by Craig Gilbert | [email protected]
Tomorrow is the night that the next highly anticipated show from Via and the Derailleurs, Sylvia Lariviere, Brian Lackey, Greg Deagle and Grant Carson. Dec. 15 at the Olive Bistro, 8 p.m.
Sylvia: We’ve known each other for awhile. We’re mostly just friends that came together with music as something to do on the weekends. We’ve been doing it for four years just for fun. Friends and come and gone to the Saturday night thing but Greg, Brian and I have been the core trio for awhile. Just recently we asked Grant to join us.
Brian: He’s such a great player and he just adds so much.
CG: Why the Olive now, then?
Sylvia: Brian’s active on the arts scene with Habitat for the Arts. We’ve had a couple of gigs, we played the Diversity Project there a couple of years ago. More recently we were asked to play the Wild West Poetry Festival, and locals have been asking us, ‘when are you going come play out next?’ There’s been interest. When we play just for us, it was just for fun in the living room, but now we’re getting to the point where we’re like ‘why not show off what we’ve been working on?’ Darryl at the Olive was all about it.
Brian: The type of music we play is an eclectic mix of jazz and blues and some folkier things. If we had a chance we’d probably play at the Legion but I think some of what we do might get lost in a venue like that.
CG: It was described to me as a good listener’s venue as opposed to going out for a beer and hey there’s music, too.
Sylvia: We’re not exactly a rippin’ party band. I mostly sing but these musicians are all about polish and finesse and that really shows in our sound. I think that’s why we’re more of a listening band. We pick songs that are true to us; for me I always go for lyrics, Brian goes for a little bit of both.
Brian: We’re not playing a lot of original material. Sylvia has some original stuff we’ll be doing. I think by and large people won’t know a lot of the things we’ll be playing. There’s a lot of music that happens in town and we get a lot of influence from going to see shows and buying CDs from them. Some of these artists have gone on to win Junos. We’re not going to play Hotel California or Stairway to Heaven, that’s for sure.
Sylvia: We do have some recognizable songs but we also play songs by artists that we feel should be better known. We kind of have a mix of hits and B-sides. A couple of people have asked me when our CD is coming out. When we write some songs!
