My 15 Minutes With... The Creekside Strays poised to release new CD

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It's been a little over a month since I last talked to the guys of The Creekside Strays — James Vinyard, guitarist and vocalist; Nic Cavaliere, bassist; and Justin Shorey, drummer. Since then, they have been playing shows around town while also working hard at putting together their new album. I got the chance to catch up with Shorey about three weeks ago to follow up on what's new with the band and how things are going with the new EP.

Can you tell me what you guys have been up to since we last spoke?
“We have been playing a bunch of shows — almost twice a week between London and Toronto. We have played at places like The Horseshoe, The Silver Dollar. Then over the last two or three months we have been going in on Sundays to record our new EP, which we are calling Honour Amongst Thieves. We have been doing all of the recording and now we are just in the process of making all of the adjustments to our master tracks and also putting the final touches the artwork so we can have that all together for May 4, which is the CD release party at APK.”

Is there going to be more than one show for your CD release party?
“We have a bunch of shows planned. We are doing the CD release here in London and we are also looking to do some other shows around southern Ontario, like something in Windsor and even maybe do something in Toronto as well. We also have a bunch of gigs booked in the summer for London Ribfest.”

What kind of response are you hoping to generate with this CD?
“It's kind of two- or threefold. Firstly it's kind of hard to show what your sound is with three- or four-song EPs. With our catalogue of songs, you can pick out four rocker songs and a person will go, ‘Oh, these guys are a rock band.' But also in some of our other songs we get into some jazz, funk, maybe even a little bit of soul here and there, so we are just building on the EP we released last year. It has elements of jazz and funk and also has more drum and bass with rock, of course. We also have a song on the EP which is a mash-up of everything I just said.”

For more information and for tickets to their CD release show at APK on May 4, check out their website at thecreeksidestrays.com.