When people discuss “BC’s music scene,” it can be difficult not to zoom right in on Vancouver. Almost rightfully so, the scene here is so vibrant and alive, but what about the smaller areas of our province that don’t quite get enough love?

No matter where you are, it’s always a challenge to find community in a new space, especially as an artist, but being in a big city definitely helps. In my research on local and ‘local-adjacent’ artists, I started to wonder about their experiences as artists working outside of BC’s most populated city.

In part one, I spoke with Nanaimo-based singer/songwriter, Charis Tazumi. Moving to BC’s interior, I spoke with Finley Kinghorn of Bucket, a pop-punk band out of Nelson.

When I spoke with Finley, he had a lot to say about both the scenes in Nelson and Vancouver. “I think because there’s a really good music program in Nelson, it’s kind of full of really good musicians, but there’s not a lot of just music fans,” he told me, “it’s sort of a lot of musicians watching other musicians, which is awesome because it just creates so many great bands out here.”

Bucket itself was born out of this same music program, and their first EP, Doorm Room Demos, was recorded entirely in Finley’s dorm. 

While he says Nelson fosters a great community of artists, it can be difficult to find your footing as a band in the smaller scene. “I think that if your goal is to grow a fan base, it can’t really grow that big here,” he says, “the first time I played [in Vancouver] was a few years ago, and I just noticed immediately, there were so many people. It was great to see.”

He notes that the number of younger people involved with Vancouver’s music is particularly refreshing, “there were young people out too that were just so stoked to be watching live music, and you don’t see that as much around here. I thought that was kind of dead, younger kids coming out to see shows.  It’s so, so cool to see out there, especially lately with the indie scene down there. Everyone’s super bought into it, and it kind of branches off into the punk and rock sounds. What’s going on out there is definitely awesome.”

If you’d like to hear more from Bucket, you can check out their featured episode of New Music Now on the Evolution Podcast Network, along with their work on Spotify! They’ve been working on some exciting stuff recently, so I highly recommend you check them out.