The Capones Aren’t Going Anywhere

There’s an old proverb that all bands hear sometime throughout their career: If you wanna be successful, you have to tour. That may work for some, but Red Deer’s grunge-blues two piece The Capones has never been about that life … and it seems to be working out for them.

“We’re in a hobby band and we’re ok with that,” says drummer Chris Davies. “We are definitely not travelling musicians. We get asked to play a lot of shows and we’re very picky with where we play. Like if we play Red Deer, we only play at Bo’s maybe three or four times a year.”

The Capones latest release Headlights—put out by the band’s very own record label, Ceramic J Records—also picked up the attention of Third Man Records, a label founded by the one and only Jack White.

“The manager of Third Man Records told us that we were going to be a featured artist of the month in July and I mean, that’s Jack White’s label. So that opens up a whole different market for a pretty non-touring band,” Davies says.

The Capones are also going on tour with Black Pistol Fire and playing a show with Monster Truck for its album release—pretty good for two guys who only leave Red Deer once in a blue moon.

“This year we have some opportunities with the new record that we couldn’t turn down,” Davies says. “We learned to not say no as much. Before we didn’t want to play for any kind of crowd. It was kind of a rare treat to see us. Now we get to play with our heroes Black Pistol Fire in August and It doesn’t really get any better than this for two guys who have actually flown out to see Black Pistol Fire. Like what do you do after that?”

Perhaps The Capones’ newfound success is due to the fact that Headlights is its finest creation yet. Both Davies and his partner Darren Wesemann (guitar and vocals) have mastered the two piece sound. Songs like “Traces of Anything,” “Underground,” and the title track blend in that unmistakable Canadian blues akin to The Black Keys and bit of The White Stripes. The tracks are like a fell deserved groovy gut punch.

“Darren is a total riff guitar player and looks up to guys like Jack White and Dan Auerbach,” Davies says. “We always want the main riff of the guitar to take the song. For me, I want to hit as many toms or snares as possible. I’m not a fill in drummer. Our style was kind of like ‘How do we create the low end as a two piece band.”

You may also like...