I recently chatted with Jonathan Chandler about Amos the Transparent‘s new album and upcoming festival dates this summer.
2014 has been a busy year for Amos the Transparent and it’s about to get busier.
Earlier this year, the group kicked off a PledgeMusic campaign to fund the release of their new album This Cold Escape. Things got off to a slow start, but once the ball started rolling, they far surpassed their goal. “We weren’t worried. Our target wasn’t set too high. Most people need to see someone trying it before getting involved themselves and PledgeMusic isn’t as well known as something like Kickstarter.”
Being clients of Audio Blood, who has a close relationship with PledgeMusic, Amos decided to work with them on their first fan driven project. “It’s a great feeling knowing the project will see light of day, that people are anticipating it. But you always find a way. The piece of mind made it easier to go ahead.”
The band is planning on a September release for This Cold Escape. “The album is fully recorded and I’m almost done mixing. I just needed to sink my teeth in and do it. I’ve been really busy, an engineer, a producer and mixer. It’s been a battle, a good battle.”
The summer calendar is quickly filling up for Amos the Transparent. They first played the Dragon Boat Festival 2 years ago. They are back at it again this year with a performance on Saturday June 21st at 5pm. Best of all, it’s a free show!
As a music fan, I always look forward to the outdoor shows. As a performer, Jon shared a similar excitement. “We live in a really great city for music. All of the festivals do a good job of not separating the locals from the big names. You get a trailer, goodies and they make you feel at home. The feeling of walking onto a big stage and a sea of people gathered in front of you. They really help grow the door for local bands.”
Not long after, Amos the Transparent will play 2 more Ottawa shows. “We’re doing Canada Day in Kanata. It’s Ottawa’s second largest gathering, 20 to 25,000 people on the big hill in Kanata. It’s all local this year and we’ll be closing out right before the fireworks. That’s 2 days before our Bluesfest gig.”
For those unaware, This Cold Escape will be a concept album. I enquired about how the idea came about, was it the direction of the music, or something planned? According to Jon, “It was a bit of both. The songs had the same theme. I had thought of packing it in. The others convinced me to keep going with these new songs. We wrote a record around that experience, what it’s like to be family guys in our mid 30s still trying to pursue this dream.”
As for shows when it comes time to launch the album, “We have a CD release date booked. We’re trying something a little different this time.” He didn’t really want to share much more than that.
“At this stage, we should be doing nothing but pumping out singles, but instead we put together a concept album. We’ll see how it goes.”
If you’d like to pre-order a copy of the new album, check out the band’s PledgeMusic campaign.
In the meantime, let me leave you with their fun video for one of my favourites, Sure as the Weather. Be sure to check out one of their upcoming dates!
[youtube=http://youtu.be/oObLmIIwHdI]