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Friend Friend want to write you a song

Moose Jaw band Friend Friend are writing short songs in honour of anyone who enters their colouring contest before the release of "Not Particularly Dignified or Newsworthy" on Feb. 23

Dustan Hlady and his band Friend Friend have a lot on their plates these days.

 

However, the Moose Jaw band found time to write and record a five-song EP "Not Particularly Dignified or Newsworthy" and they're willing to write a song for you -- and about you -- if you enter their colouring contest.

 

"We started a colouring contest on our Facebook and our Instagram. You can print off the picture and colour it. Then tag us on Instagram or put it on our Facebook wall and we'll write a song about you based on your social media profile," said Hlady. "That's part of our promotion. We've had a couple of people so far."

 

The Moose Jaw four-piece are known for some creative marketing ideas and the new initiative is no different. The band features Dustan Hlady, Brian Capstick, Carrie Hlady and Matt Froese and are closing in on a decade together.

 

Friend Friend will have an album release show with Riviere and Drake Mark on Feb. 23 at Chysalis at 7 p.m. While Friend Friend are not pressing physical copies of the album, it will be available that day. Riviere, Froese's solo project, will also be releasing his album "Trees" the same night.

 

"The album will be available anywhere you get music: it will be on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube. Any way that a person listens to music, it will be there. We're not doing physical copies, but we're doing a little zine that has the song lyrics and explains the stories behind the songs and stuff," Hlady said.

 

"Drake Mark is opening for us and he's really fun. He's got some new music too." 

 

They had plans on a much more elaborate event -- including making a mockumentary to go along with it -- but decided to scrap that plan for the time being.

 

"We're sponsoring a refugee family and I'm trying to finish this movie I made, plus there's work and family and stuff," Hlady said. "I just had to say no to something."

 

He said the feature-length film he is working on is about 80 per cent completed principal photography and he is hoping to have it edited and completed in June in time to send it off to festivals.

 

Hlady and his wife Carrie are also helping two newcomer families settle in the city. 

 

"They arrived about a week before Christmas," Hlady said. "We're trying to help them out with schools and find them a church to go to because they go to church, helping them get checked out at the clinic, things like that."

 

Family life and home were two of the things that inspired Hlady during the writing of "Not Particularly Dignified or Newsworthy".

 

"It's about personal stuff and like I think all five songs are rooted in being prairie-ish. There's a story song called Prairie Girl. There's a song about when I lived in New York and really missed the prairies," Hlady explained. "There's a song that I wrote about having our first son. Things were touch-and-go and I was at the hospital for days and days. I was sleep-deprived and fell asleep in a chair and I had a dream that I was singing this song to my son."

 

When he woke up Hlady got the melody and the words to the chorus from his dream down and that became the chorus for "We'll All Stick Together."

 

Froese produced the album and Hlady was enthusiastic in his praise for the job he does working on their songs. 

 

"He's a perfectionist. He has a good ear and he has a really good sense of different styles of music," Hlady said. "He's really educated and he'll say 'oh this is what you're going for', even if you don't really know what you're going for."



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