FEATURED ARTIST OF THE WEEK: WONDERS OF THE YUKON

Hi! Everyone,
This weeks FEATURED ARTIST OF THE WEEK is Yorkshire's country soul band WONDERS OF YUKON 

Photo Credit: Kerry Harrison 

1.Please introduce yourself

Hi, we are Dave & Andy from Wonders of the Yukon.  We're based in lovely West Yorkshire (God's own county of course)!  Lovely to meet you.

2. How did you get into music?

We're actually pretty long in the tooth.  We've both in signed-bands before (under the names 'Hipkiss' and 'Salako') releasing records such as 'Bluebird' (Hipkiss) and 'Re-inventing Punctuation' (Salako). Andy - I remember playing my dad's Elvis, Beatles and Gene Vincent albums on his old Dansette record player.  Dave - apparently I scratched my dad's brand new copy of Rumours by Fleetwood Mac when I was about 2 but I don't really remember this!  Both - I guess this led onto everything from punk to funk to country-soul.  And maybe all this accounts for our Songs of Mild Peril series, written from the comfort and terror of mid-life.  

3. What instruments do you play?

Anything with strings on it that requires an amplifier.  Oh and a bit of keyboard and of course vocals.  The vocal side of stuff is pretty new to us as, beyond the odd backing vocal we've always been guitarists in previous bands.  It's taken us a while to find our voices but now the blend of our voices together is the key to our sound.

4. Who are your influences?

Wow!  We're do we start.  Here's a 'top of the head' list which is by no means exhaustive: Neil Young, Brian Eno, Jo Nesbo, Iggy & Bowie, Jonny Cash, The Wire, Chic, Wilco, Eels, Lizzo, Nick Cave, Lee Perry, ornithology, John Spencer Blues Explosion, Billie Holliday, Gabor Mate, Breaking Bad, Parquet Courts, Malojian, Scandi-Noir, AA Bondy, Eddie Cochran, BC Camplight...

5. Tell us about your latest release

2019 is a big year for us as we've set ourselves the task of releasing a song a month across the year.  Our latest release, Molecules of Love came out on 31st March and aims to shine a light on the subject of drug addiction.  You can find an in-depth 'behind the lyrics' story on our Bandcamp page (https://wondersoftheyukon.bandcamp.com/track/molecules-of-love).  The sound is more 'jaunty' than you may imagine from the subject matter - it's a clash of analogue synths, West Coast harmonies and good old rock n' roll.  Or, in the words of. good friend of ours, 'a Daft Punk country bluegrass vibe'.

6. Whats your songwriting process? 

Get depressed.  Get drunk.  Open your mind and mouth and let it flow.  Or in a less pretentious way, we sit down with a couple of guitars, a couple of bottles of wine, rip each other's ideas to shreds and come up with a compromise that we both pretend to be happy with but then go home and bitch to our wives.

7. Which musician/ artist would you most like to collaborate with & why?

Bowie.  Do we need to explain why?

8. If you were on a desert island what 3 musical gear would you take? 

Andy - my Supro Hampton electric guitar, my amps, my pedal board.

Dave - my Fender Paramount acoustic, a set of drums (as I've always wanted to learn to play) and a set of pan-pipes to irritate the hell out of Andy.

9. Where can fans find your music (links etc)?

The best place is Bandcamp (https://wondersoftheyukon.bandcamp.com) but you can also find us on Spotify, Apple Music, You Tube and all the usual music platforms.  Also check out our Instagram (@wonders_yukon), Twitter (@wonders_yukon) and Facebook (@wondersoftheyukon) pages.

I would like to say a huge thank you to WONDERS OF YUKON for taking part in this weeks 'Featured Artist of The Week' 😀😀

Until next time

Law