It was at a Calgary Folk Club gig that Darryl Wernham first approached the Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra. He’d seen the guys’ stage show, and was convinced they were perfect for teaching a songwriting workshop to youth at risk.
They had no real experience doing anything like that, but they agreed anyway. With no action plan, they put together a workshop based around the interests of the kids, and it turned out beautifully.
“If we had had preconceived notions it probably wouldn’t have worked as well as it did work,” mused the band’s accordion player Ian Griffiths in an interview May 26.
That was in 2011, and since then the band has continued working with youth at risk, each year putting on songwriting workshops for the Legacy Children’s Foundation, an experience Ian Griffiths said is incredibly rewarding.
“I really love doing workshops—it’s such a boost. When we do a three-day workshop for kids at risk, we come out feeling high,” Griffiths said.
Something about seeing young people come together and create music, share with one another and gain confidence as songwriters is almost magical, he said.
“The number one spiritual job I do is making music as much as I can,” and getting to pass that along to youth is incredibly rewarding, said Griffith.
And something about the guys individually, or the band as a whole, makes them really good at it. Maybe it’s because the original members were once all camp counsellors, or maybe it’s because their music has a “broad, cross generational appeal.”
Griffiths said one of his buddies once described the band as “good looking white guys playing non-threatening music.” Whatever the magic is, the band has continued to receive requests to host workshops, which Griffiths loves, because he said it makes them a much better band.
“The better we get at workshops, the better we get at facilitating each other’s creativity. It makes the overall group better. Why we’re good at facilitating workshops with people is because we’ve been in interpersonal creative boot camp with each other for coming up on seven years,” Griffiths said.
That boot camp usually takes the form of a four-month tour—with the whole band crammed into a bus as they zoom across the country.
“You’re living with six people in a one-bedroom apartment with wheels, it’s like being in a freaking submarine. It’s insane.”
About a week ago the guys started that trip once again, embarking on a tour that will bring them right across Canada, with a pit stop in Jasper in early June.
June 3, in cooperation with Jasper Community Habitat for the Arts, the guys will be in town putting on a songwriting workshop, open to anyone 12 years or older.
The next day they will take to the stage at the Jasper Legion for a show, giving the audience a taste of some tracks from their newest, soon-to-be-released record.
“It’s going to be a great time,” Griffiths said.
Trevor Nichols
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