Fernie stoke folk band Shred Kelly are getting stoked for summer and lots of festivals. But for now they are enjoying some nice downtime.
“ The Lethbridge show is actually the start to the summer festival season,” said Shred Kelly vocalist and keyboardist, who is excited to come back to Lethbridge to play Studio 54 with the Silkstones, May 30.
They have had a pretty eventful year since releasing their most recent CD “Sing To The Night ” In January, and have been enjoying a much deserved month off since finishing the initial tour.
They have since been nominated for several Kootenay Music Awards including Artist of the Year, Best Live Act and Album of the Year as well as a Western Canadian Music Award for the video for the title track “ Sing To The Night.”
“ We should know by May 30 how we did at the Kootenay Music awards but we won‘t know until September about the Western Canadian Music awards. There’s definitely a lot of great music in the west, so it really is an honour to be nominated,” McBride said.
They are taking advantage of downtime to begin writing new music.
“Kind of always. We’re always writing new material, We’re not at crunch time yet, so it is more about just playing with each other and throwing new ideas out there,” she said.
They are also considering making new videos for the songs from “Sing To The Night.” to follow up the videos or “Family, Oh Family” and the title track.
“ That seems to be the way to go. I spend a lot of time online so when I want to find new music, I go to Youtube,” she said.
“ We like videos. They‘re fun. And we like to shoot them around Fernie to showcase how beautiful of a place it is,” she continued, adding they'd like to do one more official video and an acoustic series.
“ That would be of us playing our original music acoustically and maybe a cover,“ she continued.
Shred Kelly are always stoked about summer, especially playing festivals.
They are mostly playing weekend until festival season.
“We’re playing the Winnipeg Folk Festival and the furthest east were going is Sarnia. The furthest west is Port Renfrew for the Tall Trees Festival. We’re also going to Yellowknife for Folk on the Rocks which is the furthest north we’ve ever been so it will be fun to explore a part of Canada we’ve never been to before. It’s all about having fun, partying, playing music and all day dancing, ” she said, adding it is fun to see what songs are resonating with people since the CD was released in January.
“ We released the CD and went on tour right away. Now people have had time with the songs, we’ll be able to see which ones they are singing along with. Usually it’s the ones we have videos for,” she observed.
They are excited to play Lethbridge again.
“ We love Lethbridge. We’ll be playing the new songs. We’re just excited to get back to playing again,— she said.
Tickets for the show, May 30, which begins at 9 p.m., at Studio 54, cost $20.
The show is a Pac Man party so the first 50 people get a Pac Man shirt.
