Saskatoon rockers One Bad Son have been keeping a relatively low profile over the past year, low profile for a band which usually tours eight months of the year.
The re-relocated to Saskatoon after spending four years living in Vancouver, and are gearing up for their “Seven shows of Christmas Tour” which stops by Average Joes , Dec. 15. The seven shows will help the band choose their next single, which they plan to release in January. One Bad Son have have had several big radio hits over the past few years including “Scarecrows,” “It Ain’t Right” “Retribution Blues” and most recently, a hot cover of the Talking Heads’ “ Psycho Killer.”
“ We’ve been doing a lot of writing this year,” said frontman Shane Volk, getting ready to start the brief winter tour.
“We’ll be playing about four or five new songs. We’ll probably open the show with two of them,” he said.
“ We have a few ideas about what the next single will be but it is always nice to play them for people and see how they do,” he said.
He isn’t sure if they will release a full album yet.
“ We’ll release a single first, though we have recorded enough songs for a full length album,” he said.
They recorded the new music with producer Gavin Brown, who has worked with Three Days Grace.
“We’re very excited about the new songs. We’re can’t wait to heart what people think of them. I’m sure they’ll love them,” he said.
He said they wanted to work with a new producer to get a different perspective on the music.
“We worked with Eric Ratz on the last album and that was great, but we wanted a new producer for new ideas,” he said.
“Gavin gave us a new way of working. It was a more open process with more exchanging of ideas for music and lyrics. We expanded things. Everything was a lot more fun writing process,” he continued, adding previously they have been focused on finishing the work.
“ But we’re playing rock and roll music so it has to be fun,” he said.
One Bad Son always looks forward to returning to Lethbridge.
They have enjoyed being back home in Saskatoon.
“You spend so much time in the van that you begin to curse it, but by the time you get home and have some time off, you begin to miss it,” he said, adding the band are enjoying being back home for a bit.
“It wasn’t really a year off. We did a lot of writing and we played a lot of summer festivals,” he said.
“I live pretty much everywhere. I have to go back to Toronto to record more vocals. Saskatoon is great. We’ve had a lot of full shows there. We play a lot of big shows there for 1,000 people like the one we’re capping off our tour with, but we can only do it once a year,” he said.
They are paying their success forward by putting a call out for a local opener especially for the Saskatoon show.
“When you’re in a band it is difficult to get a break, so if we can provide a break we’re happy to do it,” Volk said.
He noted 2017 will be a busy year of touring on a new single, a video for it and possibly the album.
“ I hope people aren’t sick of us because we’ll be back there sooner than later,” he said.
While they had a hit with “Psycho Killer,” Volk said there are no plans to record another cover.
“But then we didn’t plan to record ‘Psycho Killer’ either. When we were recording the last album. It is just so much fun to play and our version is so much different, we decided we may as well throw it down and see what comes out. It was not planned,” he continued.
Advance tickets cost $20 or $25 on the day of the show. The show begins at 8 p.m.
