Whitehorse has become even more of a family affair.
Husband and wife multi-instrumental duo Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland merged their successful solo careers a couple years ago and have been enjoying increasingly successful tours ever since.
The Hamilton based musicians recently returned from an American tour in support of their most recent CD “ Leave No Bridge Unburned” and will be stopping by the University Of Lethbridge Theatre, April 18 to play an alm
ost sold out show for the Geomatic Attic.
“ Don’t worry if you hear a small child crying, it’s our eight month old son Jimmy,” advised Luke Doucet, disembarking from a ferry from Vancouver in Victoria, where they are beginning the Canadian leg of the current tour.
“We actually have two children on the tour. My 18-year-old daughter Chloe is babysitting for Jimmy,” he said adding bringing the family along has added a few more logistical challenges.
“ We don’t have any drives longer than four hours, so we’re actually playing more dates on this tour,” he said.
“ It’s gone great actually,” he said adding they couldn’t have done this tour or the Whitehorse project without the assistance and guidance of their record label Six Shooter Records.
“ We both had successful solo careers, so we didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t want to start from square one again. I don’t know what people expected. i think we sound better together. I know I sound better with Melissa, though some people might say Melissa sounds a lot better without that guy,” he chuckled.
The duo play a variety of different instruments on stage, loop different riffs and sounds.
He said the American tour was successful, though they were playing smaller rooms than in Canada. So because they are becoming more popular at home and playing more theatres, they are expanding their stage show.
“ We didn't even have a full drum kit in the U.S. For the Canadian tour we will. In the U.S. we were playing smaller clubs, but in Canada we’re playing places like Massey Hall in Toronto which has 5,000 seats. So we need to do things a little differently.
“ It’s easier to tour in Canada in a lot of ways. We get a lot of support from CBC and FACTOR and Canadian content regulations. in the U.S. It’s a little bit like the wild west,” he said.
He noted the new CD has received a lot of radio support from the CBC as well as university and college radio stations and stations like CKUA. “Baby What’s Wrong” hit CBC Radio 2’s Top 20 list and the first single “Downtown” made it into the Top 5 on some commercial radio stations.
“It wasn’t expected. We put a lot of work into the album. We hired a producer for it. I don’t keep track of the figures. But it just means we can play more shows and make another record,” he continued adding that won’t be for a while.
“ We’ve been able to make some progress with this album,” he said
Noah Gunderson will be opening the Lethbridge show as well as all of the duo’s prairie dates.
The show begins at 8 p.m.Tickets cost $30.
