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Yukon Blonde ready for Golden gig

Yukon Blonde earned its fair share of fans in Golden after a 2013 concert and are being brought back for this year’s Golden Sound Festival.
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Yukon Blonde will headline the first night of the Golden Sound Festival on Aug. 21.

In 2008, the members of Alphababy decided that they’d have to change their band’s name in order to fully progress and reach their potential. The decision came with some encouragement from singer-songwriter Jon-Rae Fletcher, who was touring with the group at the time.

“We kind of needed a fresh start. So we figured that if you change your name, everything will kind of flow from there which it did…we started writing all new songs with all new material. It was basically a brand new band,” said guitarist Brandon Scott.

The group came to be known as Yukon Blonde and they’ve gradually built a considerable following in B.C. and across Canada ever since. Today, the band continues to look forward, rarely, if ever, thinking about their original name and sound as Alphababy.

“We were just young guys at the time with Alphababy so I feel like we grew up a lot,” Scott said.

Their latest record, On Blonde, was released this spring and features the single “Saturday Night,” a tune that principal songwriter Jeff Innes brought to the group as more of a joke, a surprisingly common occurrence for the band.

“There were at least four (on this record) that he thought were total throwaways…he thought (Saturday Night) was a total joke too and I was like ‘man, we can make this a great song’,” Scott laughed.

While On Blonde represents a slightly darker theme compared to its previous records, what remains the same is the group’s catchy brand of rock that has made them a hit with concert goers since their debut record in 2009.

“We’re fans of pop music so that kind of comes naturally, to write catchy songs. We’re just fortunate that radio has caught on…it’s really cool when you get a bit of radio attention because it really shows with your shows. You get a different crowd…it reaches a lot more people,” Scott said.

Yukon Blonde earned its fair share of fans in Golden after a 2013 concert and are being brought back for this year’s Golden Sound Festival by Todd Menzies, a friend of the band and one of the festival’s primary organizers. Yukon Blonde will headline the first night of the two-night festival on Aug. 21.

“We’re definitely looking forward to that weekend…Love coming to Golden, it’s a beautiful town,” Scott said.