Pop-folk band spurred through campus event
Since their first performance at Poetry and a Beverage on the USU campus, the Logan music scene has given pop-folk band Children of the North an enthusiastic welcome.
Tyler Andrews, who plays keyboard in the band, said fans showed their enthusiasm shortly after the Children of the North Facebook page went online last November.
“We had almost 100 likes in the first night or something,” he said. “It was like, ‘Oh, maybe we should start this band.'”
Currently, the page has around 250 likes.
The band started when singer and guitarist McKay Felt returned from an LDS mission last fall and persuaded his girlfriend, Emily Andrews, to sing with him and her brother, Tyler, to play keyboard.
“We’ve dated for a long time,” Felt said. “I’d always heard her sing in Tyler’s songs, and I always tried to get her to sing with me, but she never would until I came back. So I had all these songs written, so we just put it together with us three at the start.”
Joe Hill joined the Children of the North in January 2012, playing electric guitar in most of the band’s shows. Hill said the band usually plays with a drummer, but it hasn’t added a percussionist as a permanent member.
All four band members are students at USU. Tyler Andrews is a junior studying graphic design, Emily Andrews is a sophomore studying interior design, Felt is a freshman studying art, and Hill is a junior majoring in agriculture.
To date, the band has played six shows, including two appearances at Poetry and a Beverage and an acoustic set at Logan City Limits on Saturday. Felt said despite the band’s popularity, it doesn’t look to play too often.
“We don’t want it to be over accessible,” Felt said. “If you’re always playing it, people can get bored of it.”
Felt said he would rather play fewer shows and focus more on preparation for each gig.
“I think it makes it a good experience, because we put more into it,” he said. “It brings a lot more energy to it.”
Hill said he agreed with the quality-over-quantity strategy.
“If we play less frequently but prepare more for each show,” he said, “people will kind of get this attitude of ‘When I go see Children of the North, their shows are always awesome, but they don’t come around that often, so I need to go when there is an opportunity.'”
More time to prepare means the band can introduce more variety into its songs, Felt said. For some songs, members play different instruments, such as bass guitar and ukulele, and Emily Andrews has played electronic beats in some shows.
“When we do have shows, we’re thinking of any way that we could make them exciting and unique,” Felt said.
Rather than drawing musical inspiration from a particular band, Felt said Children of the North’s sound is a product of the variety of musical influences each member brings. Tyler Andrews’ style on the keyboard in influenced by electronic pop, Hill brings blues and rock-and-roll influences, and Felt is influenced by more calm influences like folk music, Felt said.
Hill said the band’s sound wouldn’t be the same without each member.
“There’s kind of a structure of the song, but the song would sound very different if, individually, we were different people,” Hill said. “If you look at the keyboard parts of the song, if (Tyler) didn’t come from the background he did, musically, the keyboard sections of the songs, even though chords and basic stuff would be the same, they would sound very different.”
A few of the band’s tracks are available online, but it has yet to release any albums. Felt said the band has been recording an EP, but because of Tyler’s busy schedule it has yet to be completed. When an album is released, Felt said he would like to make it available both as a CD and as a digital download.
“We’ll definitely do both,” Felt said. “I think there’s an appeal to a digital album, but I think there’s always something more lovable about a handmade, physical copy.”
The band will take a break over the summer, as two members will be out of state, but Hill said they plan to resume in the fall.
“Ideas are going to be festering for the next four months, and then there’s going to be a big explosion. And an album,” Hill said.
None of the band members said they had long-term plans for Children of the North. Hill said recording companies and others wishing to use the music for promotional purposes have approached him, but they haven’t made any deals. The band came together because of a shared love of music, not because of a desire for fame, he added.
Felt said he agreed.
“We’re serious about our music, but we’re not serious about becoming famous,” Felt said. “We do it because we love it.”
– steve.kent@aggiemail.usu.edu