Winnipeg’s Dirty Catfish Brass Band is looking to bring a little of that New Orleans soul to The Vat on Nov. 9th.
“We are a brass band coming out of the New Orleans tradition,” Tenor Saxophone Player Kyle Wedlake said. “That is where we take our main inspiration. It is real feel-good party music and we guarantee you are going to come and feel good and want to dance. That is what the energy is about.”
The brass band intends to to bring their own take on traditional New Orleans funk and soul.
“We write a lot of our own music and we focus a lot on traditional New Orleans music,” he said.
Wedlake and the band intends to bring a lineup that includes covers and originals to Red Deer.
“We will play some of the unreleased stuff at the show, as well as the covers from Big Shiny Brass. That EP is our homage to Big Shiny Tunes—so we chose six pop covers and reworked them,” he said.
Wedlake said the band formed after their lead vocalist took a trip to New Orleans.
“He felt that was missing in the Winnipeg scene,” he said. “He rallied us all together and we formed the band—it has been going strong ever since.
“We play a lot of club and festival shows; we play out on the street and we play all the Blue Bomber home games to create a tail-gate feel.”
Wedlake said the band looks forward to bringing their high-energy performance to the crowd at The Vat.
“We came to Red Deer last year and played at Bo’s,” he said. “We had a great time and it was a real nice stop for us. Everyone treated us really well. It is exciting to come back. It will be our first time at The Vat. It is always exciting to play new rooms.
“It sounds like our hometown venue, where it is a real intimate setting with the crowd two feet away from you. We will definitely have people up and get them moving in a small place like that.”
Following their Alberta tour, Dirty Catfish Brass Band will focus on their next full-length album.
“We will be going back to Private Ear in Winnipeg where we did our last recording,” Wedlake said.
“We are still in the midst of working on the final arrangements and music. We will be making a trip back with the new album in hand.”
He added, “We have been known to get in and power through so that we can capture the live energy of the music. It is set to come out around the middle of 2019.”