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Lucky Monkey tees up original brand of rock and roll

Kelowna, B.C. band takes to the Black Pirates Pub stage on Wednesday night, part of their 11-Year Anniversary Bash.

THUNDER BAY – Growing up Cassidy Hritzuk dreamed of teeing it up alongside the likes of Tiger Woods at Augusta National.

He spent his teenage years and early 20s pursuing his golf dream, eventually turning pro.

But while he was lining up putts and hitting the driving range, the Kelowna, B.C. native was also chasing another passion, music, although at the time it was little more than random jam sessions with guitarist Ryan Zelenik.

“Ryan and I were jamming acoustically a lot and we thought we should try to do this a little bit louder. I was actually coaching Josh (Evans) at the time and it was about two years before he told me he played drums,” Hritzuk said, reached by phone while stopped about 20 minutes outside of Thunder Bay with the other three members of his rock band, Lucky Monkey.

Basisst Dylan Losell, discovered via the Internet, rounds out the quartet, which takes the stage on Wednesday night for a 30-minute set, part of Black Pirates Pub’s 11-Year Anniversary Bash.

What the band didn’t want to do was create a generic version of rock music that has seemingly become all-too-familiar these days.

Hritzuk said they sought out their own sound.

“Obviously radio is still a dominant force in rock, but sometimes a lot of the songs end up sounding the same,” he said.

“We’re trying to blend old-school rock and roll with the modern sound, kind of carve our own path.”

Evans said all four members of Lucky Monkey have similar, but different tastes, the fusion of which led to their unique sound that can be heard on their latest five-song EP, Nothing to Lose, which dropped on March 29.

That definitely does help when we are writing and creating music, because we don’t set out to write a certain sound or a certain type of song. It just kind of happens. I think that’s kind of one of the unique things about what we do,” Evans said.

“I’m sure there a lot of other people who still do that, but in this copy-and-paste kind of world where people are sending clips to each other back and forth and saying, ‘Hey, I wrote this piece, try to come up with something over top of it.’ We all do it together at the same time, which is kind of cool.”

Lucky Monkey released the first single from Nothing to Lose, Go, last fall, and have since recorded a video for the title track, a guitar-heavy song that at first listen appears to draw from a wide range of styles, with a taste of everything from Living Colour and the Sheepdogs to the Pursuit of Happiness.

It wasn’t easy narrowing their collection of 25 songs into one five-song EP, but it was also a labour of love, Hritzuk said.

“We kind of whittled it down to all of our favourites,” he said, adding they will be featuring several other songs during their Thunder Bay set.

Black Pirates Pub’s all-ages Anniversary Bash runs through Saturday. It’s gets under way at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $5.



Leith Dunick

About the Author: Leith Dunick

A proud Nova Scotian who has called Thunder Bay home since 2002, Leith is Dougall Media's director of news, but still likes to tell your stories too. Wants his Expos back and to see Neil Young at least one more time. Twitter: @LeithDunick
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