making the scene

from the swamp

featuring stirrings from deep within the core of Swamp Honey

local groove based jam trio

Graham Ord, Dylan Ranney, and Nils Loewen came together close to 5 years ago now, and while the musical connection wasn't automatic, the friendship was. The brotherhood that ensued has led to them becoming an enduring creative music unit that somehow falls between jam band, blues trio, and singer/songwriter troupe.

Partial Transcript - updates coming

ei - We are sitting down with no other than Swamp Honey. Definitely one of Kelowna's well loved but necessarily as well known bands. It's a unique position you guys find yourselves in. I've seen you play in a number of different places and I know you play corporate and private gigs as well.

ei - How long have you guys been together now as a gigging band?

DR - "Four years, strangely enough."

ei - How did you find each other and come together as a band. Did you just start jamming and decided you liked the sound of it or was it....

DR - "There was a sequence there. Graham and I have known each other for over a decade, and Nils and I have played in many bands together. Nils and I had another band, a trio with another guy called Ricky and the Poor Boys, and due to unfortunage circumstances that band ended, and we wanted to keep playing together so we were looking for a third guy. And Graham is a legend. Because I've known Graham for a long time I thought we might as well shoot for the top and see if he would want to play with us, and he just jumped right on over and joined us in the party. I think we named the band in the first practice."

ei - "With some bands it's just instant magic. It just works from the very first groove you lay down. Other bands it's more of a laboured effort. Which sort of category did you guys fall into?"

NL - "I'd say it took some time. I wanted to do some sort of weird jazz fusiony thing. Get Graham to play mandolin while I do the free cello stuff. We had a practice and it was like, "Oh, okay, that was odd." And then Graham got us a gig and, he got the gig so we had to follow. "

laughter

DR - "Where was that gig?"

copious amounts of laughter

NL - "Kelowna Internation Airport, in the arrivals lounge."

DR - "Playing in the arrivals lounge at the airport, that was our first gig!"

further copious amounts of laughter

ei - "You guys have moved on to some other things, and there is a depth of groove with you guys, there's a feel to it. It reminds me of one of my favourite guys from the south, Tony Joe White."

GO - "He was one of our heros."

DR - "Definitely one of our biggest influences for sure.

ei - "So who are some of your musical influences?"

D Y L A N R A N N E Y

"Graham and I have known each other for over a decade, and Nils and I have played in many bands together."

"One of our biggest influences for sure."

"The comradery, the joy of playing together, that's sort of the foundation of it all."

He's also the only cellist I know that uses an octave pedal, and that adds a whole other level...

Right now we're actually working on some recordings, some video for the foodbank.

G R A H A M O R D

"Tony Joe White was one of our heroes."

"We haven't got too many complete original songs. We do have a lot of ideas that we're working with. Most of the songs we currently do are ones I wrote before."

"When we're thinking of songs, we literally don't censor each other at all."

The cello is the vibe of the band because it's so unique

My dad's in the UK, he's 73 so at very high risk so he actually has to stay at home pretty much all the time. So me and him are doing a record across the Atlantic, sending things back and forth.

We're set up in a little room in our house. We've swamped the room out, we've vibed it out. We're going to be making some music together. It's so nice because we really have missed playing together.

N I L S L O E W E N

"I wanted to do some weird jazz fusiony thing. Get Graham to play mandolin while I do free cello stuff. We had a practice and it was like, "Oh, that was odd." And then Graham got us a gig and, he got the gig so we had to follow. "

"It's interesting playing blues bass lines, because I'm in fifths instead of fourths so all the patterns are different."

When we sat down to talk, Swamp Honey were rehearsing for an upcoming fundraiser for local foodbanks. While not set in stone just yet, it is tentatively scheduled to air live on Facebook and YouTube on June 19th. Please check back for details and updates.

Where to find them online

SwampHoney.ca

Bio

Swamp Honey has become one of those best loved secrets that few people know about, but everyone who does are so into them. Graham Ord has been crafting beautiful songs for decades, and the combination of him with the younger Nils Loewen and Dylan Ranney truly does create something unique.

Swamp Honey are always looking for opportunites to play live, and can be reached through their website listed elsewhere on this page. They have played everything from big corporate gigs to local wineries and everything in between.