Twin Towns, a folk-rock quartet from Kelowna, B.C., is about to hit the road in October for the first time. The band, founded in 2011, originally consisted of vocalist/guitarist Nick Gibson and guitarist/backing vocalist Matt Price.

“Me and Nick randomly moved in together five years ago,” Price explains. “We didn’t know each other at all; we just had a mutual friend and we moved in. We were both musicians so we just started naturally writing together, formed a band and now we want to start taking things out of the basement.”

The duo ended up recruiting Kyle Moar on drums and Matt Perry on bass to solidify the line-up and become a quartet. Price also quit playing drums for Kelowna-based pop-punk band, Count Me In.

“I left about a year ago because I was working full-time as the manager of a restaurant, playing in two bands and everything got to be too much,” he notes. “And not to diss pop-punk, but I was over-playing that type of music and wanted to put all of my heart into Twin Towns.”

Gaslight Anthem, Bright Eyes, and Timber Timbre are some of the band’s influences, according to Price.

“Nick usually writes really bluesy folk songs and then I bring my element in there to make it sound a little heavier and bouncier,” he reports. “One of my favourite bands is Rancid. I don’t try to make our songs sound like Rancid songs, but I still try to add a bit of a rock edge to them.”

So far, Twin Towns only has three songs on its Bandcamp page and has mostly focused on performing live in Kelowna.

“We recorded those about a year-and-a-half ago with some students, but we didn’t really like the finished product so we’ve only put up three songs,” he says.

“We had written 12 songs, now we’ve whittled it down to 10 and we usually play a cover during each set as well, like ‘Waitress in the Sky’ by The Replacements or ‘Travelin’ Band’ by Creedence Clearwater Revival.”

On Oct. 14, the band kicks off its first Western Canadian tour with Edmonton folk-punk band Old Towns in Regina.

“I actually went on tour this past spring playing bass for Old Towns, because they needed someone to fill in for them,” he says. “Then Robbie [Shirriff, vocalist/guitarist] contacted us about doing this tour with them and we agreed. It was a lot of fun, but I’m looking forward to being on the road and playing my band’s songs instead of playing someone else’s this time.”

When the band returns home to Kelowna it will start working on its debut EP.

“Now that we’ve finally solidified the line-up we want to take ourselves more seriously and a big part of that is finally releasing a proper recording,” he says. “We want to do a four- or six-song EP this winter and hopefully have it out by the spring.”

Published in Volume 69, Number 6 of The Uniter (October 8, 2014)