YUKON BLONDE play The Satellite Jul 16 and Soda Bar Jul 17 Photo: Olivia Jaffe
Canadian pop and indie-rock group Yukon Blonde celebrate songs off their new album with a U.S. summer tour playing two SoCal shows at The Satellite on Jul. 16 and The Soda Bar on Jul. 17.
The band, originally from Kelowna, British Columbia, are on tour showcasing the band’s third LP, “On Blonde,” being released via Dine Alone Records.
According to lead vocalist and guitarist Jeff Innes, he and drummer Graham Jones starting making music separately back in their high school days but did not officially decide to make music together for a few years after graduation.
“Graham and I met in high school where he was playing in a few bands and I was making electronic music by myself, we hit it off back then with our music,” Innes said. “A few years after high school we kind of lost touch, then I was at Coachella (music festival) and the friend I was with told me that Graham had just quit his band, so we called him from the festival and decided we would start making music together when I returned, and we did.”
Yukon Blonde’s current line-up is Innes, Jones, Brandon Scott (guitar / vocals), and James Younger (bass / vocals). According to Innes, Scott was the most unlikely member to join the group at first.
“Brandon was playing in a metal band at the time, and if you saw Brandon he is the most harmless looking person, you would not imagine him to be playing in a metal band,” Innes said. “We went to one of the band’s shows and thought Brandon was such a good guitar player that we decided to steal him from his current band. So we went to his work, which was at American Eagle in the local mall, and asked him to join our band. Originally, he said no, then a week later he called us and said he had quit his band and wanted to join our band.”
Their big break in Canada came from the band’s prior album “Tiger Talk” that was released in 2012, which got the band nominated for the Juno Award for Breakthrough Group of the Year in 2013. Still the group credits more of its success to playing a few years at Austin, Texas’ South By Southwest Music Festival, which they feel got them noticed by the music industry and indie music fans at the same time.
“We sort of hacked into the South By Southwest music festival gradually climbing up to bigger and more showcases over the years,” Innes said. “The first year we played about five shows, the second year we played around 14 shows. There is such a great energy at South By Southwest for new independent bands.”
“On Blonde” was produced by Colin Stewart (Black Mountain, Dan Mangan, Sleepy Sun) and mixed by Tony Hoffer (M83, Beck, Foster the People, Air, Depeche Mode), and is getting noticed for its shimmering pop-production and Yukon Blonde’s trademark hard-hitting choruses.
Revered for their energetic live performances, Yukon Blonde will be touring with Chappo this summer and looking forward to branching out of North America bringing the songs off their new record to a worldwide audience.
“On this summer’s tour, I am looking forward to playing a festival called Way Home Festival in Ontario with acts like Kendrick Lamar and Neil Young,” Innes said. “It is like one of those big, big multi-genre festivals. There are also a few little festivals that are very, very small that I am looking forward to playing and hanging out at. I am looking forward to going everywhere on this record tour. It would be great to play Japan… and Mexico City, that would be so cool to play.”