Five Questions With The Puppets

We caught up with Saskatoon, SK based band, The Puppets for a segment of the ever popular, Five Questions With. The band has just released a new single, “Abandoned Son”, give it a listen now, and read below to find out more about this three piece Canadian band.

Care to introduce yourself to our readers?

Absolutely! We are a three piece band from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan consisting of Theo Oliver on drums, Rhett Schroder on bass and Nicholas Lai who plays guitar and sings. Rhett and Theo are both students at the University of Saskatchewan, where Rhett is taking music and Theo is majoring in English. Nick works full time at his family owned auto repair shop, Lai’s Auto Service.

Tell us a bit about your music and writing style.

From the beginning, Nick and Theo have always approached the writing process by jamming (the band has been going for about 5 years, with a number of line-up changes, Nick and Theo are the original members.) We have always been rooted in the energy and rawness of Punk Rock. The drums in particular capture this edge and don’t ever really take a step back, and Theo is always making sure the audience gets a good solid back-beat to dance to. The guitar and vocals keep the simplicity of punk, but with a more melodic and smoother take, in order to clam the drums down so to speak (much like Nick and Theo’s interactions in real life.) Finally, Rhett plays the bass the same way he navigates life, as the cool and clearheaded mediator who can see both sides of the story. He blends the youthful vigour of the drums with the emotional musings of the guitar to create the unique mixture that is The Puppets.

Do you have any upcoming shows? For someone who has yet to see you live, how would you explain your live performance?

Mark your calendars, The Puppets will be playing at Capitol Music Club in Saskatoon on April 6th. This will be our first show in a while since we have gone away to record our debut album which will out around the time of this show! Playing live, we’re all about the music. We don’t try to grab you with stage banter too much, we’re more interested in the energy that is exchanged during the song. We give it to the audience and absolutely love it when you guys give back. A common phrase within the band is “We the musicians are only 50% of the music. The listener is the other 50%.” We couldn’t do what we do, without you! (That rhymed. Haha.)

If you were asked to suggest only one of your songs for someone to hear, which would it be?

Ooo, that’s a tough one. Well at this point, we would recommend our new single Abandoned Son. It’s a crowd favourite, it’s upbeat and fun to sing along too. Like I said we are in the midst of recording our album right now so it seems that each track we do becomes our favourite at that time! We really believe in the idea of being well rounded musicians and having at least one song that speaks to a given listener. So if Abandoned Son isn’t really your style, there’s a good chance something else in our catalogue will resonate with you. We’re definitely not about a formulaic approach to music and we try to keep each song organic and unique.

Canadian Beats is all about Canadian music, so who are your current favourite Canadian bands/ artists?

Another tough question! It’s astounding how many incredible and talented Canadian music acts there are out there. I find myself on Bandcamp listening to emerging Canadian artists way more as time goes on, where I used to only look for new music via iTunes and YouTube. To name a few: PUP from Toronto is absolutely mind blowing, along with The Highkicks from Calgary and Yukon Blonde from B.C. More locally, our friends Pure Bliss and Knee Socks from Saskatoon are bands to watch along with Cookin’ With Grandma which (to my knowledge) is still based primarily in Saskatoon.

Connect with The Puppets:
Bandcamp
Facebook