Royal Wood, a dynamic singer-songwriter with a sweet tenor voice and a knack for delivering enchanting folk-pop tunes, will take The Banff Centre’s Shaw Amphitheatre stage on July 26.
The Juno nominee will perform hits from his recently released album, The Burning Bright (2014), along with a sneak preview of new material from his upcoming album.
Artists take full advantage of the creative possibilities that the Shaw Amphitheatre has to offer, with Wood following suit by being accompanied with a string and horn orchestra for the concert.
“We’re coming a week early, we have a rehearsal with the strings and the horns and I already did the rehearsals with my band. I’ll fly out early with my tour manager,” Wood said. “I’ll do some work obviously, I have some arrangements with strings and horns I need to write and work on in the studio out there, but otherwise I’m going for hikes, I’m going swimming and going to Lake Louise – it’s work and play, absolutely.”
Wood has held performances with strings and horn sections before in his career and is currently working at preparing for a concert at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre next May with a full 80-piece orchestra.
“It’s definitely in my arsenal of performance and I love just getting a chance to do it. I love my band and I live and die for those guys, but when you get to add those other colours to a performance, to add all these other layers , the listener and the audience doesn’t realize why they love it so much more – but something sonically gets stirred inside. It’s a hard thing to define, but strings and horns and brass, they just add a definite colour and I can’t wait for the show,” Wood said
He is also currently busy recording for an upcoming release, which he is planning for May of 2016. “I try to spend as much time as I can on my farm, but right now I’m knee deep in the jungle recording new material so it’s busy times … my dad used to say it’s OK to have butterflies as long as they fly in one direction,” Wood said.
“The concert is going to be a mix, quite a few things I’ve arranged myself over the years. I’ve tried to carve out a show that’s special for The Banff Centre, so it’s not a set I’ve ever done before.”
Wood said one of the extra joys of playing with an orchestra is being able to develop new arrangements for his songs. “I always try to do something new; you either change or perish because life is rather boring unless you’re doing something new,” Wood said.
“There’s going to be some new songs from the record that comes out next year and we’ll try those out for the first time Otherwise, it’s going to be a mix.”
The Juno nominee says you have to be honest as an artist, and you usually can’t get the results you’re striving for unless you tackle a project whole heartedly.
“You can’t fake it, not that I regret it because it was a very important lesson, and you learn from everything you do. I tried to manufacture a couple of songs in my career and I actually tried to make a couple of pop songs,” Wood said.
“I strategically sat down and tried to write hooks and I had never done that in my career, and I had such a feeling of, ‘Why did I do that?’ They were certainly received well and it was successful for me, but it didn’t feel honest and genuine and I don’t like performing those songs and I haven’t performed them since – I just want to be truly just be myself.”
