{vurb} editor Megan Cole caught up with Jeff Innes, who does vocals and guitar for Kelowna band Yukon Blonde, and is making his way to The Royal for their show Sunday night.
What was the first CD that you ever bought?
It’s a toss up. My family had the buy 10 CDs for one penny thing, and I got to choose one and that was Noss. I forget the name of the record but that was in 1996. The first record I ever bought with my own money was Marilyn Manson’s Anti-Christ Superstar.
What are five must have items when you are on tour?
I need to have my phone, computer, guitar, toothbrush, underwear and socks. I pretty much get in the van and go and figure it out along the way.
Are you guys junk food connoisseurs when you’re on the road?
No. Well, I am. I eat quite a bit of junk food. I just get hungry at the worst times and way different times than everyone else does. I don’t eat breakfast but I eat brunch, so whenever we stop to get gas I just end up eating at a gas station which kind of sucks.
What are your favourite things to pick up?
I like that popcorn in a bag. That’s pretty good, that Smart food popcorn and coffee.
Where did the name Yukon Blonde come from?
Do you want a fake answer or a real answer? It’s the name of...never mind...I can’t come up with a fake one. Our bass player’s boss was in denial about having grey hair when he accused her of having grey hair and she shot back that she wasn’t grey she was Yukon Blonde. Mostly we just thought it was a cool name, but a terrible story.
What is one of your favourite memories from being in the band so far?
I don’t know. We used to go to theme parks all the time. When we were Alpha Baby we would go on these crazy tours and have five days off between shows, so we would always go to theme parts and stuff and blow all our money. That was bad. [Laughs] That was years ago but more recently, our first trip to Europe was pretty amazing.
One of my favourite memories was Jason Haberman was playing bass for us — he also sings in the Paint Movement. We were in Paris one day and didn’t have GPS or a map of the city or anything, but decided we were going to find the Eiffel Tower. So we set out, and I guess the way Napoleon had the streets planned was that it is pretty much a spiral all the way down to the Louvre, the Arc deTriomphe and the Eiffel Tower. We really just started driving and ended up there, which is pretty crazy.
Once we got there we started to get kind of goofy and pulled out a video camera and started doing random interviews on the street. It was like, do you remember Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod? We were kind of doing that sort of interview like “What can you do to make your body better?”
It was kind of stupid. Anyways, when we tried to leave, for the same reason it was easy to get there we couldn’t leave. We kept ending up back at the Arc de Triomphe.
If you could appear in a line-up with any band — living, dead, together, broken up, whatever — who would they be?
David Bowie, The Kinks and the Flaming Lips.
Visit the Blonde: yukonblonde.com