Barb Brouwer
Black Press
Salmon Arm’s Greg Sczebel is on the move again.
After recently performing with Paul Brandt in London, Ont., the Juno Award-winner has joined the Maple Noise Tour, which comes to Vernon’s Wesbild Centre Sept. 24.
The brainchild of Toronto promoter Every Eye Media, the cross-Canada tour features one of the world’s hottest Christian bands, Australia’s Newsboys, as well as Canadian artists Thousand Foot Krutch, Manafest, Jonny Diaz, Jon Bauer, Jodi King, Manic Drive, To Tell, and Bread of Stone.
“There are 10 performances each night,” said Sczebel. “I am really excited. I haven’t toured across Canada to perform my own music since Here to Stay in 2005, and I haven’t been able to do it with the current band ever.”
The band includes Vernon drummer Dan Oldfield, bass player Hank Insell, guitarist Steve Davis, and Darius Wilson on backing keyboards.
“The venues are big and I think they’re expecting huge crowds,” said Sczebel. “I like doing smaller acoustic shows, but there’s something about the energy a large crowd brings.”
Each artist gets a 30-minute set, so Sczebel will focus on performing songs from his Juno Award-winning album, Love and The Lack Thereof.
Sczebel has been busy this summer, playing several festivals and events in the Interior and Lower Mainland, including Peachland’s Dancing Barefoot Festival, the Rarearth Music Festival in Vernon, the Harmony Arts Festival in West Vancouver and Kamloops Western Canadian Summer Games.
The 27-year-old talent has been working on material for a new album, which he is hoping to release early in the new year.
“I think it will be a bit different, my music seems to have a different mood and sound,” he said. “No matter what I do, it will always have an element of soul, but this stuff is more straight-up, piano pop-rock.”
Aside from the goal of making a living with his music, Sczebel says his lyrics can present a different point of view.
“The goal is to say what your listener wants to say, but doesn’t know how to put it into words,” he said. “But sometimes I want to communicate what’s in my heart.”
Nominated for another Canadian Gospel Music Association award for R&B/Urban Song of the Year, Sczebel, who won an unprecedented eight awards at this year’s B.C. Interior Music Awards, will head back to Nashville next month to rehearse with Brandt before hitting the road again.
He joins the country super star for another cross-Canada tour to promote Brandt’s new album, Give it Away.
Back on the Maple Noise Tour, Sczebel says the show is going to be incredible.
“I have never seen a tour this big come to the Okanagan,” he says with enthusiasm. “Newsboys has stages with hydraulic lifts that extend over the audience. Technically, it’s top-drawer too.”
Tickets for the Sept. 24 show at the Wesbild Centre are available at the Ticket Seller box office in the Performing Arts Centre. Visit ticketseller.ca or call 250-549-7469.
