Just because Five Alarm Funk takes their music seriously doesn’t mean they can’t have fun.
With gorilla suits, sharks suits, dance-offs and confetti cannons, the 11-piece Vancouver funk outfit are out to show that to Thunder Bay when they play The Office July 27. They just want to get people dancing and have a party.
"Whatever they’re there for they’re going to get their minds blown," said conga player Tom Towers. "People always seem to leave with a smile on their face."
The group is fresh off of a win at the TD Sunfest in London where they took home the $5,000 Galaxie Rising Star prize. Towers said they’d never even heard of the prize until they were at the festival. Five Alarm Funk had no idea they were even eligible for the prize until they won.
"Sunday rolls around and what happens we’re getting off the stage and they ask us to stay up there," Towers said. "It was a pleasant surprise."
From their beginnings seven years ago, Five Alarm Funk have been slowly getting the right people and the right groove together said Towers. Getting those grooves together happens when the band jams. Starting with a riff, the band will start layering horns and counter-melodies before working out things like transitions and solos.
""Before you know it we’ve got a song," Towers said.
Towers said because the band hops from reggae to polka to hard rock in their songs, it can sound improvised. People even come up and ask if they can play his congas on a song because they think the band is just jamming on stage.
"Maybe it looks like it’s just happening on the fly but it’s all very tight," Towers said. "It’s very structured."
Instead of jamming with the band, the audience can participate in dance-offs. Towers said the dance-offs, along with gorilla and shark suits, help to get people into the groove and let go.
"If you see a bunch of uncoordinated guys on stage and a shark suit you start to think ‘maybe I’m not the goofiest person in the room," Towers said.
The suits coincide with the band’s album "Anything is Possible". The theme of the album is a gorilla and a shark, "two alpha beasts" Towers said, battling it out, reconciling and then vacationing in the tropics together.
"If that can happen anything is possible," Towers said.
