Manitock, Ontario based rock band Hollerado are excited to play a last minute show at the Slice on Friday, June 16.
“ We‘ve been touring non-stop since November. We’ve toured U.S., Canada, 11 countries in Europe and Russia for the first time,” observed frontman Menno Versteeg, proudly stating the band learned how to say “I lost my penis” in Russian from their two new Russian road managers.
“We were bored and wanted to learn Russian. That’s where we met them, in Russia. We keep adding to our motley touring crew,” Versteeg chuckled.
“We were there for four or five days. We opened for Sum-41 for 7,000 or so people and had our own show the next day which was sold out with 100 or so,” she said.
Versteeg and band mates guitarist Nixon Boyd, drummer Jake Boyd and bassist Dean Baxter are touring ins support of their new CD “Born Yesterday” which was released in April and the hit single of the same name.
“It got up to number two. We’re still looking for that number one, but we’ll take number two,” he said, observing the next single “I Got You” has just been released and serviced to radio.
In between non stop touring and learning unusual phrases in Russian, they have also found time to battle various Internet trolls coming out of the woodwork to complain about their song “Grief Money” and video, featuring Donald Trump.
“The song and video are pretty self explanatory about what we think of what is happening down there. But most of the problem is with Internet trolls. One guy who is apparently a promoter in Toronto. We looked through his Twitter and he has been basically going through musicians’ accounts who talk about politics and basically telling them to shut up and sing. He even went after Jann Arden, who is a Canadian icon and a sweet person and very well spoken about politics. So we sent him a message asking him why he would do such a thing and shared it with all of our musician friends. It exploded, so I guess we got control of our own little corner of the internet,” said Versteeg, who would rather get excited about “Born Yesterday.”
“We think it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. We all have our favourite songs on the album. But everybody liked “Born Yesterday’ as the first single because it is so high energy and we really wanted something high energy. We also like ‘I Got You.’ And a lot of people are really digging ‘Eloise,’ which is definitely in contention for the next single,” he said.
They are planning on taking a quick staycation in July before hitting the road again in August.
“We’re actually taking some time in July to just hang out and visit with our families. We’ll probably also hang out with each other, but we haven’t booked any shows or rehearsals,” he said, adding they have several festivals booked for August.
They are excited to return to Lethbridge, last June, where they tested out some of the new material they were planning on putting on the album.
“This is a last minute show. We have a lot of long drives and we were going to take a day off. The next show is in Regina but we decided, what the hell, let’s play Lethbridge. The Slice was the only place available. We played there years ago and we loved the pizza. It’s a smaller venue, but why not. We always have a great experience in Lethbridge,” he said.
“There’s this great store across from the park which sells all of this weird, great old discontinued clothing from like 1987. So we‘re looking forward to going there and getting some great, weird old discontinued jackets.”
Joining Hollerado will be Everett Bird and Little Junior, a hot new pop punk band who toured with Hollerado the last time they were in Lethbridge.
“Show up early and catch Little Junior. They just signed a record deal and will be the next big thing coming out of Canada,” Versteeg advised.
The show begins at 9 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance $20 at the door.
