American rock band Mona will be stopping by Saskatoon to play at Louis’ Pub on Dec. 6. The band is currently on tour across western Canada, after having recently released their latest EP In the Middle.

Mona is set to play Louis’ Pub on Dec. 6 following the release of their new EP In the Middle.

Mona is a group based out of Nashville, Tenn. as Nick Brown, their lead singer and guitar player, moved to Nashville to start his music career. He quickly formed the band Mona, named after his grandmother and it has been evolving ever since.

The group signed their first record deal in 2010 and has since released three albums. Their show will be the first time the group has ever played in Saskatoon and when asked to describe their music, Brown was hesitant to put a label on it.

“As far as genre, I try to steer clear. Obviously we are kind of indie/alternative rock,” Brown said.

Brown hopes their music provokes emotion  — whatever emotion that is. 

“I don’t necessarily want to tell them what to feel or tell them what to believe, but I do want people to feel things and I do want people to believe in things. I think it’s good to have diversity and have all these different approaches and views to life, but I think music helps all of us come to our conclusions.”

In the Middle was released in late October 2016 and Brown describes himself as a driving force in their recording process.

“I have 40 acres in Nashville, my house is there, I built a studio there and I’ve always produced all of our stuff. It’s our rehearsal space, it’s our studio and it’s our headquarters. So you know, being the lead singer and the primary writer, I also take everything with a producer’s kind of approach because I want things to be great,” Brown said.

When describing their process of working as a group, Brown depicted it as a slow process that provides them with discretion and flexibility.

“It’s always just kind of us in the wood shop, kind of carving out different ideas and slowly putting them together. We don’t have a lot of filters in our life, we don’t have people telling us what to do so there’s a lot of freedom.”

Brown is self-taught — whether he’s playing his guitar, writing music or recording it, he’s taught himself everything from scratch, which motivates him and drives the group.

“I’m insanely stubborn and I’m not done yet … I’m a good ally to have if you have ambition and you want to do music and you are in my group. I’m not slowing down or stopping so we just kind of always keep at it,” Brown said.

The title track of In the Middle has been in the works for years, but Brown described it as a process to be savoured.

After several variations of the song and changing the chorus multiple times, eventually the sound clicked.

“Sometimes you write songs in five minutes, and sometimes you write them in five years. And that was one of those five-year things where I always loved it, the melody and the energy of it but it just never felt right, so once we kind of got that ‘aha’ moment … not to quote its own lyrics but, ‘This feels alright.’”

Mona will be playing with July Talk at Louis’ at 7 p.m. on Dec. 6. Tickets are available for purchase on the Ticketmaster website for $25.

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Jonah Egan-Pimblett

Photo: Joseph Llanes / Supplied