Canadian band Yukon Blonde releases new, stripped back rock album

Canadian indie band Yukon Blonde is stripping it back on their upcoming album Friendship & Rock ‘n’ Roll, released September 19. After nearly 20 years together, James Younger explained that the friends and bandmates felt a desire to simplify things.

Yukon Blonde consists of Jeffery Innes, Graham Jones, Brandon Scott, and Younger. As the album’s name suggests, Younger explained this record “is a love letter to our enduring friendships within the band, but also to music itself.” It pulls from power pop, the Beatles, 70s rock, and classic rock.

“I think we were listening, and thinking about a lot of records that we’ve all loved over the years and wanted to make something in the spirit of those records.”

The instrument lineup is classic rock and roll — drums, bass, two guitars, and “a lot of singing together,” Younger said.

“I think we just wanted to really reacquaint ourselves with the reasons we originally started playing music in the first place. Just a real love and enthusiasm for rock and roll.”

Writing the songs for the new album was a “more communal activity,” Younger explains

Under the name Yukon Blonde, the band has released six albums and two EPs. Their first EP, Everything in Everyway, came out in October 2009. When it came time to create their seventh album, Yukon Blonde decided to change their usual process.

“It just felt like it would be more fun, primarily, to get together in a jam space and just play the songs, hash them out, [and] work on them in that environment,” Younger said. “It was just a more communal activity [and] it felt nice to connect with my friends and bandmates on that level.”

Younger said each of the band members would bring in a song to their rehearsal space and explain it briefly. Then, “people would play along until it felt like it had some kind of shape.” Only once Yukon Blonde was satisfied with the song would they record it.

“Once the songs felt good and felt like we’d be able to perform them in front of people, and they have the energy that rock and roll should have, then we recorded them.”

By the time it came to record the song the band members already knew the song very well, which made them more comfortable in the studio. 

“You’re not thinking so hard about what you’re doing when you’re doing it. You can actually express yourself and enjoy the moment.” 

This process wasn’t unfamiliar to Yukon Blonde. As Younger explained, it was “how most people of our generation originally would have approached making music,” due to the practical challenges and costs of recording music. As an established band with their own studio, the cost and time constraints have not been as much of an issue.

“You kind of can take as long as you want … and that’s fun, but we’ve done that in the past,” Younger said. “This was just getting back to a more intrinsically basic way of approaching the songs and the recording, which is [if] they sound good when we’re playing it together, they’ll sound good when they’re recorded.”

After 20 years together, Younger describes Yukon Blonde as “kind of a dysfunctional family”

Yukon Blonde will begin touring Friendship & Rock ‘n’ Roll with a show on September 18 in Kelowna, British Columbia (B.C.). The planned tour dates will take Yukon Blonde across the prairies and into Ontario, before returning to B.C. in late October. Younger is looking forward to touring with his friends and playing the album live.

“It’s rock and roll. There’s no computers involved, there’s no tracks, there’s no tuning. It’s really quite an organic, raw experience,” Younger said. 

Anyone who has been on a Canadian road trip knows that even getting into the next province over is a long journey. But, when it’s a trip with your friends the journey never does seem so long. As opposed to previous tours, Friendship & Rock ‘n’ Roll necessitates “a smaller footprint” allowing Yukon Blonde to tour just the four of them. 

Spending that time with his longtime bandmates and friends is something Younger is looking forward to. After so long together, Younger describes the group as “kind of a dysfunctional family.”

“I’m sure I drive them really crazy at times, and as they do me, but ultimately I love them like brothers.”