Originally published in June 2022 with files from Daniel Espelien/DiscoverEstevan
The full scale version of the Tralapa Sports & Music Festival is going to be back, and hopefully better than ever this summer. The event out of Tramping Lake Park is set to run the this weekend, after a scaled down version was held last year at the venue.
Saskatchewan band 'Seven Mile Sun' out of Tessier were one of the opening acts for Tralapa's 2018 Festival. Now, another band from the area in Seven Mile Sun from Harris will be one of the groups taking the stage come early August. Preparations for this year's event began as early as March, as you can find a full article on their planning stage from Ranger Chip below.
See related stories at the bottomTickets are currently available for the event, that will see Seven Mile Sun as part of the first day of live performances. Our affiliated newsroom at DiscoverEstevan was in contact with Kevin & Kimberley Stevens of the band, who shared they are named after the land of the living skies, along with their roots on the family farm.
"Seven miles from the closest town. That's where we grew up, and that's where we were heavily influenced by music from our parents. Grew up on a lot of classic rock. That's where we started playing our instruments and that's still our jam space to this day," said Kimberley.
Their home studio sounds like quite the place with years of vinyl records and other keepsakes standing out such as posters from previous shows. The two were a duo for some time, before asking Joanne Genest to join the band on bass to help beef up their sound temporarily, and then for good.
“I think in the back of our mind, hoping that she'd agree to just play full time with us, and we lucked out that she did.”
In talking to Kevin about band specifics, he shared the first time they had a real recording experience at Skullcreek Studios in Saskatoon. It was just what the band needed, as they worked with producer Aspen Beveridge.
“It was our first real professional studio experience and we just lucked out. We got some quotes from a few different studios and sent some emails around and I think it was Aspen we were corresponding with. I just got a good feel from him. He sounded like he was a nice guy, and he knew what he was doing. So we thought we'd give it a try and it was just luck of the draw we picked what I think is one of the better studios in Saskatchewan or possibly the country.”
Photo from Seven Mile SunThe band has been busy over the past few years with new releases. The first song they recorded was titled "Can't Compromise", followed up shortly after by "The Ride". They now have a nice catalogue of great homemade music and an album recognized by SaskMusic in "Light in the Dark".
One of their most recent pieces of work is new, but a fan favorite song called "Trigger Man" that Kevin says the band has been playing for probably three years now. It tends to grab the audience's attention right off the bat, and is getting radio play according to the groups Facebook page.
Check out DiscoverEstevan's video interview with the group below, as their focus shifts to in-person performance season. On July 6th they will be on stage at the SaskTel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, and then two days later on July 8th they will be in Prince Albert at the Chester Fest Couch and Music Festival. After that they take a short break before they head to Tralapa, ahead of a hopefully busy fall of songwriting for the West Central Saskatchewan based band.
Thu, Apr 25, 9:30 AM
