By Justin C. F. Lintag

Videography credits: Mario Soriano

Photography credits: Elixir Garcia

Delta Blue.  Winners of Y57’s Battle of the Bands earlier this fall at Heritage Hall.  I’ll set the stage since I was one of the ones closely watching the competition, rightfully so as I was one of the three judges.  Each band was considered an up-and-comer but they all tallied a hell of a lot of respect from the crowd as well as us judges.  From alternative band, Stellar Dive, to thrash band to ska band, The Adherents, (who even the boys from Delta Blue admit thought they were taking the cake) DB was last to perform against odds of 4 amazing preceding bands.  Us at the judge’s table were already having a tough time calculating scores and gauging the crowd’s response to each group.  But once the Blue came on, I pretty much put my pen down from judging because it was evident that they’d be the last men standing.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I was super-qualified to be on the judge’s panel for a rock show, but the guys emitted something in their music that all music lovers recognize whether they know it or not; and that was the feeling.  Put it this way, the musical mood went through 5 different turns that night, some bands would get maybe only a certain part of the crowd stoked, some opened up epically then had us dozing off and then others had us realizing the redundancy in their song catalogue by the end of their set.  From how I perceived them, these 3 guys had everything covered:  an extensive, smooth flowing set, music that didn’t alienate any listeners, something to appeal to everyone in the house and all the intangibles.

So flash-forward to mid fall, November 11 to be exact, and they are the sole reason we’re chopping it up outside, in the cold with the weather’s momentary lapses of rain.  The spot is downtown and we meet on the steps of the dirty, dingy side of the Vancouver Art Gallery, you know the one facing Robson street.  Obligatory handshakes take place as well as an immediate decision to get to a cleaner, quieter spot.  Amidst the muffling cacophony of downtown, sounds of construction and routine-like police sirens we settle under the dome of Robson Square.  The guys were nothing but a humble, happy-go-lucky collective.  When I asked them about what kind of photo-shoot they might want to have set up, they had no real response and left it up to us.  When I asked them if they had looked over the preview of questions I sent them prior to the interview, they casually replied with a “not really, didn’t dig too deep into it”.  And even when I’d ask them general questions they weren’t overly hyped or excited or got into detail about anything.  But then I asked them about the music.  And you’ll tell by reading the interview that they had some very insightful and opinionated thoughts about music and musicianship.  These guys are real musicians and if and when you catch them performing, you’ll understand what I mean.  In the meantime read/watch/listen to the talk we had with them recently.

www.myspace.com/1deltablue

Delta Blue on Facebook

Watch the video interview or read it below.  And stay peeled for a bonus mini-documentary of our photo-shoot up and down the busy downtown corridors with Delta Blue!

Give us an introduction to the band, Delta Blue, and the meaning behind that moniker.

K: This is Jeff D’Altroy, drummer extraordinaire. Brad Pearson on the bass, and I’m Kevin and I’m on the guitar and sing.

How did it all come together, how did you guys form the group?

K: Actually, Jeff wasn’t our original drummer.

J: I played in a different band before and we were doing some recording and (Kevin) recorded at the studio where we were recording.  And I’ve known him from school.

You grew up in North Delta, so what were the influences of the city on the music, if any?

K: Well obviously I mean there’s artists that we kind of know and like.  Plus I mean, I don’t know about you guys but my parents moved here from Toronto and I get a lot of my kind of musical, not really knowledge, but the way I listen to music and the kind of music I listen to, is from my dad. He kind of brought that over from Toronto.

And the name just came from the fact that you guys were from Delta?

K: From Delta.  Blues band. Yea!

B: Blues band from Delta, haha.

K: Seemed to fit alright.

How did you guys get involved in the Y57 battle of the bands?

K: We were playing a show at the fire hall in North Delta..

J: and we ended up winning the battle of the bands there and they invited us to another show.

K: I guess Jamie Cessford was there.  He got a few people to see if we could give our stuff to them to see if they’d play us.

What were your expectations coming into the battle?

K: Haha, kind of slim to none.

Did you guys think you had enough to win?

K: Oh no!

Dude I voted for you guys, I was one of the judges.

B: Oh sick, yea. The band before us was like a 7-piece ska band.

J: Yea, they were really good.

K: After we saw them we were like, “Well, we can go down pretty well. Haha”

B: We can go down in style I guess, but we didn’t end up losing.

What did you think of the competition anyway?

K: Ah it was really good.

J: Yea.

B: It was pretty well organized on their part (Y57), they knew what was going on.  We’ve played some shows where the organization was absolutely terrible.  But this one was a complete turnaround from that.  A lot better.

K: The Adherents were pretty sick.  They were a cool band.

During your set there was a quote you mentioned, it was from B. B. King, about feeling.  Could you expand on that and reiterate it for us?

K: Well basically, if you know B. B. King at all, it’s like he doesn’t play too fast or play too much, but uh, they call him one of the kings right.  And he kind of knows that music’s changing and stuff but blues started out, and he got into the blues and he’s a gigantic part of how the blues is today.  And one quote, I don’t even know where I heard it on, I think it was an interview or something but he said, “It’s easy to play the blues, but it’s hard as hell to feel the blues”.  And I mean when he plays it just thumps your heart.

B: Anyone can play the same notes he’s playing, but it’s just the way he plays, and the way he phrases that really makes it for us.

Sweet.  So speak on your other influences, musically.  You guys cover Jimi Hendrix right?

B: Yea, we’re all into Hendrix.  He was big.  King of tone for sure.  There’s no denying he is a huge part of music today, in any style.  There’s no denying.

So with that said, what are the aims and messages in your own songs?

B: Well, it seems like a lot of music today just doesn’t have a lot of soul to it.  It seems like a lot of bands are saying, “Yea, we’re gonna get famous”.  And that’s all they want to do like there’s no message, no soul behind it.  We’re trying to bring that (soul) back.

J: They’re selling themselves and not trying to make good music.

K: It’s not all that bad.  There’s a lot of good bands but yea..

B: For the most part, a lot of it’s just commercial.  A lot of it’s just money.  It’s gotten to the point where everything’s commercial and we’re trying to bring back soul.  Like really listening to the music and getting something out of it.

Tell us about past gigs or future gigs that are coming up for you guys.

K: We’ve played the Yale.  It’s a blues club on Granville.

B: It’s pretty decently famous.

J: We’re actually doing that again soon, aren’t we?

K: Yea, we’re doing that in December.  Pretty soon.

B: Yea, we’re going to be going back there.

J: Then we’ve got a World Aids Benefit show coming up.

K: That’s actually going to be a big one.  It’s being broadcasted internationally.  That’s November 29th.

B: I don’t know the name of the venue but it’s 920 East Hastings Street.  We just got the information yesterday.

What’s the fan following like, have you seen it growing?

J: Yea it’s definitely growing.

K: Especially around where we live, there’s people, like random people in cars.  They’d be like, “Hey man, you guys sing the blues right?”.  And we’re just like, “Yea”.

B: At school, because I’m in the music program at school so all the other musicians are like, “Hey, I saw you at this gig or I saw you at that gig.” So I give them our myspace so they can check it out.

Yea, so how about the online presence, do you guys have a website?

B: We’ve just revamped our Myspace and we kind of focus on that a lot more now.  So, it’s starting to grow quite a bit like we’ve seen a big spike in views in the last couple days since we revamped it and started promoting it a lot more.

And lastly, what are your thoughts on putting out an album?  I know you told me that you guys are doing it up.

J: As soon as possible.

K: Yesterday we actually just cut the last two tracks for drums.  We still have a lot of work to do on it. But hopefully by Christmas we’ll have an album.  We’re going to get it pressed and replicated.

Are you guys on a label at all?

K: No.

J: Unfortunately.

B: No, we’re not on a label.  We’re doing this all ourself.

K: It’s all on our bill.

Independent, it’s good.

B: Yup, it’s the easiest way to keep it what we want it to be right.

What’s the title of the album?

K: We were actually just talking about it last night.  Maybe just do a title track.  One track we just wrote like a couple months ago that we just finished recording.  It’s called “Ready”.  So Delta Blue is ready.

J: Thought that would suit it pretty well.

B: We’re ready to take it to the next step right.

All: Haha!