A local family band says they are continually inspired by food and family when creating their songs.
The Oots n Oots consist of four Cipes鈥� brothers, along with singer Ruth, Ezra Cipes鈥� daughter. They have been nominated for the Children鈥檚 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: What鈥檚 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 it鈥檚 based on Chuck Barry
Ari: Yam Fries and it鈥檚 about eating yam fries
Q: Favourite flavour of ice cream?
Ezra: Pistachio
Ari: Spaloni
Ruth: Pistachio鈥檚 starting to grow on me, I鈥檇 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, we鈥檙e going to go to Edmonton for the awards and the conference. The whole band鈥檚 going and we鈥檙e 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 it鈥檚 been super gratifying because we hear a lot of kids and their parents tell us they鈥檝e 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 鈥極K, when we get through this, we鈥檙e all going to go get frozen yogurt.鈥�
Ari: And then we got it the very next take.
Ezra: It was pretty cool because you can鈥檛 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 that鈥檚 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: They鈥檙e 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.
