Since forming in the fall of 2013, Vancouver-based indie folk/blues band The Wooden Horsemen have gone through quite a transformation.
For one thing, the horsemen used to be just one horseman.
“Our first album was really a solo project,” said Steven Beddall, singer and guitarist. “That’s why that album is called Wooden Horseman.”
Beddall had been playing and collaborating with other Vancouver acts at the time and met other players who he recruited to work on a small collection of songs he had been writing.
Things worked out so well, the singer/songwriter decided to keep going with the new members and pluralize the name of the band before heading out on a cross-country tour of the album.
“For the spring 2014 tour we performed as a trio, because we were limited to how many members we could take on the tour,” said Beddall. “So it was me, Alex (Hauka) on bass and Missy (Cross).”
The tour featured the trio playing small house sets and one-off gigs in bars and pubs.
“It was great,” he said. “But when we got back, we thought it would be really cool to have an actual drummer with the band.”
After a drummer came a new trumpet player, then a second guitarist, and now the Wooden Horsemen is a full seven-piece outfit.
The group is even working on a brand new album to showcase the fuller sound.
“This is really going to be the band’s first album,” said Beddall. “It will be a totally different sound, too. The first album was very folk-y, acoustic and really mellow. But collaborating with a full band has made the new songs more upbeat, and there is definitely a Latin influence. The vocals are the same though, so it is a continuation of the first album. It has a different vibe for sure, but it isn’t so black and white that you won’t know it is the same band.”
Although the second offering won’t be finished until this spring, Beddall said the band plans to play some of the new material on Saturday (Jan. 24) when The Wooden Horsemen play the Howe Sound Brew Pub at 10 p.m.
“We will definitely play songs from the old album as well as some of the new material,” he said. “We will also be doing some traditionals – like some old civil war tunes – and also some covers.”
The show will also feature the original pared-down version of the band.
“For this show it is just going to be the trio of me, Missy and Alex,” said Beddall. “We’ve been to Squamish a few times, and the audiences seem to really like the more acoustic line-up.”
Catch The Wooden Horsemen at the brew pub on Saturday. There’s no cover charge.For more on the band, go to woodenhorsemen.com.
