The Okanagan Tattoo Show is just a few short weeks away and while the main draw is, of course, the tattoos, a large portion of attendees are looking forward to three nights of live music.
In addition to the nearly 200 tattoo artists from across North America and even China that are set to attend, each day of the event will highlight the talents of Okanagan bred bands and wicked acts from the United States.
Keeping with the idea of bringing people with niche interests together, each day of the music festival will be dedicated to a different sub-genre of rock. Friday will focus on all things punk, Saturday is for stoner and psych rock, and Sunday will lean more toward modern alt-rock.
Bolstering an already stacked line up that features California punk band Bad Cop Bad Cop and Vancouver’s Black Wizard are Memphis, Tennessee psych rockers —The Heavy Eyes.
While the band has been creating music and touring since 2010, the Okanagan Tattoo Show will mark their live Canadian debut, a milestone they are eager to hit.
“We are so excited! Some of us have never been to Canada or haven’t seen much of Western Canada and we hear you have a pretty good wine country which sounds like our kind of place,” said vocalist and guitarist Tripp Shumake.
Born out of a combined love for 70s hard rock and modern alternative rock, Shumake says the band’s choice to take the tuned down the route of psych was a “happy accident.”
“Our bass player is really into old 70s rock and Eric our drummer is more into modern music but one of the commonalities were the heavier bands like Black Sabbath and The Sword — it is where all of our Venn-diagrams overlapped,” said Shumake.
Though psychedelic music has been around for decades, the genre and its various evolutions has not always been as embraced as it is today — something Shumake partly attributes to the recent legalization of cannabis.
“It is kind of funny, the blues is whisky, country is beer and this is kind of an offshoot of cannabis and with it becoming more legalized it is becoming less of a faux pas to have stoner bands and music,”
With nearly a decade in the scene under their belts, The Heavy Eyes have been riding alongside their genre’s progression, seeing it blossom and garnering impressive opportunities along the way.
“When we started out I feel like a lot of the folks who were initially interested in it were over in Europe and just within the last three years or so we have seen a lot more interest in the states, so it is kind of cool to see that progression,” said drummer Eric Garcia.
“It is music we obviously love, so it’s popularity has definitely opened up some opportunities for us, we have gotten to play with some killer bands and meet some of the people we have looked up to — It has been awesome to see more people embrace the psych and heavy blues rock scene,” added Shumake.
According to Shumake, one of the contributing factors to their genre’s progression is the bridge it creates over the gap between the metal and alternative music fan base.
“In the alternative and metal scene people have a lot of bands that they love from those different sub-genres, but there is not a lot of overlap between bands like Kyuss and Metallica and bands like The Raconteurs and The Black Keys — so those two scenes are slowly starting to melt together and the combinations that are coming out of it are just fascinating,” he said.
Keeping time with the slow shifts in their genre of choice, Shumake and Garcia say their music is also changing — pushing the boundaries of psych as they know it with each new release.
“It has been cool to see the progression of our music,” said Garcia.
“If you look at our discography, the first album we came out with was definitely more stoner rock, much heavier and then the next one was definitely a similar vibe but after that we definitely pushed the envelope a little bit, we tried to add some newer sounds, do things a little differently — and I really think that is what we are trying to do again with our latest,” he added.
With the hope of releasing their latest album in the fall, The Heavy Eyes have been hard at work in the studio to push themselves creatively to keep up the number of great acts putting out stellar music today.
“We always kind of push ourselves to do something a little different with our new stuff, there are always going to be songs that sound like The Heavy Eyes, but part of the fun of before we start making it is finding influence in the music that we like that you would not expect a band like us to like,” said Shumake.
“We like to see what bands are pushing the bar a little bit farther and think about what we can do to compete — we show each other music that is not necessarily in the psych rock scene but things we can borrow elements from.”
Not only do The Heavy Eyes use their competition as fuel when it comes to creating in the studio, but it is a fierce motivator when it comes to their energy-driven live performances, an aspect the band holds in the highest regard by virtue of their Memphis roots.
“For better or worse, we have come up in the Memphis music scene and it is really hard to not be a good live band if you’re from Memphis,” said Shumake. “The competition is just so stiff here, you really have to learn how to perform to the utmost of your ability and you have to do it every time you go out there or else these other bands just crush you.”
“Your reputation being a band from here almost proceeds you when you go somewhere because people trust that there is such good music coming out of Memphis and trust that you’re going to bring it — it is awesome to have that expectation but it also can be daunting,” he added.
Shumake says fans can expect all of the energy, hype and groove of a psych show with the proficiency and polished nature of seasoned Memphis musicians — and perhaps a broken drum head or two.
“We bring that Memphis mentality with us when we go to play, we don’t really have a 50% speed, we kind of just go all out every time we get on stage,” he said.
“I walk the s**t out of my drums, so much to the point that I’ve broken a few heads and have walked away bruised — but that is all part of the performance and the energy we all bring,” added Garcia.
You can bang your head to the tuned down, fuzz-stricken sounds of The Heavy Eyes along with 15 other incredible bands in just two short weeks as the Okanagan Tattoo Show is scheduled to conquer the Kelowna Curling Club from July 19 to 21.
Tickets for the event are available online now with weekend passes available for $84.99 or single day tickets up for $29.99! We will see you there.
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