{"id":6736,"date":"2013-04-03T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-04-03T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=6736"},"modified":"2013-04-02T10:53:37","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T17:53:37","slug":"family-of-the-year-continue-to-grow-with-their-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/04\/03\/family-of-the-year-continue-to-grow-with-their-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of the Year continue to grow with their music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Currently on tour and promoting their second album, Loma Vista,<\/i> Family of the Year has come a long way since they first got together just four years ago.<\/p>\n

Drummer and vocalist, and former University of Victoria student, Sebastian Keefe made a quick decision right after his first year as a student to quit academia and follow his passion for music instead, heading off to Boston with his brother\/Family of the Year guitarist Joseph (the only two family members in the band).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Family of the Year aren\u2019t a family at all. They\u2019re a band! Well, there are two brothers. We know, it\u2019s hard to keep up. Just look at the striped sweater (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI quit to join my brother\u2019s band,\u201d says Sebastian. \u201cIt was really weird, because I had my whole next year planned out and I had courses paid for and registered, I had my apartment, I had a girlfriend, and all my friends. It was one of those weird decisions where, maybe if I had woken up in a different mood that day, I would have waited. But I did make a decision, and it\u2019s obviously changed my life forever. But sometimes when I sit around, I wonder what it would have been like if I had stayed, and not made this decision. Its kind of crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

While things are going well now, they weren\u2019t\u0118always so smooth. After a year playing in Boston and a break from music to work in television, Sebastian rejoined his brother to start up Family of the Year in California. It was these life experiences that have shaped Family of the Year into a tight-knit group and form their up-beat and optimistic indie\u0110folk.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur environment has always influenced our music, our life experience that has influenced our lives and the way that we do things,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s the largest influence. Also our relationships, members of the band and friends and family. A lot of songs on the album are just like, \u2018we\u2019re going to get through this together\u2019 kind of songs, you know. A \u2018whatever it takes\u2019 kind of vibe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Family of the Year made their first album, the self-recorded Songbook,<\/i> available to fans by donations. They are continuing this with Loma Vista,<\/i> also making it available by donation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur number-one priority is to get the music in peoples\u2019 hands if they want it,\u201d says Sebastian. \u201cWhile we\u2019re on tour, people can get the album for however much they can afford to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pay-what-you-can model is the same, but what has changed is how the band approach composing their songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent a lot more time with the arrangement of the songs and working on bits and pieces, as opposed to our first album,\u201d he says. \u201cI think the songwriting reflects better what we are like live; it has just evolved, kind of a natural progression bands go though.\u201d<\/p>\n

Family of the Year
\nTuesday, April 23
\nUpstairs Cabaret, $16.50
\nfamilyoftheyear.net<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Currently on tour and promoting their second album, Loma Vista, Family of the Year has come a long way since they first got together just four years ago. Drummer and vocalist, and former University of Victoria student, Sebastian Keefe made a quick decision right after his first year as a student to quit academia and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-april-3-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6736"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6739,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6736\/revisions\/6739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}