Sarah had the chance to catch up contemporary duo, Campbell + Green based out of Nova Scotia. They have an amazing spring ahead of them with a full-fleged tour of Europe to support their latest EP, “2 of Hearts.” They are also working towards getting some dates in the local music festival circuits around Atlantic Canada. Here is what they had to say.
SM: I read that you’ll be doing a huge tour of Europe in the Spring. Will this be the first tour of this kind for you?
C+G: No, this is our second, actually. We were there about a year and a half ago in the fall of 2015 that consisted of about 9 dates. It was more of an exploratory tour, whereas this time we’ll be there for about 6 weeks. We’re still trying to fill in some dates.
SM: Once the tour in Europe is finished, are you planning any local dates, particularly around summer festival season?
C+G: We’ve been applying. You know, it’s funny. As newcomers to Nova Scotia, I think it takes time to get people’s attention. We have some things potentially, but nothing confirmed as of yet. We hope to get into a few of them over the Maritimes. We’ve been doing the Tay Creek Festival up in New Brunswick for the last few years, which is a really cute festival. It probably only gets about 400-500 people every year, but it’s so much fun that we’ve done it a few years in a row and will probably go back because they’re such great people.. We’ve also been doing the Coal Shed Music Festival in Yarmouth as well. It’s a really interesting community festival and gets a lot of people.
SM: Are there any festivals that you’re aspiring to perform at that you have yet to do?
C+G: For 3.5 years since our first full-length album, we’ve had people approach us telling us we should playing StanFest, Deep Roots, etc. We keep applying, but haven’t got them just yet. We’d love to play all of them!
SM: So on the new EP, did you both write the songs yourselves, or did you collaborate?
C+G: Cailin wrote most of, “I Wanna Be Your Girl.” Cailin and I and a friend in BC, Ivan Boudreau wrote, “Don’t Take Your Troubles To The Grave,” and “Big Hearts and Small Towns,” which is strongly country I wrote with Lucy LeBlanc and Doug Folkins. They’re all co-written a bit and is something we do a lot of.
SM: Was the “Traditional/Folk” sound in your music what you always wanted to sound like?
C+G: Well, it’s funny you mention that because we both came from so many different backgrounds with myself (Cailin) coming from a musical theater background, and Robert coming from a strong country background as well as rock. A big part of our sounds is in part because of the people that we write with as well. I think as we go through our writing, we tend to go through a lot of different styles. Some of it might get a little more pop or country oriented as a result of my style, whereas Cailin has more of a Conteporary sounds. It’s really hard to put a lable on us.
SM: After Europe, will you be doing more song writing?
C+G: I was was actually working on a co-write today. We came up with the bones for another song. We’re always writing, really. Before we go, we have a few dates in New Brunswick. We don’t play a lot of local shows because it’s hard to find them. We will be playing Road to Stanfest after we return from Germany. We’re also working with VIA Rail at the moment to discuss playing “Music on the Train.” We’ll be playing from Montreal to Toronto and back and in between, we’ll play a few shows in the Montreal/Toronto circuit.
Author: Sarah MacDonald
Sarah@www.thedailymusician.ca
