Calgary surf -rock band the 427s are riding the wave of a resurgence in surf music.
They play the Slice, April 10 with Lethbridge surf rock band the Atomicos.
“ We’re pretty excited about it. It will be our first time here,” said one of the 427s’ guitarists Rob Day, who was inspired while growing up in the ’90s by Shadowy Men From a Shadowy Planet and Calgary surf/ spaghetti western band Huevos Rancheros to form his own surf band.
“So what happened is I placed an ad on Kijiji about forming a surf rock band and saw another ad from Chris van Keir (the band’s other guitarist) who wanted to do the same thing. And I knew a drummer (Geoff May) and he knew a bass player (Andrew Nagura), so we formed the band ,” he said.
The band formed in 2013 and released their debut EP “ Surf Noir” last year.
“ It’s a style of music I’ve always loved,” he said adding surf music incorporates a variety of music from punk to spaghetti western, rockabilly and hot rod music to straight ahead surf music.
“ We released the EP last year. It’s done well,” he said.
“ We’ve had some good reports about it,” he said adding they are working on the follow-up.
“ It’s been really time consuming,” he said adding the new CD will be pretty much straight ahead instrumental surf-rock.
He noted they play music festivals like the Beaumon Blues and Roots Festivals in June and a lot of opening sets for different bands.
“ We’ll play for a half hour or 45 minutes. After that most people want to hear some vocals,” he observed
He noted there are several Calgary bands playing surf music.
“ There’s a lot of surf music. More people are interested in it,” he said pointing out bands like Martian Time Slip as an example, which features Erin Ross and Eve Hell from Eve Hell and the Razors who will be playing bass with the 427s in Lethbridge.
“Our bass player is overseas so she’s been filling in,” he said.
“ We’re really excited to have her,” he said.
