For me, picking up a guitar is a slightly embarrassing experience. Maybe an odd sound or two comes out of the guitar, and I deliver a self-conscious laugh and a pledge to only enjoy the sounds the instrument makes in the hands of others. But if you find yourself playing guitar and the next thing you know you’ve got the whole room at your fingertips, it might be a sign that you’ve found your calling. Fortune Killers vocalist Felicia Harding took the hint when the entire room started to sing with her at a house party when she was 18, and now she’s getting ready to take the stage for Victoria’s Spirit of 150 celebration.
“I’m so excited to be a part of it,” she says. “We played Canada Day a couple of years ago at the harbour stage; it was one of our first big gigs. We felt like that was kind of a big step in the right direction for us.”
The Canada Day show marked the beginning of a rollercoaster ride for the electro-pop band—who were formerly known as Isobel Trigger—that’s heading up, up, and up. Since then, the band signed to Cordova Bay records and toured throughout western Canada and the prairies.
“In a lot of ways it’s great timing, and it’s kind of a marker for us to be playing [Canada Day] again now as Fortune Killers, when we’re on this next tier and about to release this next record,” says Harding.
The band started off with five members, but have since slimmed down to a trio; Harding says they’re feeling much more comfortable with their new lineup on their upcoming as-yet-untitled record, which doesn’t have a release date set yet.
“We struck an awesome balance. We feel like writing together flows really easily. In the past, it was a lot of me writing solo and then bringing the songs to the band,” she says. Co-writing adds a valuable element to the creative process, she says, in terms of expanding the roots of the creativity as well as elevating the connection felt within the band.
“Basing the music off of more than just the lyrics has been a fun experiment, and a good challenge for me,” says Harding. “I think it’s brought a lot of musical intelligence to our sound.”
Fortune Killers
4:15 pm, Saturday July 1
Free, Inner harbour
spirit150victoria.ca