Australian recording artist Illy is headed back to Rossland.
Illy will stop at the Flying Steamshovel on Wednesday, Mar. 8 during the Canadian leg of his Two Degrees tour, and he says he’s looking forward to returning to the Golden City.
“I’m really looking forward to coming back. Me and my drummer were both on the tour last time. We have a new DJ and we’ve actually kind of worded him up on Rossland being a pretty cool place,” he said.
He first played Rossland back in 2015.
“It was one of the highlights of the tour actually, because we had no idea what to expect, and we got there and we kind of felt like it might have been an unusual place for an act to play from my genre and being from Australia, and then the show sold out,” said Illy.
The Canadian leg starts in March and then Illy returns to Australia.
“We’ll announce other shows elsewhere later on, but for now, yeah, Canada and then straight back to the national tour in Australia,” he said.
Illy’s launched the new album, Two Degrees, on his own label, ONETWO, in November and he thinks its the best album he’s made so far.
“I’m more experienced as an artist now. I kind of understand the skill behind writing songs a bit better, I kind of have that figured out a lot more now. So I think the songs themselves are more well crafted,” he said.
One of the single’s off the album, “Papercuts,” was number seven on the Triple J Hottest 100 — an annual hot 100 list put on by a national radio station in Australia, where listeners call in and vote for their favourite songs. “I couldn’t have expected the response that it had. Before we released it, I just didn’t want people to trash it, because it was a new direction for me, and you know, it went the complete opposite way,” said Illy.
The artist also recently told off Australian columnist Miranda Devine on his Facebook page after she wrote a column criticizing working mothers.
“It seems that kind of attitude is getting more and more airtime these days, and I just think people like that, that pick on really easy targets like single working moms, or even just working moms, and try to make them out to be bad people… that just didn’t sit right with me. And I have a platform where I’m sort of able to shine some light on these things, or things that I believe, and a lot of the people who were being attacked in that piece don’t,” Illy explained.
In his Facebook response, Illy refers to Devine as a “clickbaiting fool” and praises his own mother who worked multiple jobs to take care of her family. He also gives a shout out to his dad, saying “Mum didn’t do it alone. Which makes the jobs that single mothers that I know do even more incredible.”
To catch Illy in action on March 8, visit the Flying Steamshovel or Ticketweb.ca for tickets.
