For Fernie based folk/ bluegrass band Shred Kelly, their crowd pleasing song “I Hate Work,” basically sums up their year. The band, who play the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Jan. 20, recently quit their jobs to focus on making music.
“ We like The Fernie ski bum thing. We want to make time to snowboard and to play shows and write music, but we need to find a balance between them,” said Sage McBride, Shred Kelly’s keyboardist/ accordionist and vocalist.
“We said let’s really give it a try. We quit our jobs so we can focus on it. We still do odd jobs to make ends meet. A couple of the guy’s jobs let them come in whenever they can,” she continued.
“ For me, I definitely made the biggest sacrifice. I was a teacher. But I’m doing lots of subbing and help out in the day care, just in case this doesn’t work, I can go back. But I’m not regretting anything yet,” she laughed.
A successful pre Christmas tour all the way to Quebec and back, points to things working great for them.
“None of us are from Fernie, we are spread all over the country, so we have family or friends all over the country. We had warm beds and hot meals every place we played. So we aren’t the starving traveling band. We probably put on five pounds each, having three hot meals a day. But we’ll see how it goes next time,” she said.
She got a chance to stop by her hometown of Kenora, Ontario, approximately two and a half hours east of Winnipeg.
“ I stayed there for 10 days. Mom sold 200 tickets to our show there. Our friends and family bring all of their friends. But it’s worked out well,” she said.
Their first time traveling across Canada in the winter wasn’t without its problems.
“Our trailer jack-knifed and we hit an elk which knocked off a wheel,” she said adding luckily nobody was hurt.
“We swerved and you’re not supposed to do that, but it worked,” she said.
They are busy booking gigs, particularly summer festivals.
“We’re going to Toronto for Canadian Music Week. We already bought our flights for that and we got accepted to the Salmon Arm Roots and Blues festival.
“It’s different than playing at a bar. The audiences are really appreciative. And the audiences aren’t intoxicated,” she continued. The audiences are so appreciative,” she said.
So their next priority is to record the follow-up to their debut CD, which they hope will be out in June just in time for festival season. They haven’t decided where they are going to record, though Lethbridge Studio Ghostwood Studio where they ended up re-recording their debut CD, is definitely on the list.
“ It’s hard to get studio time there and it is a long drive, so we may just record most of it ourselves. Ghostwood has been awesome to us,” she enthused.
“We have most of the songs written.The new CD will be darker. Most of the other CD was in major keys. With this one, a lot of the songs are in minor keys. It’s a little more rock, but we still find a place for the banjo in them,” she said.
They are playing five or six of the new songs and have a few others written, which aren’t ready to be performed live yet.
They are looking forward to returning to Lethbridge where they have always been well received.
“The audiences are awesome there. We love playing Lethbridge. It has such a great music scene,” she said.
“Playing the South Country Fair helped us a lot. We got to play for a lot of people who remembered us. We’ll be playing a lot of new music,” she said of their Lethbridge show.
“We definitely want to show off the new material and give people a sneak a peek,” she said.
“We hope to be back in Lethbridge at least twice this winter,” she said.
They are looking forward to crossing Canada again — this time in the summer.
The show begins at approximately 9 p.m. at the Owl Acoustic Lounge with Redrum Triumph.
