Song: “Untold” from EP Hush Hush. Written by David Taggart and The Strain. Performed by The Strain.
Born out of the covered-bridge fabled town of Wakefield early last year, The Strain may be one of the newest bands to be featured in this year’s Bluesfest lineup. Citing Phoenix and The Arcade fire as influences, the band’s groove electro-pop tones have been heating up community radio across the country. As well as their recent success, the band share’s quite a bit of genetic material: brother and sister David and Rylee Taggart are joined by their cousin Alex Serre and friend of the family Nick Johnston. Currently supporting their new EP Hush Hush, the band has been touring the festival scene this year. Featured in Canadian Music Week, Junofest and NXNE, this young band’s next stop is Bluesfest.
David Taggart answered our questions—according to him—while waiting tables.
How would you describe your sound?
Our band’s sound to us is Electro pop alternative. It’s a very vague genre but we tend to mix things up.
How did the group start?
Our band started January 2011 in Wakefield, Québec sort of by accident.
Alex (my cousin and drummer) started recording this new project at Studio 169 in Orleans.
He and I recorded our first EP Three Sheets to the Wind just the two of us playing all the instruments and implementing synthesizers (which we had never touched).
When we finished the EP we were both excited and scared because we didn’t have the other two imaginary musicians to play with live.
I went home and asked my sister Rylee Taggart, if she would want to play synth in our band. She was hesitant because she never played an instrument in her life. (She was a volleyball player). But I bought her a synth and we took it from there.
The same with our bass player Nick Johnston: he had never played bass. I called him up and said “Hey, want to be a bass player?” His answer was, “Hey… uhhh sure.”
We quickly started to practice and the chemistry is getting better every day.
What can we expect from your Bluesfest performance?
Our Bluesfest performance is going to be our biggest show yet. We tried to make the set as high energy as possible.
We will be playing songs from both Three Sheets to the Wind and our latest release Hush Hush.
We are excited to be a part of such a great festival filled with great acts!
How do you take your coffee?
Double Double for life.
The Strain plays the River Stage at 7:00pm Thursday July 5.
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