Young band makes timeless blues
Teen blues band's classic sound At Odds with members' ages
Use your ears and it shouldn’t be a problem.
Use your eyes and it unfortunately becomes one.
So. Some advice? Listen to your ears. If you do, you’ll appreciate just how good Calgary blues- rock trio The Static Shift are, how accomplished an act and musicians they are, how deserving of the accolades they get every time they participate in any sort of event or enter an online contest, such as a recent International Songwriting Competition where they placed in the Top 12 of almost 19,000 entries.
When you hear them, you will hear something pretty timeless. By design.
“We absolutely want to bring back more of a classic rock feel, kind of a vibe, because you don’t see it a lot now, you don’t see a lot of bands trying to recreate that vintage sound,” says guitaristvocalist Mitchell Brady, noting the exception of contemporaries such as The Sheepdogs or the Black Keys.
“But even those guys have some of their moments where they’re not quite — I don’t want to say they’re not quite true to their sound, but everybody makes decisions based on radio play and all that.
“We just want to send our message of older style music.”
Message received loud and crystal clear on their new fivesong — as you shall soon see — aptly titled EP, At Odds, which they’ll release Thursday with a pair of shows at the Blues Can.
The disc is a collaborative affair that pulls together quite expertly the blues and jazz stylings of bassist Keone Friesen, the more alternative leanings of drummer Isaiah Stonehouse — the most recent addition to the band, after several attempts to find a drummer failed — and the overwhelming classic rock love of Brady.
“It all just comes in together,” he says. “And it can be very beautiful sometimes.”
As to how he acquired his own tastes in music, which are the première guiding force of The Static Shift, Brady cites the film It Might Get Loud, more specifically Jimmy Page in the 2008 documentary, which features the Led Zep guitarist chatting about the craft with fellow axemen, U2’ s the Edge and White Striper Jack White.
And the other things, other influences he listened to when he was growing up?
Here he laughs. And here the eyes are opened. “I’m only 17,” he says. Yes. The problem. Despite being beyond their years musically, the band members are underage, high school students, 16 and 17 and still years away from the shackles of this province’s outdated liquor laws.
It is, for the trio, something of a blessing and a curse, a positive selling point and something that holds them back from getting further ahead.
“People are quite impressed sometimes when we tell them our age and that’s always quite a fun reaction,” Brady says.
“But at the same time we considered, no, we don’t want people knowing because we just want to be known as a band. Age shouldn’t have anything to do with it, that’s what I still think. I think we should still be able to play just for the music.”
And, again, that music is pretty all- pro, as evidenced by At Odds, their second release in the past two years, and which represents but a drop in the bucket of their already impressive catalogue.
Sonically it can stand up to anything else independently released, due in part to the fact that it was recorded in the basement of Stonehouse, whose father acts as their sound man and who also just so happens to be the sound engineer for one Mr. Randy Bachman.
We don’t want people knowing because we just want to be known as a band. Age shouldn’t have anything to do with it, that’s what I still think. I think we should still be able to play just for the music.
Mitchell Brady, guitarist/ vocalist
Handy thing, that. “It’s very handy,” Brady says with a laugh. “That is the definition of luck right there.”
Also very handy and beneficial is the fact that father of Friesen is a rep for Yamaha, which sponsors the band, and Brady’s own father, Greg, acts as their manager. All of that works in their favour.
Still, the age thing is something of a hurdle for the crew, with there being a dearth of all- ages rooms in the city, and the restrictions placed on under- 18 entertainers being something that few venues can or are willing to overcome.
“It’s very restricting. It’s the most restricting thing we could come across,” says Mitchell. “It’s not to sound arrogant or anything like that but we understand that we have the potential to play all these shows and we know that we could do it professionally …
“It’s just really tough because we can’t do a lot, we could be doing so much more.”
They have, actually, come across a unique way around that, with Mitchell’s dad having procured for the band a trailer that they’ve turned into a portable, pop- up stage that they can take anywhere and everywhere, for guerrilla gigs or pre- set- up shows.
Still, though, they also know that their opportunities will be fewer as long as age remains a problem in many people’s eyes.
“It’s something you just kind of live with for now,” Mitchell says. Well, for now. As his dadager says only halfjokingly, “When they’re 18, we figure they should just skip the bars and go straight to the Saddledome.”
Now that, as you can hear, is something you just might see.
The Static Shift release their new album Thursday at The Blue Can, with an early show from 7- 8 p. m. which is all- ages, and a later show from 9 p. m. to midnight.