There is a little band with a big name that is building a following in Prince Albert.
The Prince Albert Band, made of current and former students of Ecole St. Mary High School and Carlton Comprehensive High School, performed their Christmas Concert at the Mahon Auditorium at the John M. Cuelenaere Public Library on Saturday.
The band is made up of Theodore Enchanh on guitar and vocals, Tony Ross on drums, Kingston Walker on bass, Cobain Roos on trumpet and Chord Fehr on Bass Clarinet.
Enchanh said the band began in the St. Mary lunchroom. “I think Tony wanted to make music, because there was a period of time where he was just really, really into it,” Emchanh said.
Either Enchah or Ross suggested bringing Roos on board because he was always in the lunchroom when they were playing
“Then Kingston was the bass player, always at the lunchroom, so that became a natural thing,” Emchanh said. “I think that was the origin. Then I suggested to bring Chord in, the bass clarinet player.
“I knew him since I was a kid. I thought he was a good musician to add into a group.”
Enchanh, and Ross graduated from Ecole St. Mary, Fehr graduated from Carlton and Walker and Roos are still in Grade 12 at St. Mary.
“Kingston, the bass player, … I think it was like a year-end concert, I believe, he was like, ‘oh, you, me, and Cobain, we should make a jazz band,’” Ross said. “It was convenient he asked that because Theo and I were already contemplating on making a normal band. I guess he just came in at the right moment and it worked out.”
The name Prince Albert Band also came from Ross to play on people’s perceptions.
“I expected them to think that it was like a city band or something professional, so when they come in, we open playing like, we act normal, but then they listen to some really garbage music. It’s funny,” Ross said.
They said that the band is building some momentum and they were doing their second show for the Save the Seats at the Mahon Auditorium at the John M. Cuelenaere Public Library.
“I really care about the seats,” Ross said.
Enchanh said that the helping at the library was also inspired by family. Theo’s mother is Vieng Enchanh, the library’s coordinator of communications and marketing.
“It’s all my mom’s idea. She said, we could do gigs here and we could try to raise money for that too. (I’m) grateful to have my mom around,” he said.
Enchanh said they could be described as a ‘Jam Band’ because of their process to compose their original works.
“That’s how we basically write sounds. If someone does something cool on an instrument, we try to take it and make something out of it,” Enchanh explained.
Ross said the band members all like different kinds of music with Enchanh preferring the Beatles and Walker liking more modern music.
The music can feel like it is composed in a freestyle way.
“Still sometimes we feel like we’re not really following any track,” Enchanh said.
“That’s because we aren’t,” Ross added. “I feel like we’re going everywhere in places in our minds and whatnot in music.”
The show included some Christmas standards like “All I want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey and some of their original versions of other Christmas classics. They also played part of an original composition called ‘Christmassy’.
“It’s Christmassy because we have sleigh bells there, and Silent Night pops up somewhere,” Ross said.
The band said their future plans are to release an album at some point and see what happens.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
