on' and there was this gorgeous grand piano, so I wrote it first on that. Because of that piano's voice, it made me think of choir and wanting multiple voices in there."
That song can be found on their brand new album Quiet Hum, one of three CDs the band has generated.
They released their first full-length album Place in 2012, and it soon garnered multiple award nominations (including "Roots Album of the Year" and "Song of the Year" at the Vancouver Island Music Awards).
Their second album, When The Ink Dries, was released in March 2014 and was nominated in the Canadian Folk Music Awards for the Oliver Schroer-Pushing The Boundaries Award as well as other accolades.
The band is coming to Prince George as part of their unveiling of the new music package in Quiet Hum. It's their third appearance in this city, having performed previously at a house concert and at Nancy O's. This time they are set to folk-rock at The Legion (1116 6th Ave.) Friday. Doors open at 8 p.m. and music starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $10. The show is a co-presentation of arts and entertainment production company Mad Loon.
