Midnight Lights

Midnight Lights Live on Global Edmonton, July 2016 - Global Edmonton

Working with their other half might be impossible for some people, but not for Katie and Jason Leussink. The duo from Peace River, Alberta, together as Midnight Lights, is considered one of Alberta’s top rising country acts and their debut EP, Elements, has earned them a spot in Project WILD artist development program. The duo has toured across Canada with country artist Tenille, and opened for some of Canada’s best artists, including Dean Brody and Crystal Shawanda.

Midnight Lights will be at Knoxville's in Calgary this Thursday, October 27, 2016 as a part of Project WILD: Concert Series Showcase.

Here's where they go to grab a bite in Peace River, AB.

Breakfast
Riggers Dining is a quaint little restaurant run by a husband-and-wife [team]. Gather up all your buds and sit at the big round table. We like the French toast and French fries, or a combination of the two.

Lunch
Kita North. It’s the most authentic Asian cuisine this far north, including sushi! We’ve not tried the sushi, but been told it’s amazing. We go for pretty much anything smothered in sauce, or the buffet.

Dinner
Freson Bros. is our go-to when we want a quick healthy supper. A staple for us is the rotisserie chicken and oven roasted root vegetables. So yummy! Honorable mention goes to their mac ’n’ cheese, and pulled pork.

It’s a small town, and Boston Pizza never lets us down for a late night drink or dessert with friends. Try the apple crisp, you won’t be disappointed. - EatNorth.com

CCMA WEEK:
You may not know it, but our Peace River based band is becoming one of Alberta’s hottest up-and-coming country music groups. We’ve been invited to the Canadian Country Music Awards week in London, ONT, for not one, but three separate showcases… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Alberta’s Hottest Up-and-Coming Country Artists
Curious about who Alberta’s country stars of tomorrow are? Look no further than Project Wild, an artist development program hosted by Calgary’s trendy new country radio station Wild 935. Hundreds applied for the program, twelve were chosen.
Meet number thirteen: Midnight Lights – the husband and wife duo from small town Northern Alberta. Invited into the program after another participant dropped out, they are quickly making their mark in the competition as the ones to beat. From their passionate performances and song writing to their warm demeanor and kind smiles, these underdogs from Alberta’s North are the ones to watch in this program.

ABOUT PROJECT WILD:
Project WILD is a professional development program designed to educate, promote, develop and launch the careers of some of Alberta’s up and coming country and roots artists. Top 12 artists will be awarded a $5,000 Development award and will all get to participate in an intense and career changing music and music industry bootcamp, where they will be pushed to the very limit of what they can achieve as artists.
Project WILD, is part of a seven year, $4.9 million program, designed to kick-start the international music careers of 3 emerging Alberta artists annually. The project is administered by Alberta Music (Alberta Music Industry Association) and funded by WILD 953 - Calgary’s New Country, through CRTC approved Canadian Content Development Funding.
This is the first year the program will be called Project WILD. For the previous two years in Alberta the program has been known as the PEAK Performance Project, which also ran as a program in BC for the past seven years. Previous Alberta and BC winners have been: The Wet Secrets, Leeroy Stagger, Good For Grapes, Bed Of Stars, We Are the City, Kyprios, Current Swell, Dear Rouge and Rykka. Project WILD will run in Alberta for the next five years.
First Place $100,953.00; Second Place $75,000; Third Place $50,000;

MEDIA
Katie and Jason of Midnight Lights will appear on Global Edmonton, 9:40am on Sunday, July 10th, to share about their Project Wild experience so far, and what it’s like to be the underdogs from the North. They would love to do an interview in the next few weeks with the crew at the Record Gazette, their hometown newspaper. - Record Gazette (Newspaper)

On the surface Jason and Katie Leussink appear as an ordinary musical group.

But there’s more to the story that meets the ear.

The Peace River couple, who perform adult contemporary/pop music as the group Katie and Jason, alongside Byron Schamehorn (bass) and Robby Hoy (drums), released their debut album Keep It Simple in August 2013 and are preparing for their 2014 Love Your Neighbour Tour.

“This whole thing began (in May 2013) as an initiative to help a Peace River couple (Terry and Donna Brunham) who is battling cancer, so what we did was we decided to donate 100% of the proceeds from our song called Long Gone, that’s on our debut album back to them because that song was inspired by their battle with cancer,” said Katie, who performs keyboard and vocals.

So far, proceeds have helped purchase Oncolyn, a promising cancer treatment.

From that, the band’s Love Your Neighbour Tour formed. During the tour, 100% of the proceeds from ticket sales go to a non-profit group in that community.

This year, the band plans on bringing the tour to Peace River (May 31) Manning (June 14) and Northern Sunrise County (June 25).

The Peace River concert’s proceeds will go towards the Soup Kitchen.

“We’re not seeking fame and fortune with this because it’s going to come largely out of our pocket, but it’s looking really good and I think people are grabbing on to the idea because they see the honesty behind it and that we really just want to do good things with our music and have purpose in what we do,” said Leussink, adding the band is looking for sponsorship for the tour and hopes they can take the it out of province.

Since forming in 2011, last year was one of the busiest years for the band. Not only did they form the campaign, but they were also able to record their album with Calgary producer Josh Gwilliam, of Pilot Audio and then they joined country artist Tenille on her cross-Canada Play It Forward Tour for 21 weeks.

“It’s (debut album) all songs that Jason (guitar, vocals) and I have written and they’re kind of songs that have ranged from issues like love, loss, illness, finding hope again,” added Leussink.

“On our debut album, we took a lot of liberties and just kind of made it whatever we wanted it and we didn’t really care if anyone ever heard it.”

She says the band plans to head back to the recording studio this summer. Although a title for the album has yet to be decided, she says the songs will continue to come from “...honest places.”

As writing continues for the new album, Katie says the past three years have been exciting.

“Things have been really good. It’s been a lot more work than we anticipated because it’s a lot of work getting ourselves out there and I am not a business person, I’m just an artist and Jason and I really struggle with selling ourselves, it’s just not something I think we’re good at. We just want to make the art,” Leussink explained.

“We’re not doing this for our own glory. We just want to be so honest with our pursuit of music.”

More information about the band can be found on their Facebook page by searching ‘Katie and Jason Music’, their website www.katieandjasonmusic.com, or on Twitter @_KatieandJason.

logan.clow@sunmedia.ca - Peace River Record Gazette