Dusty Tucker – Conceptual Party

Red Deer’s Dusty Tucker has to be one of Canada’s most high-intensity acts to see live. This is not only due to each member giving it their all on stage, but the crowd losing it’s collective minds for an hour. One Edmonton show—during the beginnings of the band—lead singer Travis James’ mic unplugged as he was crowd surfing and fans began chanting the lyrics as they poured PBR and whatever other liquids on their heads. It was a moment that patrons of that show will remember for the rest of their lives.

That was close to a decade ago and even though the members of Dusty Tucker are older and take the songwriting craft a bit more seriously, on stage, the party will never die.

“When the band started, we took pride on being able to go crazy and we really performed way before we learned to play our instruments,” laughs guitarist Ryan Kuly. “Travis said in another interview that “instead of being the band that now represents the party lifestyle, the party is in the show. In that 45 minutes.” “The intensity will always be there. People always go nuts and it’s really heart warming to see, but musically I think we’ve leveled up as a band.”

Now the Dusty Tucker has three albums under its belt with another concept record dubbed The Western World, on its way next year.

“Travis loves to bring a theme and a setting so it’s really cool to try and make something sonically that fits visually if that makes any sense,” Kuly says. “We try and go for a theatrical element. At the end of the day, it should kind of be presented as musical theatre as crazy as that sounds.” It’s pretty moronic to try and classify Dusty Tucker’s sound. Usually it’s always has some sort of heavy post punk element, but the group has been known to throw in a few outlaw country tracks from time to time.

“People will come to a jam of ours and say ‘ You guys are fucking crazy. You’re just guys in a room screaming ideas at each other,’ but it works,” Kuly says.

The Western World will be set in a more modern era than its predecessor The North Stone—which occurred somewhere in 1890.

“With social media stuff and all of this messed up shit in the world,” Kuly adds. “There are characters from The North Stone that tie in as well. It’s a pretty big concept that Travis has in his brain. It’s like putting all the Marvel movies into one, but that’s just Trav’s style.”