A local family band says they are continually inspired by food and family when creating their songs.
The Oots n Oots consist of four Cipes91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™ brothers, along with singer Ruth, Ezra Cipes91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™ daughter. They have been nominated for the Children91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™s Artist of the Year award for the Western Canadian Music Awards.
The Capital News sat down with guitarist/singer Ari, singer Ruth and singer/guitarist Ezra to discuss their nomination and their favourite flavours of ice cream.
Q: What91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™s your favourite song to sing?
Ruth: Too Much Monkey Business which we just put out a video for.
Ezra: I like singing the song called Little Sammy Davis because it91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™s based on Chuck Barry
Ari: Yam Fries and it91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™s about eating yam fries
Q: Favourite flavour of ice cream?
Ezra: Pistachio
Ari: Spaloni
Ruth: Pistachio91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™s starting to grow on me, I91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™d have to agree
Q: What was the feeling behind the nomination?
Ezra: It was pretty amazing. We really love doing this and we put a lot into it and we want to give something to the world and grow it so this was really nice. It was a way for us to meet people in the Canadian music industry and spread our wings a little.
Q: How did you find out?
Ruth: I found out after school when my grandma picked me up and told me and mom was waiting at home to tell me.
Q: When will you find out if you won?
Ezra: On Sept. 11, we91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™re going to go to Edmonton for the awards and the conference. The whole band91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™s going and we91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™re going to play a show there.
Q: Your album was released in December, 2016. How was it received?
Ezra: We played around B.C. and it91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™s been super gratifying because we hear a lot of kids and their parents tell us they91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™ve been listening to the album over and over again.
Q: Tell me about Too Much Monkey Business?
Ruth: We did a rehearsed live video in the studio where we got mom to film it and it took a long time.
Ezra: It was just one camera and one microphone, just capturing a performance and I think we got through the whole song five or six times. It took us 19 tries to do it. At a certain point during the takes, we were like 91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ˜OK, when we get through this, we91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™re all going to go get frozen yogurt.91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™
Ari: And then we got it the very next take.
Ezra: It was pretty cool because you can91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™t teach someone how to perform and Ruth just knows how to do it and she really had a natural affinity for the early rock and rollers.
Q: Who are your biggest influences?
Ari: The Cipes brothers, we all grew up with our dad playing music in the house and he played a lot of show tunes from Catz and Les Mis and Phantom of the Opera so that91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™s got some bearing on my influence anyway. Also, that honky tonk, rock and roll, sort of stuff.
Q: How do you come up with lyrics?
Ari: They91ÂãÁÄÊÓƵ™re mostly around simple things everyone relates to.
Ezra: Things that make us laugh.
Ari: Our children are our big inspirations for writing.
Other members of the Oots n Oots are bassist Gabe and drummer Matt Cipes.
Every two weeks throughout the summer, reporter Carli Berry will interview local musicians in a quick Q&A on kelownacapnews.com. Email Carli at carli.berry@kelownacapnews.com to get involved. Check the video features at kelownacapnews.com/video.
