They’re joining the impressive lineup for the Clarkefield Music Festival, a festival that’s aiming to be an annual event (with this its second year) and all proceeds going to assist kids living in poverty in Cambodia via the Cambodian Kids Foundation. The Cambodian Kids Foundation is a not for profit, non-political and non-religious NGO that work to empower the people of Cambodia in a completely hands-on way.
So hands on, in fact, that festival director Lincoln Mackinnon was still in Cambodia working hard while also organising this festival. Last year’s festival contributed to the building of a new school for over 1,000 children in the Kampong Thom province of Cambodia while this year’s festival funds will go directly to the running of the school.
The TTTs, powered on even more by the response to Outlaws, are currently working on new material while furiously gigging.
“It’s been a pretty busy time,” percussionist, vocalist and trombonist Giuliano Ferla says. “We’re currently writing our next record, to be released in the latter half of the year. We’re locked in to record with Burke Reid (The Drones, Oh Mercy, Gerling) which we’re pretty wildly excited about. We just have to write the album now. It’s going to be another concept album, and at the moment it’s looking like a Bonnie and Clyde adventure from the city into the red centre – should be real fun.”
So what motivated the TTTs to have such a multi-medium approach to their performances? “A few members of the band have theatrical backgrounds and so I think that’s led to us trying to incorporate that into our music too,” he explains. “It seems like a more and more important thing for a band to have a great live show and not just replicate a recording when playing live. And we love the theatricality and big gesture and big emotion, so playing live is always a blast. We seem to have two types of shows. The live gig, which is pretty relaxed and a bit of a party atmosphere, and the more theatrical gig, which has dancers, narrators and projections, and party. We like to party.”
While most artists jump at the opportunity to play to as many diverse audiences as possible, to further their fan base and explore growing networks, they also chose to be a part of charity events because of an affiliation or belief in the charitable work being done. Bands are people too, you know?
“It’s important to give back and volunteer your time to worthy causes,” he says. “I think it’s very easy for us all to get so caught up in ourselves and we all need constant reminders that there are people in the world who are in greater need than us…The Clarkefield guys are doing great work over in Cambodia and I wish them all success.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
