Victoria based Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra are growing up. They are eager to show their growth when they return to the Slice, almost a year from their last appearance, Jan. 7.
“We’re taking a long break after four solid months of touring,” said
guitarist/ vocalist Kurt Loewen from Calgary, where they are getting
back in the groove for a quick tour before they officially relocate to
Toronto and start work on their next CD.
While they are based out
of Victoria, the band members live all over
the country due to personal and work-lives, only congregating in time to
tour.
“ One of the highlights was the Ontario Conference of Folk Festivals and
we just played the Calgary Folk Club,” said Loewen, listing some of the
highlights of the past few months.
“But we’re planning our new record. We’ll be starting it in the new
year after this tour and we’re relocating to Toronto for the foreseeable
future,” he continued.
He estimated the band will spend a solid couple months doing
pre-production and recording the CD. They are moving to Toronto for a
variety of reasons.
“We’re really excited about it. There are lots of opportunities in Toronto,” he said.
“It will be nice to instead of only meeting for a four month tour, to be able to play regular gigs and be together,” he said.
He noted the band members also play with other musicians as hired guns, so the move will be a good one for them.
“So Toronto seemed to be the right choice for all those reasons.”
The band is looking forward to returning to lethbridge for the second time.
“ We were playing in January then. We played the South Country Fair
this year and the year before that so we got a lot of people out to the
show because of it and we hope they will come out again,” he said.
They will be playing the songs off the EP they released in the summer reflecting their new sound.
“There are five songs on the EP and four of them had never been recorded
before and one had. It’s a lot less experimental and gypsy influenced
and more directly folk. It’s very groove oriented,” he described adding
they recorded the EP very quickly, mostly live off the floor in an
attempt to capture their live sound.
“For the new CD, we’re looking forward to using the studio as more of a tool to make music,” he said.
He said the new music shows the band’s growth and maturity.
“When we started we were just interested in playing a gypsy/ ska/ dance
party, but we’ve just grown. We’re writing more collaboratively as a
band. There are a lot of influences and we listen to a lot of different
music,” he said.
“We’ve grown as musicians and we’ve grown as people. We’ve been playing
to together for five years and we’ve changed a lot. It’s fun to try the
next thing,” he said.
To avoid going into debt to make the new CD, they are travelling on a couple different innovative avenues.
“We’ve applied for a FACTOR grant which should pay for half of it and
we’re going on Indie-a-Go-Go. We’re offering rewards for donations. Like
one dollar and we’ll send you a thank you and $10 will get you a
single from the album and $20 will get you an advance copy of the CD.
There is a whole scale,” he said. He hoped to have the Indie Gogo site
set up by the beginning of the year, but realistically said it probably
wouldn’t be up until later in the month.
They will be working with producer/ engineer David Travers- Smith, who is best known for working with the Wailin’ Jennies.
“He knows acoustic music and he is also incredible with mic placement in the room. So that’s kind of exciting.
