Weyburn's Brayden King has released a new seven-song EP album today on digital platforms.

King, who has now completed his Diploma in Music Career Management from MacEwan University, is based in Edmonton working as a full-time musician. He shared with us how this particular album, which he said is 'live off the floor', with four original songs and three covers from some of his favourite artistic inspirations, came to be.

"I was on tour in September, and I had a day off in Regina and I reached out to my friend Tanner Boulianne, who is from Regina, and I asked him if he wanted to try and record a live album and he was extremely excited and down to try the project. So I popped into his studio one evening and we recorded the whole thing in about four hours." 

"I'm extremely happy with how it turned out. It's got a really raw organic feel to it." 

There is still quite a bit of a mixing process in order to process the vocals to make sure everything sitting right, but for King, there's nothing like the feeling of a live performance, of which he has plenty of experience.

"I've released a couple of studio tracks in the past, and like with full band and production and everything," he noted. 

"Over the summer I started performing as just a live solo acoustic artist, and I had countless people come up to me and say, 'hey man, could you just release those songs exactly how you just played it because we really liked that acoustic'. And I was like, 'you know, sure. Like, I have no problem going in and doing that'." 

He said he gets inspired by underground country artists like Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan, who 'really go for just that organic, just them performing live and acoustic guitar and singing'. 

"They have some studio tracks as well with full bands, but they've released full albums with just an acoustic guitar and a vocal and I'm like well if they can do it, I guess I could do it too. And I can still do my studio stuff on the side with a full band, but, I just wanted to try something like this and I was. Just so, so happy with how it turned out." 

King's sound, as he describes, is the edgy side of country.. 

"I'm definitely in the realm of country now. My my roots were definitely driven from rock and roll music. So I do have a quite a bit of a raspy tonality to my voice that kind of and I like getting rocky with my country tunes, so it's I'd say it's like twangy rock You know the edgy side of country. So Chris Stapleton is a big inspiration for me, Luke Combs, but at the exact same time I'm still really driven by some of my favorite rock bands that I grew up on, like ACDC, Guns and Roses, Led Zeppelin like those are my my roots."

Locals may recall King leading Weyburn's music group, Seventh Avenue, who performed many gigs during their time, and were known for being able to play any crowd-pleasing classic rock tune. 

"I'm playing for three to four hours in the night and it's mainly just playing the songs that people want to hear, but my main my biggest thing when I play a cover, I want to do Brayden King's version of this song."

King said he's really enjoying doing music full time, but it's tough to bank on booked shows in the current state of the world.
"There's a lot of work that goes in, so booking a tour and getting prepared to go play these shows and then just to have it all collapse is quite discouraging. But a big part of this industry with the pandemic or not is just rolling with the punches, so I'm playing every show that I possibly can. 

"I think if I could choose to either record for the rest of my life or play live for the rest of my life, I'd say live every time because I there's nothing like getting energy off of a crowd."

King shared what it feels like to be on stage.

"Like I think I just black out. It's a totally different aspect of my life, and as soon as I strum that first chord, I am in a different universe. It's crazy, because like I'll try and remember, oh, how did you play that song in that Saskatoon set? I couldn't tell you. I have no idea unless I look back on videos. It's like an out of body experience." 

"When you're up there, it's just like, I don't know what happens, it's just my the performer in me overtakes me and I just go and do my thing and it's so weird to try and describe it because it's just it's so incredible. I I just love it. It's the best."

King said he hopes everyone will take the time to listen to his music. Find it on Apple Music, Spotify and Youtube. Find his Facebook page HERE.