Derina Harvey band to bring the party and new music back to Lethbridge

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Edmonton based Celtic rock band the Derina Harvey band make their annual pilgrimage to Lethbridge, Friday, Feb. 15, when they return to the Slice.The Derina Harvey band return to the Slice this week Photo Submitted
 They are getting ready to record a new Cd and have released two songs, “Up All Night ” and the more serious “ The Fallen Man’s Daughter,” which they entered in the CBC Searchlight competition.


“We‘re in Edmonton and getting ready to go up to Fort McMurray,” said Derina Harvey.
“It’s -26 and -28 and they have a few degrees on us there. I think they make snow and ice there,” she chuckled.
“ We have a lot of coast fans there but we‘ve been playing  there for 10 years, so we have a lot of Albertan fans there too. We try to get to Lethbridge once a year too,” she added.


 She noted “ Fallen Man’s Daughter” isn’t a true story.
“It’s about caregivers which can be family and friends,” she said.
“ Our bass player Ed Smith’s uncle was  a fisherman who was lost at sea. But the song isn’t telling his story, it is inspired by it. He was a fisherman and when the season was over, he’d work in the mines. And when that closed  he went back  to fishing and was lost at sea and came to untimely end  which happens a lot more often than it should,” she said.


“ We worked on the song for  a few years because we really wanted to be really sensitive about the subject,” she said.
“ But it’s about caregivers who are affected. My dad was a heavy machine operator in the mines and when they closed, he found another job because he had to. Because  in addition to being a heavy machine operator, he is also a father and a father’s job is to support his family,” she continued.


The song has resonated with listeners after plays on CKUA And CBC and a moving video, which got 100,000 views in a week it was released, Oct. 19.
“ We started getting messages and letters from people asking us ‘how did you know my story.’ Which meant a lot but it was also a little awkward,” she said, adding before that they releases another single at the beginning of summer.
“‘Up All Night’ is a lot more happy,” she laughed.
“ But we decided to enter ‘Fallen Man’s Daughter,” in the CBC Searchlight competition. The CBC Searchlight  competition has helped a lot of bands elevate to the next level,” she said.

The Derina Harvey band also includes Steve Pinsent, guitarist Scott Greene and relatively new fiddle player Jessica Blenis.

“She’s really really talented. She not only plays fiddle, but she is a great singer. She’s a delight. She adds that fourth harmony vocal. Scott, our guitar player also plays banjo. Actually it’s a six string  banjo. So we’ve added that sound,” she said, adding  the Lethbridge audience can expect to hear the two new singles, some of their popular covers  like “Last Saskatchewan Pirate,“ and “ Galway Girl.”
“ We‘re also playing some songs we haven’t recorded yet. So we‘ll have those and the classics,” she continued.
 They have been touring a lot in the past year.

 

“We‘ve been touring in the united States. We went to Alaska for the first time in December right after that earthquake. Fortunately nobody died in it. But we got woken up by a 4.7 aftershock,” she said.


“ We even went to the North Pole. They have a little town there. it‘s christmas all year round there,” she chuckled.
 More information about the Derina Harvey  Band and a link to vote for the CBC Searchlight competition is at www.derinaharveyband.com.
The Derina Harvey band play the Slice, Friday, Feb. 15. Admission is $10.

— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 February 2019 10:23 )