Guitar riffs smacking of classic rock and vocals akin to Janis Joplin will ring out from the Riverfront Stage when Edmonton-based blues-rock group Unwed Mothers play the first night of the Magnificent Rivers Rats Festival June 30.
Unwed Mothers front-woman and lead vocalist Julie Adams said the group is excited for their upcoming gig in Athabasca.
Formed in the summer of 2012, the group is Adams on vocals, Michael James and Josh Eygenraam on guitar and Kurtis Schultz on drums. Despite the fact they attended MacEwan University’s Centre of the Arts around the same time, none of the members really got together at that time.
“We never really crossed paths at the time,” Adams said. It wasn’t until she returned with a few songs in her back pocket after four months of travelling in 2012 that she decided she wanted to make an album. That’s when Unwed Mothers came to be.
“It was kind of like a gradual process through recording … and after that starting to do live shows and becoming more permanent members … it kind of just fell into place,” Adams said.
The band’s self-titled album released in the spring of 2013 met with glowing reviews, and their music quickly entered the mix of tunes on college radio stations across Canada, reaching number one on CHRW in London, Ontario, and top 20 charts in many other cities. The band was also nominated for a pair of 2014 Edmonton Music Awards for People’s Choice and Rock Recording of the Year for their hit single, “Skeletons.”
“It was awesome. I didn’t really know what to expect putting it out there,” Adams said of the album’s quick success.
“It was a lot of work, but it definitely paid off. A lot of people that actually listened to it were really pleased with it and had a lot of good things to say, so it made a really big difference for us.
“It was pretty crazy, especially because everyone in the band has their own solo projects,” Adams said.
Whether that be another band or other recording work, the members of Unwed Mothers have their hands in a lot of different musical projects. It’s come to the point where people have been asking Adams why they haven’t conglomerated their efforts to form one “superband.”
“When you listen to the different projects, it’s such a definitive sound (in each) and everybody is so creative and has such a definitive idea of what they want to put out there musically … you can’t really blend it together,” Adams said.
“For me, it’s very inspirational … it really pushes us to push our boundaries and make different stuff,” she added.
It may not be a superband, but the group has come together, along with a few other musicians, to form the Ruffian Art Collective (weareruffian.com), through which they support one another’s work.
“It’s all of us working under Ruffian Art Collective and supporting each other’s stuff and trying to get it out there and let people hear it,” Adams explained.
Unwed Mothers is her baby, Adams said, and the main project she focuses on, but that doesn’t mean the whole group hasn’t embraced the success their first album brought them.
“We’re just like a little family now, and we all kind of support each other’s stuff and make sure that we’re always working around each other’s schedules and just encouraging each other to make good music and keep going.”
Unwed Mothers will hit the stage at 6 p.m. followed by Tupelo Honey and Big Sugar. Tickets for the two-day festival run for $30, or $15 for one day (July 1). Day passes are available at the gate.
