Five Alarm Funk is ready to bring the funk to Lethbridge, Nov. 23.
They are doing great having just taken home a Western Canadian Music Award for best instrumental album for their third CD “Anything is Possible.”
“We’re breaking in a new trumpet player now, ” said saxophonist Dameian Walsh over a fading cell phone line somewhere on the road to Jasper in the midst of another western Canadian tour.
They weren’t expecting to win a Western Canadian Award.
“It’s great to be recognized. It was a complete surprise. We were at a party at a friend’s house when we found out,” he said.
“It’s the first award that we’ve won,” he said.
They are working on new material which they hope to release next year, ideally in Spring 2012.
“The new stuff is still the afrobeat music we started playing, but it has stretched out in a lot of different directions,” he described.
“There’s rock, there’s punk, there’s classical music, there’s gypsy music. It’s a great example of what we’re doing now,” he said.
What they’re doing now is endless touring. They toured out to Nova Scotia and back in April, but lately have been staying pretty close to their Vancouver base.
In addition to their music, they put a lot of work into their live show, incorporating a variety of props and costumes. “Anything is possible” in their live show, so to speak. Last time they were here, they re-enacted King Kong’s Empire State building attack.
“ Our album Anything is Possible has a picture of King Kong attacking a shark on the cover. We actually had a shark costume too,” he noted.
“We like to create a multi-sensory, multi-visual experience. We have a lot of different stuff going on for people to enjoy,” he said.
One thing the band is going to enjoy is the Slice’s new Five Alarm Funk pizza featuring tapas, spicy sausage, banana peppers, basil, green onions and a lot of other things.
“We’re just looking forward to being back at the Slice for that great food. The coolest thing is when I told Tyler (Freed, co-owner) how much I liked fresh basil, he said ‘There’s something you have to see,’ and he took me into the kitchen and showed me this hydroponic basil farm he has growing right there,” he enthused.
Tickets for the Nov. 23 show cost $25. The show is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m.
