It’s been about two years since Shane Hooper, Dexter Nash and Noah O’Neil of the band Lovers Touch bought a van and left their home of Salt Spring Island to make it as musicians in Toronto.
Hooper said the trio – Hooper on vocals and rhythm guitar, Nash on lead guitar and O’Neil on bass – were looking for adventure, and so set their sights beyond the nearby Victoria and Vancouver scenes.
“We wanted to experience some new stuff, meet some new people and kind of live a different lifestyle,” Hooper said.
Despite moving to Canada’s largest city and becoming a part of that musical environment, Hooper said he and his bandmates have kept their “B.C. attitude” in tact.
“The hugest part for us is just being able to meet so many great musicians and play at some really historical venues,” he said.
“But I think just the day-to-day life is also different. It’s busy, especially coming from Salt Spring where there’s hardly any traffic lights. There’s a lot of stuff going on there. It’s intense. It’s fun.”
After the band arrived in Toronto they got to work converting an abandoned garage into a 10-by-10-foot recording studio. That’s where they recorded the four tracks that will make up their new EP, How Does it Make you Feel?, expected to be available by late September.
The record’s most recent single, released in June, is Dancing Like a Man, a sleek tongue-in-cheek disco track motivating non-dancers to shed their inhibitions and get up on the dance floor. Hooper joked that it was inspired by Bruce Springsteen’s awkward moves in the music video for Dancing in the Dark.
“I watched that video and I just thought those dance moves are absolutely terrible but hilarious at the same time,” he said.
“But in essence the song is encouraging maybe not the kind of dude that would dance usually, it’s encouraging those guys, ‘Come on, dance like a man, it’s fine, no one cares.’ Because a lot of people are so self-conscious about that kind of thing.”
That’s a message Lovers Touch will bring to Nanaimo when their current tour brings them to the Vault on Thursday, Aug. 23. Hooper said it’s their first show as a band in Nanaimo. The group will be joined by old friends the Stacks.
Hooper said it means a lot to be performing on the West Coast for the first time in more than a year. After driving all the way from Ontario, crossing back into their home province was a relief.
“As soon has you hit B.C. it’s like, ‘Oh my God, this is so much nicer than the rest of the country,'” he said, adding that the Prairies can’t compare to the mountains and the air.
“It’s so refreshing and we’re so close to home we all get a little excited.”
WHAT’S ON … Lovers Touch performs at the Vault on Thursday, Aug. 23. Doors at 8 p.m., $10 cover. Show is 19-plus.
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