Many music groups, when they’re working on getting their name, their sound and their stage presence out there for public consumption, spend a great deal of time waiting around while trying to make things to happen.
Brandon, Man.’s Until Red, on the other hand, have pretty much been waiting for all members to reach legal drinking age so they could start landing bar gigs and touring more.
Until Red – Dylan MacDonald (vocals, guitar), Liam Duncan (keys, bass, guitar, vocals) and Roman Clarke (drums) – play Banff’s Elk and Oarsman bar in particular, Sunday (Nov. 9) as the trio reach the westernmost locale of their present, nearly town-a-night tour.
“We’ve got a lot of shows coming up in the next 20 nights,” said MacDonald from the home of the WHL’s Wheaties, Thursday (Oct. 30). “We’ve been to Canmore before, at the Ho’, but this will be our first time in Banff, which is kinda cool.”
Until Red is touring in support of the five-track rock offering EP Johanna, which was released in January. While touring, of course, the trio will also be polishing up some new material for a 2015 full-length album they’re envisioning.
Having played together in high school, then in a music program at Brandon University’s School of Music (MacDonald and Duncan), the three have loaded up their Thule-topped Dodge Caravan and headed west, hoping to return to Manitoba before the snows truly fly in earnest.
“We did have the barrier of not being of age for a while,” said MacDonald, who combines nearly full-time music with a day a week work with the City of Brandon running music programs.
Songwriting is a mostly collaborative effort for the band as each will bring songs to the band to be jammed. “It’s a pretty united process,” said MacDonald. “One song on Johanna, ‘Homefires,’ we wrote when we were 14 or 15 and busking at a flea market in Riding Mountain National Park, but a couple of other ones, like ‘Wasted’ and ‘Johanna’ were written just before we recorded them.
“Right now we’ve got eight more songs ready to go into the studio with, and after playing this tour, almost a gig a night, they should all be pretty tight by the time we want to record.”
As with Johanna, the three plan to disappear into a cabin at Roseisle, Man., about an hour from Winnipeg, where they last recorded.
“We really like going there,” said MacDonald. “It’s secluded, nobody can be on a phone, the owner’s wife cooks your food and there’s a stack of cross-country skis there – you can really get your mind in a different space.”
Possibly typical of a band of younger musicians, according to their bio, the three are hoping a new album will point them toward not only a Juno Award, but fame, fortune, girlfriends, regular meals and freshly washed clothes.
Ah, the life of young, freshly-scrubbed musicians.
Touring for the band has been mostly in Western Canada, where plenty of family can be found and where “we can get some home-cooked meals,” said Duncan. “But we’re hoping to head east in spring.
Having narrowed their sound to a roots/rock effort with blues and pop influences and three-part harmonies, Until Red is working hard to get out there and get themselves known.
