An Okotoks real estate broker who plays music part time is making some serious noise overseas.
John Fraser is a guitar player and vocalist for the band Vannatta named after it’s chief songwriter and driving force Larry Vannatta of Milo.
“We came together in about 2003,” Larry said. “Of course John’s with us and he joined us probably the year after that. Basically it’s just a bunch of friends who got together.”
The group recently hit number one on the country music charts in Germany and Sweden with their song “Cowboy Junkie”. The single also reached top 10-chart status in the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and France.
Fraser gives full credit for the band’s European exposure and success to Larry and added it’s all unknown territory to him.
“I suspect a lot of people aren’t even aware that’s there is a European Country Music Association,” the Okotoks performer said. “I know I wasn’t. But apparently it’s something that is really gaining a bit of traction so that part of it is fun for sure.”
The other core members of Vannatta are Calgary drummer George Davidson and bass player Bud Maynard of High River. Davidson and Fraser have a friendship and musical association that goes back to their university days.
“We never did any recording before but we played together an awful lot,” Fraser recalled of his earlier days with Davidson, “We played quiet a bit around here (Okotoks) too. We played for the rodeo dance a couple of years. One year Patricia Conroy played the Friday night and we did the Saturday night. We had some pretty good fun. But then one of the guys who did a lot of our singing ran into some health issues so that kind of unwound things and we weren’t really able to keep that going. But George and I have been playing sort of in and around here in different band configurations for quite a few years. ”
Vannatta is a band that occasionally takes on other members when one of the regular players is unavailable. For example, Fraser could not be part of the group’s gigs during the Calgary Stampede as he had commitments of his own with other musicians.
However, the four mainstay members come back together whenever they can for the simplest of reasons.
“We have a good time,” said Fraser. “I think that is fairly obvious and I think that really rubs off on people at our shows. While we try to do as a good a job as we can we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”
While Vannatta generally plays a mixture of cover tunes from different musical eras as well as original material, Fraser admitted they are usually willing to take requests from the crowd.
The band makes most of its inroads with southern Alberta music fans from its live show. Across the pond, however, Vannatta’s growth has come almost exclusively due to radio play.
“What I do is release a lot of songs over into the European network and that goes all across Europe,” Larry said.
When the European Country Music Association announced their list of nominees for it’s recently held awards Vannatta was nominated for Artist of the Year, Band of the Year and Album of the Year for their disc “Redneck Thoroughbred”. While they did not win any of those awards Larry himself was awarded the prize for Songwriter of the Year.
Vannatta’s front man expressed his belief that it’s much easier for almost any country artist to get played on radio stations in Europe.
“They really like Canadian artists and they don’t care what your name is,” he said. “If it’s just some John Doe or Garth Brooks if they like it they will play it. So it kind of puts you on an even playing field.”
Meanwhile Vannatta has received very little radio play in North America because here, Larry maintained, it is about having that firmly established big time musical identity.
“If your name is not Garth Brooks or Brad Paisley you’ve got a rough road in trying to get on the air,” he said.
To learn more about the band and it’s music go to its web site www.vannatta.ca
