A small, unsuspecting prairie town sits quiet. The clichéd tumbleweed rolls by. Suddenly, movement is seen in the distance. It’s people — fifty of them. They’re wearing marching band uniforms, promenading down the main strip in single file. Some play instruments, some wave flags and twirl batons while others pull little red wagons holding powered amps. But, before the town knows what’s hit them, the procession has marched out the other side of town, boarded a bus and is gone.
That’s The Wet Secrets’ rock fantasy.
“That is really our fantasy: ‘Guerilla marching band strikes on unsuspecting small town’,” envisions Trevor Anderson, vocalist and drummer for the Edmonton quintet.
Rock Fantasy is also the title of the band’s sophomore album; an uproariously commanding record characterized by overtly humorous lyrics and vigorous dance-rock songs.
“We very happily — sometimes to our detriment —shout things that should be kept secret,” he says. “There’s a strange amount of innocence in it. It’s not dark. It’s maybe dirty but light. Dirty light — that’s us.”
They almost have to be light. Busy lives outside The Wet Secrets barely permit them time to focus too heavily on the band’s development.
Kim Rackel on tuba and trumpet and Donna Ball on trombone run burlesque troupe, Capital City Burlesque. Lyle Bell does overtime in Shout Out Out Out Out and manages production of Edmonton’s Vue Weekly. Keyboardist Doug Organ (check his birth certificate) produces and plays in a number of bands and Anderson doubles as a budding filmmaker.
“It’s just hard to get the five of us in a room, let alone a city,” says Anderson. It’s why he says the band nearly tanked, but diverse offerings are also what grant the band an interesting sound. “I like to think of it as making art out of whatever’s in the fridge. Well, I got a piece of that and a bit of that and look — let’s call it a salad,” he says.
When asked if the band has longevity in them, Anderson jokes, “Oh, I doubt it! It was meant to be a one week prank and it has been pulling us along so far.”
But, Anderson says The Wet Secrets are happy fatalists, optimistic about what’s to come. “We know if it’s meant to be, it will be. There’s a certain amount of life that you just have no say in. The more you can embrace that, the more happy accidents can occur.”
