Truth be known, it's not so hard being on a three-month tour with a baby.
Though it may be a little cumbersome at times for the new mom.
"It's been busy for our band and, when you add a baby on top of that, it can really step things up," New Brunswick musician David Myles said. "My wife has been amazing. She has to carry the load for most of the day and the night but it's been really nice just being together."
Keeping a routine since the tour started Sept. 3 has been paramount for the young family. They've been travelling compact - in a Hyundai Elantra filled with mostly baby gear - while Myles' bandmates, Kyle Cunjak (upright bass) and Alan Jeffries (guitar) have been hauling the instruments and equipment in another vehicle.
And trying to get enough hours of sleep to keep pace with their hectic performance schedule has also been a challenge, too. "It just means that you've got to be on all the time," Myles said, "but I think that's the case for most working parents with a four-month-old baby.... We see this as an adventure and we're not feeling like we're stuck at all at home, as is the case with other parents on maternity leave."
Recently, the crew wrapped up 18 dates in Saskatchewan and they are now performing at 16 venues across B.C. - including a stop at Coquitlam's Evergreen Cultural Centre on Saturday -to promote their latest album, Into The Sun.
The fifth studio recording, which earned Myles the 2012 East Coast Music Association award for Songwriter of the Year, started out as an experimental project, using Bossa nova and Brazilian psychedelic sounds.
As the songs took shape, Myles decided to release them to the public "so now my live shows sometimes get billed as African rhythms, which is weird because I usually come up and play blue grass and 1950s-inspired soul music.... I think that's where I'm going with my next album."
Myles said the response from his western Canada gigs has been "tremendous" so far.
"We really work on putting on a show that people of all ages can get into," he said. "We're playing to audiences that don't necessarily know my music so it's important that you put on a show that's accessible and will be memorable."
Tickets at $35/$30/$15 to the David Myles Trio show at the Evergreen Cultural Centre are available by calling 604-927-6555 or visiting www.evergreenculturalcentre.ca.
