Then to Now: Yukon Blonde & ‘Tiger Talk’

Yukon Blonde is not a manufactured band, instead the Polaris long listed rockers quietly beam their own west-coast charm and supply an assortment of crush-heavy guitar work.

The band exudes a Kings of Leon style through their togetherness (brothers can be friends and friends can be brothers) as well as through a new sense of confidence that seemingly came with switching off naivety and playing the music their way.

'Tiger Talk' album cover

Tiger Talk strays from much of the work seen on previous records and that’s something both Brandon Scott (guitar/vocals) and Jeff Innes (vocals, primary songwriter, guitar) are pleased about.

“Before we were trying to fit into a ‘scene’ it felt like. Canada has a lot of different music ‘scenes’ and it’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but I think we had a hard time with that. For Tiger Talk we wanted to do whatever we felt like and then we received great feedback and people have genuinely liked the record and it’s not people who are strictly alternative, or metal for example; we’re really carving out our own music,”explains Innes.

Since their debut EP, Everything in Everyway the band has regrouped, released their full length Fire // Water EP last Fall and perhaps more so have noticed the industry politics that are embedded within the music. They also learned what playing a 62-date North American tour feels like.

“From then until now we’ve learned so much. Now we know what we have to do – but before we had no idea, we basically had to ditch all of our music and restart the band, but since then we have gotten a lot better and knowing how things work. It’s so much different than what I thought it would be then. I remember hearing how well “Clap Your Hands Say Yeah” did independently and said ‘ya we’re a good band we’ll be ok’,” Innes furthers.

So it really is about choices. And having bucket lists.

“Our first main hurdle was getting past Regina, we had never gotten further, so once we did that the next was putting out a successful second record, ” explains Scott.

The punchy rock songs on Tiger Talk take shape with repetition and harmonic textures, making for a body of rock- crusted spillage that needs no cleanup. Like Kings of Leon, YB have a tremendous fixation on soaring vocals budding with cinematic guitar shreds. While some bands find their spot in the hyperbole of conundrums that is the indie music scene, some create their own glory road and Yukon Blonde seem to have begun paving with no plans on surrendering or fizzling anytime soon.

“It feels like we’re coming into adulthood a bit and I wouldn’t mind making a record to reflect that move, like working with the Wooden Sky would be cool, they’re some of our best friends too, but also it would be cool to make an electronic record as that was the stuff I did before this band was formed, ” Innes says.

So is it really ever enough?