Since the last time Scenic Route to Alaska was in town their album Long Walk Home has garnered them a slew of nominations and awards, they’ve recorded a new album and they’re prepping for a tour that will bring them back to the Golden City.
Trevor Mann, Shea Conner and Murray Wood will set out on their Tough Luck tour on Thursday and will be in Rossland on March 23 at the Flying Steamshovel.
The album launches on Friday and Mann, frontman and songwriter for the band, is excited for Rosslanders to hear it.
“We did that with the same producer who did our last record. His name is Howard Redekopp and he’s worked with Tegan & Sara and Mother Mother and Said the Whale and a bunch of like-minded indie bands. Not necessarily bands that we want to follow in the footsteps of sonically, but bands that we respected all their work and their records,” he said. “And I think that Howard did a really good job of capturing our sound and putting it to tape.”
Mann described Tough Luck as sonically and lyrically honest.
“We didn’t add any extra instrumentation that’s not going to be part of our live show, so it’s pretty honest,” he said.
Though Scenic Route to Alaska has had a great year, Mann said the album is a tongue-in-cheek look at life on the road.
“I’ve never really just written love songs, so Tough Luck is kind of about the lack of love songs. It’s about the displacement that I guess I’ve felt over the last couple of years by being on the road so much, and I’ve been single for a long time, until just recently,” he explained. “While we’ve been home here I just started a new relationship, but that’s the first time in three years. So the album is about those three years of, I don’t want to say loneliness, but longing-ness and trying to find something to share with somebody.”
Since the band last played Rossland at Winter Carnival 2017, Scenic Route to Alaska has been on a European tour, playing 13 shows in 14 days in four different countries, travelled to Vancouver to record Tough Luck, did a small cross-Canada tour in the fall and toured Australia for the first time.
They also collected numerous nominations and awards for Long Walk Home.
Scenic Route to Alaska was nominated for Rock Artist of the Year by the Western Canadian Music Awards, and won four awards at the 2017 Edmonton Music Awards: Album of the Year, Group of the Year, Pop Recording of the Year for “Coming Back” and Indie Rock Recording of the Year for “Love Keeps.”
“It was honestly overwhelming,” said Mann. “By the end, we had nothing to say.”
Asked what it was like to win awards in two different genres for two songs that came from the same album, Mann said, “Badass. I think it’s cool because whenever people ask us what genre we are, it’s really hard to give an answer because we’ve all grown up listening to so many different types of music and I feel like that’s seeped its way into my writing.”
The band also earned the SOCAN No. 1 Song Award for “Love Keeps” and Mann was thankful to CBC for all of the radio play the song received.
Before embarking on their Tough Luck tour, Mann, Conner and Wood were busy moving out of the house the three of them have shared for the past two years.
“In the last couple of years we’ve been on the road I think like seven or eight months out of each year, and to do that and then when we come home, we live under the same roof… And so we’re bandmates and business partners and best friends. So it’s a lot and it can put a lot of pressure on us and a lot of strain, but it’s cool,” said Mann.
“I’m really excited that we’ve made it throughout these couple of years and if anything all of those aspects of our lives have just gotten stronger and better. But I do think it will probably be a nice change of pace to not live together, and when we do go out on the road it’s going to be reinvigorated.”
For tickets to the Rossland show, visit ticketweb.ca/event/scenic-route-to-alaksa-w-the-flying-steamshovel-tickets/8060125.