L.A. Beat

Red Deer based country trio Boots and the Hoots re enjoying exploring the funny side of life.

They play  the Windy City Opry , Wednesday, Feb. 8 at the slice. Organizer Shaela Miller borrowed the idea of the windy City Opry, from Boots and the Hoots who host their own Opry in Red Deer.

“ I think it’s wonderful. When she asked me if I ’d be offended if she started an Opry in Lethbridge, I had to laugh because when I started the Opry in Red Deer, I’d envisioned a series of Oprys all over the country so country musicians like myself would have a circuit we could play by playing each other’s Oprys. Now there are Oprys in Ontario and one in Vancouver which I don’t have anything to do with. But it‘s becoming a thing,” said Boots Graham, frontman of Boots and the Hoots, who is accompanied by Hoots upright bassist Sean V (Vandenbrink ) and banjo/guitarist/mandolinist Tyler Allen, who he has been playing with since 2013.

“They were in a bluegrass band that asked me to open for me and one day they decided to jump up on stage with me and they played with me all night,” he said.

He is always excited to share his songs, which are ripe with his sense of humour.
“If Shaela Miller is the sad kind of country, we  are the direct opposite. We’re the humourous kind of country like Roger Miller,” he said.

“I used to play the sad kind of country for about five years and did pretty well at it. I got great response. But it rally not me. I have a great life,” he said, noting he always added a few humourous songs into his sets of  sad country, which also got  great response.
“It‘s more natural for me. It’s pretty much 100 per cent true stories and 100 per cent self-deprecating.”

Boots and the Hoots have released two CDs — “ Too Hot To hoot ” in 2015 and “Pinecone Cowboy” in 2013.

“ People really like ‘Whisk All the Drinky,” he said, noting he enjoyed  turning around and reversing a variety of  country music cliches including the dog running away, the wife leaving and truck breaking down.
“ It flips all of them around,” he said, adding it is his favourite song as well.

“ I remember we played Regina for the first time and a couple of people were singing along with all the words to it. I have no idea how they found out about it. It turned out a mutual friend passed the CD ion to them

He is working on a new CD.
“I probably I have enough songs for two new CDs. I’ll go through them in the summer. So we’ll probably play 30 per cent new material,” he said.

They play Lethbridge a lot.
“ It is part of the circuit. And we all love playing Lethbridge. Lethbridge has some of the best bands in Alberta,” he enthused.

The Danny Dyck Trio, a trimmed down Treeline, are also on the bill. The show begins  at 8 p.m. sharp. Admission is $10.