Red Moon Road is a band who’s beginnings seem almost mythological.
“About three years ago, Daniel Jordan and I began the band on the rocky lakeshore of Lake of the Woods – Daniel’s family’s cottage is there, where they go sailing,” said band member Daniel Peloquin-Hopfner in an interview with the Outlook. “We had both been playing in other bands and only just met, but decided unwinding on a sailboat was a way to work together.”
On Thursday (April 11), Peloquin-Hopfner was speaking while on a ski lift at Fernie, B.C., where the band was playing a show that evening.
“We went to this lake, and it was the end of October and quite cold, and we got knocked over by a huge gust, the likes of which neither of us had ever seen, and we managed to come ashore on a nearby island and found a cabin and started a fire,” he said, continuing the story. “As we sat around the campfire later that night, we decided if we could survive an encounter like that, we could survive being in a band.”
Consisting of Peloquin-Hopfner (mandolin, banjo, guitar), Jordan (percussion, guitar) and Sheena Rattai (vocals), Red Moon Road plays the Elk & Oarsman in Banff Saturday and Sunday (April 20-21).
“From that point we started playing our own original songs that had been kicking around, but couldn’t play because we were in other bands. So this was our first creative output,” said Peloquin-Hopfner. “From a campfire to stages all across Canada.”
The band’s third member, Rattai, came into the picture two years ago as the lead singer to complete the trio.
“She and Daniel were both at the University of Manitoba in the jazz program,” he explained. “She grew up with gospel and we introduced her to folk, and it seems like she’s really hit her stride in this genre of music.”
Indeed, each member of the band came from a different musical background, he said.
“Metal and classical music are where most of my formal training and initial career began; playing as a drummer with a touring act that my brothers put together,” he said. “Daniel had been playing bass in a Motown band for about three years.
“We were all getting tired of it though and wanted to play something a little more bent on stories, something more about sharing and less about the animal energy.”
The two Daniels often get mixed up, he said.
“We were pretty interchangeable, so we did an alpha male standoff – we didn’t really hit it off at first, until that sailboat misadventure – since then we’ve been interchangeable, either on the stage or phone, we share all duties,” he said. “It’s a collective of three, though Daniel is a guy who likes to talk and likes to engage the audience, one of those guys who, although he likes to hear the sound of his own voice, has a lot of good things to say.”
The music they play is best described as folk music, he said, as the focus is on storytelling.
“We’re finding as we advance in our careers, the wisdom of elders is something that inspires us quite a bit,” he said. “We sing a lot of stories about where we come from, our family and heritage. The stories continue to be told, stories about people and their attachment to the land in which they live.”
Their first album, the self-titled Red Moon Road, hit the streets two years ago. Last month, the band released its latest recording.
“We just spent nine days recording a new EP – Tales From The Whiteshell – the Whiteshell is a region in Eastern Manitoba, and the songs were either written there or inspired by people from there,” he said. “A lot of it is we’re prolific writers, so if we write and don’t record it, the stick in the sand is lost. There are songs that I wrote in the beginning that aren’t really part of the catalogue anymore.
“Since we’ve been touring, our crowd has been asking for new songs, so it’s more about them than us. There were crowd favourites that we’ve been singing that people wanted in physical form, so a lot of the drive was to make something for them.”
For the current tour, Red Moon Road is playing about 50 shows over a period of two months.
“So far it’s been pretty amazing – we started out in Saskatoon, and since then we’ve been playing in Alberta and B.C.,” said Peloquin-Hopfner. “We played at the Elk & Oarsman the last time we were there, and we’re playing there again this time around.
“We’re quite excited to make it there, a highlight stop by a long-shot, getting a chance to play in the park itself. The Elk & Oarsman has been really great to us, the crowds we had there were happy to stomp their feet along.”
This summer the band will play the Stan Rogers Music Festival in Nova Scotia, followed by their first tour of Eastern Canada.
“We’ll get to be the stories of people from the West Coast to the East Coast,” he said.
The interview came to an abrupt halt, however, as Peloquin-Hopfner stated he had begun his run down the ski hill.
“I should let you go, this hill’s getting steeper than I anticipated,” he exclaimed.
For more information on the band, visit their website at redmoonroad.com
