Musical trio Flowshine played the Tracks Pub recently and for guitarist Jeremiah Erhardt, it was a unique overlap of two sides of his life.
Alongside providing the lead vocals and guitar for Flowshine, Erhardt is a student at Olds College, training for a career as an arborist (a person who looks after trees, shrubs, etc.).
Flowshine's performance saw Erhardt's longtime friends, fellow band members, and peers from Olds College all gathered under one roof.
It was a first for the band and for Erhardt's classmates. Flowshine had never played in Olds before and the friends Erhardt has made at Olds College had previously never heard him perform.
"When we go to these places that we've never been to before people are excited," said Erhardt. "People just want to go out and have fun and it's really great for us when all our job is to play music we love and try to have fun with people."
The band is local to Alberta and formed in 2008 from a group of friends that grew up together. Since 2008, the group has scoured Canada's landscape playing in venues from the coasts of British Columbia to the Maritimes and as far north as Yukon.
"Music has been a great opportunity to go explore parts of the country that we haven't seen."
As time has gone and the band members have seen more of Canada they've also seen more success with Flowshine and in their own personal career paths.
The initial investment for Flowshine came out of the pockets of the band members.
"We were all at a tough point where we were all working entry level work while trying to pay for recording costs, gear and gas for the van," said Erhardt.
Those days of paying out-of-pocket are now behind the band as Flowshine is now self-sustaining through gig money and merchandise sales. The members have left the entry-level work behind them as well with the band's drummer, Calen Blondal, now working as a millwright and the basist, Dallen Muise as an audio electrician.
"All the guys in the band work hard to get ourselves into careers where we could have that balance of a day job and music."
Once Erhardt graduates in the spring of 2017 he will become an arborist for the same landscaping company he started working for seven years ago when he was 20.
"It's important to get into a career path where you can balance your passion," said Erhardt. "I think a lot of people my age are working towards that."
Olds College's arboriculture program is not Erhardt's only post-secondary training; in 2012 he graduated from the University of Calgary with an undergraduate degree in English and film.
His time at University of Calgary has helped influence the music he writes, drawing inspirations from his interests in Canadian poetry and figures of classical literature such as Edmund Spenser.
"What (Spenser) mentioned in his writing was that he felt writers need to start with a pastoral genre. In our early records I can kind of see that I embraced that. So a lot of romanticizing Canadian landscapes, escapism, getting away out onto the highway."
Flowshine's sound is deeply rooted in Canadiana and flows between the sounds of alternative rock and folk. The band refers to itself as rock fusion. It feels like a good description for the spectrum of sounds that Flowshine works with.
"We aim to make our stuff diverse. Not necessarily jump genres, but keep blending stuff and keep pushing forward."
Flowshine recently released two new tracks in December 2016 and printed a seven-inch record with a track on each side.
"When we only do two or three songs at a time it allows us to use the studio, experiment, and then step back and reflect, then quickly jump back in quickly."
"All the guys in the band work hard to get ourselves into careers where we could have that balance of a day job and music."JEREMIAH ERHARDTGUITARIST, VOCALISTFLOWSHINE
