Silver Wolf Band is a four-piece Indigenous folk-rock band from Labrador. The band is nominated for Indigenous Artist of the Year.
Their 2020 release, Storms & Prayers, won Music NL’s Indigenous Artist of the Year (2020) and East Coast Music Association’s Indigenous Artist of the Year (2021). Singles Woman of Labrador and Estuary charted at #1 and #4 on the Indigenous Music countdown, respectively. The group was also an East Coast Music Association nominee for Artist Innovator of the Year (2022).
Their latest album, There’s No Time (2022), produced by Amelia Curran, was released on June 2nd, 2022. Singles “Settling Dust” and “Falling Asleep” have received regular radio play across the province and nationally.
Listen to There’s No Time below and learn more about Silver Wolf Band via our mini-interview.
First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
I’m Matthew Barrett, and I play the keyboard and sing backing vocals for Silver Wolf Band.
Tell us a bit about your newest release.
We released our latest album, There’s No Time, in 2022. We recorded it in St John’s with Krisjan Leslie and Amelia Curran. Amelia Curran contacted us and wanted to work with us on producing an album. All of us being big fans of hers, we jumped at the opportunity! This album is mostly originals but it has a few Labrador classics that other Labradorians would know well. It was recorded over a fairly long span of time as we had to travel back and forth to St. John’s, and we were battling with travel restrictions due to Covid 19, but we kept on chipping away until we had something we were proud of.
Are you performing anywhere during the festivities from May 3-7? If so, where?
We’ll be playing/ showcasing twice at this year’s ECMA’s: Thursday, May 4th at 2:00 PM for an Export Buyers showcase. This is at the Marriott Harbourfront
And Saturday, May 6th at 9:40 PM for the Pop Rock stage. This is also at the Marriott Harbourfront. Both showcases are in the Nova Scotia Ballroom.
Are there any specific events through the weekend that you are excited to check out?
Honestly, we’re just really excited to see all the other great showcases. We can’t wait to see and catch up with many friends we haven’t seen in a long time. There haven’t been a lot of big in-person events since covid, so it’s exciting for things to be getting back to normal and to be able to connect and reconnect with people we haven’t seen in a while.
If you could work with any fellow East Coast artist, who would you choose?
East Coast Artists, there are so many amazing artists! I can’t speak for the whole band, but I’d really love the chance to work with Joel Plaskett. We also did a little work with Alan Doyle and Cory Tetford a little while ago, and they’re both so awesome. We’d love to have the chance to work with them again for sure. We definitely want to work with Amelia Curran again, and I think it would be fun to do something with Quote the Raven. They’re so talented, and they’re just the sweetest people!
Do you have any upcoming shows besides the ECMAs to tell us about?
We’re playing a few festivals over the summer that we’re looking forward to. We’ll be at the Stan Rogers Folk Fest in July. A couple of us are going way up to northern Labrador to play a string of shows and we’ll be playing the Nova Scotia Summer Fest in Antigonish in August. A lot of fun dates coming up this summer. We’re also hoping to tour the north coast of Labrador and parts of Newfoundland in the Fall.