SoulGrass
Two souls tangled in wood, steal and strings soaring over a rhythm driven stampede drenched in blood, sweat and twang, stompin' and sawin' through Canada like a freight train with legs!
Formed in 2016 by Dan Rae and his wife Asjia, through the years the band has had many other members come and go but ultimately remained primarily a duo. Blending decades of love for all sorts of music, pinning a genre on the borderline cacophony these two create has never been easy. Their sound swells with the passion of their cryptic, gripping lyrics to beckon you in and explodes with speed and energy to jolt your senses to life. If you couldn't see them, you'd never guess their ruckus came from only two people.
Dan Rae
Vocalist/Guitarist/Percussionist
Going to church as a kid we had a band there that played songs between sermons and prayers and although I've never been very religious I'll never forget the impact they had on me and how much they made me want to play music for people. Growing up my parents played a lot of Gordon Lightfoot and John Denver on car rides, which I think may have played a role in getting me into Country, Folk and Bluegrass music later on, but, once left to my own devices from the age of around 10, I got heavily into the Classic Rock of the 60s and 70s and the Punk and Metal of the 80s and 90s. In my mid teens I became a huge Rap fan which led me down a path of Soul, Funk and Motown, all of which has had massive influence on the way I write and perform my own music. Once my 20s rolled around, lots of bands and artists started coming out of the woodwork with fusions of genres I had grown up with and suddenly my inability to figure out just what the hell kind of music I wanted to play didn't matter anymore. I wasn't the only one trying to learn Master Of Puppets and St. James Infirmary on the same acoustic guitar and playing Punked out versions of Folk songs and Folked out versions of Punk songs. Eventually it came down to just writing what I liked the sound of and to hell with the genre. When the day came that Asjia and I started to play together it changed everything. Her playing completes our music and blows me away with every new song we write.
Asjia Rae
Violinist
Growing up on Hornby Island, BC, I was surrounded by nothing but drum circles and ocean side bonfires with a community still living out their hippy fantasies. I later moved to Quebec and made many musician friends who played Blues, Funk, Soul, Rap and Reggae. I learned to play guitar and mainly played Blues riffs for fun and jammed here and there. A few years after Dan and I started dating, he had been running an open mic and playing in a couple bands. We wanted to create something together, so, I taught myself Violin with a bit of help from a couple of friends in bands we'd frequently play with and within a couple months we were playing shows. Not long after we recorded our first EP, we Toured to Vancouver where we lived for almost a year before touring back to Quebec. Fast forward and we've now played shows in dozens of cities across almost every province in Canada. We love playing music for and meeting all the amazing people throughout this beautiful country and every performance we have and every song we create together has brought us closer as friends and partners in both life and music.