CREMONA -- A singer-songwriter hailing from the Cremona area was thrilled when he learned his band was chosen by the judges as a top 12 finalist for the Project Wild artist development program. The program is designed to develop and launch the careers of some of Alberta's up-and-coming artists.
Blake Reid of the Blake Reid Band has been making music for as long as he can remember. He has worked as a solo artist but recently formed a band with Jon May on drums, Jason Valleau on bass, Craig Bignell on banjo and Aaron Young on guitar. The band incorporates a mixture of country, folk, roots, bluegrass and rock into their music.
"I was excited when I heard we won," said Reid. "It was great timing. I would say the music creation side of it has always been a strength but as far as marketing and for a strategy, that will help promote the band, I'm really looking forward to working with people in the industry from Alberta Music and Project Wild."
Reid grew up on the family farm east of Cremona on the old Wilf Carter farm. He currently lives near Dogpound on the family's original homestead.
"Music was always part of life on the farm," said Reid. "My grandpa played around the county in a band called the Krebs Orchestra. I had that exposure as a kid. Plus the tie of growing up on the former Wilf Carter farm. My father bought it off Wilf in 1956. So there's always that connection. There was always a lot of music in the family."
Reid went on to the University of Alberta in Edmonton to study agriculture. There he started a band in the 1990s and has been playing ever since.
"I've released two albums as a solo artist," he said. "When we decided to do this documentary, No Roads In, we rebranded to the Blake Reid Band and we brought the guys in so they could get more exposure. It makes more sense with an acoustic style of music to have a full band cast and all the personalities that go along with it."
He found out about the Project Wild program and submitted an application with his band.
"We have a project called No Roads In," he said. "It's a music documentary we shot about 18 months ago. It's currently on the CBC doc channel. We've been promoting that project. It was just a good fit to apply for Project Wild. It's a program that mentors Alberta artists and we thought it'd be a good direction in conjunction with what we have going on now with the documentary and our new album."
The band has been getting a lot of attention for its music documentary, which has won a number of awards at film festivals around the world.
"It's about returning to your roots as an artist," said Reid about the documentary. "We wrote and recorded an album in just a couple of weeks in an old abandoned farmstead in Southern Alberta. Instead of going into a studio where you would normally have all your sound controlled and record using the latest technology, we went into the old farmstead and recorded everything live off the floor."
Reid said there were no windows and the band members could hear the wind, rain and hail outside.
"The ambient sounds became part of the album," he said. "The whole theme of the album is rural Alberta and that setting. The sounds and imagery are around that theme."
As part of the top 12, Reid and the other artists received a $5,000 development award as well as an invitation to Project Wild's music industry boot camp, which is an intense one-week workshop to further their skills in performance, songwriting, marketing, media strategy, music business, music accounting, tour strategy and social media.
Following a series of showcase events and public voting, the top three artists of the season will be chosen. Top awards for Project Wild include a $100,953 award for first place, $75,000 for second and $50,000 for third.
Reid said the band is looking at releasing the music documentary and the accompanying album soon.
"We're looking at releasing it this summer," he said. "We'll be pushing that project out and working hard on promoting the music and coordinating radio tours and actual performance tours and working with Project Wild to learn as much as we can about the business."
