A Blu Beach Band interview at The Study
On Saturday, Sept. 26, nearly 300 people crowded into a sold-out show at the (somewhat) new campus bar, The Study. Concert-goers entered dressed in varying degrees of ski and snowboard attire, ready to party and hear music from Saskatchewan-made Blu Beach Band. The band members themselves sported ski goggles and helmets to match with the night’s “après-ski” theme which was set by the event’s organizers, the U of R Ski and Board Club.
Doors opened at 9:30 p.m. and Blu Beach Band took the stage by 10:00 p.m. TVs in the bar displayed their logo atop a background of old hockey and football highlights, as well as VHS footage of various Saskatchewan programs and commercials from the ‘80s and ‘90s. They played songs from their June 2026 album, Mulligan, as well as many others from previous projects. People in the crowd danced and sang throughout the set, and at one point, a chant broke out for them to play their track “Loosey,” to which the band obliged. The band played for over an hour before handing the stage off to the DJs to spin for the rest of the night.
Most of those in attendance were students at the U of R. After the show, Regina student Farrah Low said that she had not been to The Study much beforehand and that she was happy one of her first experiences there was seeing Blu Beach Band, saying they were “so fun“ and that “they were so good with the crowd.”
I spent like a year mixing the album, and by the end of it I was like, every one of these songs are fucking terrible. -Carter Vosper
Sitting Down With Blu Beach Band
Sitting at a conference table in The Study’s makeshift green room, members of the band agreed to answer some questions as music continued to pump through the venue and the party kept going. When asked if this was their first time at The Study/The Lazy Owl, vocalist and guitarist Carter Vosper said that he was familiar with the place.
“I’ve been here quite a few times; back when I was going to university, I’d come here a decent amount.”
Blu Beach band had also been on campus recently, having played on the green during Welcome Week, which was also the first time Vosper had been to the bar after it became The Study.
“We came here after we played… and then Katie Tupper had a show that got moved inside because it was storming, so we came in for that. I like what they’ve done with the place; it seems like a good step forward, I think…”
Talking about the success of Saturday night’s event, he made sure to give due credit to the university’s Ski and Board Club as well.
“It’s a good combination of the U of R Ski and Board Club, then The Study both putting their best foot forward to make something happen… They’ve been treating us like kings tonight; it’s been really sick.”
Favourite Tour Spots
Though Blu Beach Band is from Saskatchewan and is now based out of Regina, the band is no stranger to being on the road around the country. When asked what the best tour spot they’ve hit was, Vosper was between two cities.
“Man, we had such a good time in Kelowna, I don’t know about you,” said Vosper, looking to the band’s drummer, Riley Buchberger.
“I had a freaking blast,” replied Buchberger.
Vosper continued to muse on his favourite stop: “Yeah, Kelowna shocked the fuck out of us… I don’t know what else… Montreal! Last year we went to Montreal; we played on a Monday night.”
“We played on a Sunday and a Monday… the Sunday happened to be Easter,” added Remi Berthelet, the band’s other guitarist and vocalist.
“Yeah, Montreal and Kelowna, the two biggest surprises so far,” Vosper concluded.
After narrowing the question down to the best Saskatchewan venues to play at, the decision still remained difficult for Vosper, but he landed on two that stood out.
“There’s a couple really good ones. The Coors Event Centre [in Saskatoon] is pretty goated, ‘cause they have those three different levels.” Vosper responded, referring to the three different stages in the Coors Event Centre, which each have different capacities. “We love playing O’Hanlon’s [in Regina] and I’ll always have a soft spot for them… I’d go O’Hanlon’s and Coors Event Centre.”
Even when not touring, the band does a lot of shows on the road, both in and outside of the province. In response to being asked how they manage being out of town as often as they are, Vosper gave a shout-out to their bosses.
“We have really good bosses at work, yeah, a lot of time off… The key if you’re working a regular job is, you’ve got to make sure your bosses are fans of your music, that goes a long way. They’re like… ‘as long as you’re going to play July Again,’” he said, referring to the band’s 2023 single.
The key if you’re working a regular job is, you’ve got to make sure your bosses are fans of your music, that goes a long way. -Carter Vosper
On the Topic of Mulligan
In June of this year, Blu Beach Band released their album, Mulligan, named after the golf term that describes a free do-over shot after a bad attempt. Asked about the name of the album, Vosper said it gained more meaning as time went on.
“There is significance. At first it was like a joke, ‘cause that’s a golf term and we love golfing, but as we were releasing it, the idea… Mulligan is essentially a second chance, and it was like, you get a second chance in golf, but not in life. Pursuing music is this fuckin’ hail-mary thing that it’s like – you don’t get a second chance at your twenties, so you might as well fuckin’, y’know, actually go for it.”
Later, when asked about their favourite tracks off their newest album, Buchberger had no hesitation in his response: “‘Dogwater,’ hands down. I have supported that song probably for a year and a half. That song was supposed to fuckin’ be somethin’ a long time ago, but I believed in it. I fucking love that song, love it.”
Vosper went with a different pick, saying, “I like playing ‘Queens.’ ‘Queens’ is fun. The harmonica shit is cool.”
The ‘Queens’ music video features the four band members sporting brightly coloured tank tops and headbands, playing their instruments, lifting weights, and doing various exercises in the style of a home-workout video.
After being asked, Vosper talked about how the idea for the music video came about: “It is like a blatant Wiggles rip-off, obviously. When we wrote the song, I didn’t really know what the ‘go, go, go, make, make, make’ thing really meant, but to me, it felt like a personal trainer… like somebody in an ‘80s aerobics video hyping you up, so I was like, let’s do a workout video.”
Buchberger also gave some insight into the recording of the song’s refrain, “And for some reason it sounds like… when we recorded it, we were like, okay, we’ve gotta sound British… that’s how we had to sing it, and it was just, I don’t know why, but it has to be this way.”
Mulligan was the first album self-recorded and mixed by the band themselves, and Vosper was the one doing the mixing. He said the hardest part of that process was having to hear the same songs over and over again.
“You sort of… You start to hate the songs by the end of it. I mean, I’m envious of the rest of the guys because like, they heard the songs when we recorded them and that was it. Then, I spent like a year mixing the album, and by the end of it I was like, every one of these songs are fucking terrible. The hardest part is, yeah, definitely, you go nose-blind, the equivalent of that.”
New Music Soon?
To wrap up the interview, Vosper was asked about the likelihood of seeing a new Blu Beach Band release soon, or if they had anything currently in the works.
“In the works… me and Reggie [the band’s bassist] are writing like crazy. That’s kind of how it starts, and then we’ll take the best of like a hundred demos and make a new album out of that. Now that we’ve figured out how to record and produce ourselves, we want to do like a one-album-a-year type situation, just going forward. We’ll see if that actually happens, but that’s the goal. Definitely, yeah, album immediately in 2027.”
Time will tell if they are able to follow through on Vosper’s promise, but for now, Blu Beach Band will be hitting the road again shortly. They followed up their show at The Study with two more the next weekend in Victoria, before another appearance that they have lined up for Oct. 24 in Winnipeg. Mulligan is out now on all streaming platforms.
