In December Tour De Fort announced that Alternative Folk Rockers Shred Kelly would be coming to the Townshend Theatre. The show, which is ticketed separate from the annual passport series, is on Jan. 24.
Shred Kelly is based out of British Columbia but vocalist and keyboard player Sage McBride has roots in northwestern Ontario where her parents own a business near Kenora.
The band formed when McBride’s husband and other members of the band were participating in a jam night in B.C.
“We started the band in 2009,” McBride said. “Tim, my husband, was hosting a jam night, and a few of the other members of the band were going to the jam night in other groups or solo. And Tim had written a few songs for the band, and was kind of getting a group of people together. So that’s how it initially started. It was just through a jam night that was happening at a local bar in Fernie called The Brick House.”
The band took its name from a former member who is from Australia and dressed up as infamous Australian criminal Ned Kelly.
“We initially had an Australian in our band, and he dressed up on Halloween as a snowboarding Ned Kelly and called himself ‘Shred Kelly,’ McBride recounted. “The first show that the band ever played was actually just Tim and our first guitar player, Steve, and they played a show at the top of the ski hill in Fernie, a local newspaper reporter was there. They asked ‘what’s the name of your band?’ And they didn’t have a band name at the time, so Steve was just like, ‘Shred Kelly.’ And then it just stuck ever since.”
Shred Kelly’s first album listed on Spotify is 2010’s Goodbye July and the band has put out recordings at a steady pace ever since.
Their biggest hit on Spotify is a collaboration with fellow B.C.-based artists Moontricks on a cover of Buffalo Springfield’s ‘For What it’s Worth.’ The cover has almost 2.1 million listens on Spotify. McBride says the recording was made after the two acts played the song together while performing at a festival and while it was first posted on YouTube, they decided to make a full recording of it McBride says she thinks they only have Spotify’s algorithm to thank for the number of listeners the recording has reached.
“Sometimes the Spotify algorithm picks up certain things. I’m not sure of the exact reason why; the internet works in mysterious ways.”
Their most recent album, released in 2023, is called Blurry Vision.
“We released the album in 2023 and we’ve been touring it over the past year, mostly across Canada to festivals and other venues like that,” McBride said. “It’s been really great to be able to play the songs live and include them in our live set, to see how they’ve received some recognition with radio play and things like that throughout the album cycle. We’re looking forward now to getting back into doing some writing and then releasing new music, probably in 2026.”
McBride and her husband Tim Newton– who is the band’s guitar and banjo player in addition to singing– are spending part of the winter at her family’s place near Kenora, with plans to do some writing for future albums. While spending time out here they decided to bring the rest of the band, guitarist Ty West and drummer Ryan Mildenberger, out and play some shows in the region. Before coming to Fort Frances they’ll play at High and Lonesome Club in Winnipeg on Jan. 22 followed by two shows in Kenora at Lake of the Woods Brew Co. on Jan. 25 with and early show at 5 p.m.
Tickets for the Fort Frances show on Friday, Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m. are available at Ski’s Variety, the Fort Frances Public Library and tourdefort.com for $20 plus fees. Tickets will be available at the door for $25.
