Artist Spotlight: Millenia

The best Canadian-Ukrainian Party Band north of Leduc, AB

God damn, these guys are so good.

I first heard them doing an a capella version of that song on a random Facebook video. I started to go down the rabbit hole and eventually had a couple of tunes on regular rotation. Soon I was loving Barynya and Chorna and a bunch of other songs.

One thing Millenia does better than anyone I've ever heard is to actually incorporate traditional sounding Ukrainian group harmonies into a rocked-up sound. With all due respect to some of the bigger Ukrainian-folk-inspired rock and punk bands you might know… they couldn't sing a traditional four-part harmony if you paid them six trillion dollars.

This sound had a big influence on our songwriting at the time, as we started to look into these harmonies and how to recreate them. We still can't do it, but we came close with “Problem”, and the new album has a rousing Polish-Ukrainian song on it where a similar attempt is made.

Also, I think this band does weddings. This fact makes me want to travel back in time to my own wedding, hire them instead of the guy we got (I believe his name was DJ ITunes) and die of alcohol poisoning on the most important day of my life. Can you imagine this at your wedding? An acoustic set followed by the plugged in one? I’d lose my frickin’ mind.

And I’ve said this before, but one of the best things about being in The Dreadnoughts is that when we fall in love with some other band’s sound, we can often just ask to play with them whenever we are nearby, which we did with Millenia a few years back in Edmonton. I’ll always remember that gig because Millenia had four or five local couples dancing the polka during their set, and those same dancers rocked around in a similar fashion to our stuff. YEAH BABY. SYNERGY BABY.

Super nice guys, they did “Kurochka” for me, and we got to meet their families. (that’s what rock musicians in their late 30s and 40s do, they share a single cold Miller Lite backstage and introduce one another to their families). I do hope we get to play together again.

Finally, I leave you with this… check the “Ghost Riders” breakdown in this banger…