An abandoned farmhouse south of Blackie became the inspiration for a documentary that has won 13 awards at film festivals around the world over the past 18 months.
An abandoned farmhouse south of Blackie became the inspiration for a documentary that has won 13 awards at film festivals around the world over the past 18 months.
In 2016, southern Alberta's Blake Reid Band spent six days in rain, hail and wind recording the independent documentary No Roads In. The documentary will premiere on documentary channel April 4 at 5 p.m. following last week's sold-out screening at the Wales Theatre in High River.
“We stepped away from technology and we recorded an all-analogue album so nothing was digital,” said singer/songwriter Blake Reid. “We tipped our hats back to music recorded 50 years ago.”
With no windows or shingles on the house, the wind, rain and hail were all part of the recording, Reid said.
“The house had great acoustics,” he said. “Everything reverberated off of the walls and ceiling and floor. It was just raw acoustics.”
The 78-minute documentary won rave reviews at two-dozen film festivals, winning 13 awards from Best Documentary at the Las Cruces International Film Festival in New Mexico to Best Cinematography and Best Music Score at the Manchester International Film Festival.
Reid wrote the album's 13 songs in a matter of weeks, telling stories of Alberta's landscape and the trials of life in rural communities, but his band didn't get the music until they arrived on site for the recording.
“Typically I would write the songs and work them for weeks and maybe even months before I record them,” he said. “I didn't give the tracks to the band members until we were on location. We learned them together. This way we wanted to have more of a kitchen feel.”
With the cameras rolling 15 hours each day, Reid said the recording turned into a documentary about band members Reid, Jason Valleau, Aaron Young, Craig Bignell, Jon May and Blackie sound engineer Adam Naugler.
“It was not just about music, it was a journey about humanity - battling the elements and the faith that they had in each other to pull off the project,” he said. “There was something that happened there that was very inspirational that touched my core. It changed the way that I think about music and songwriting and even life. It's very inspirational.”
Naugler, of Ridgeline Audio, said it's an idea he's had for years. – he was just looking for the perfect opportunity.
“It was always a passion of mine to record an album like this,” he said. “I'm a country boy at heart and it was a way to blend those two worlds and this fast-paced crazy city life I live in almost every day. Any musician would have jumped on this opportunity, but I really wanted somebody who understood what this project was about and it was about getting back to the basics, getting back to the roots to not only find the sound but ourselves again.”
Then he met Reid through a mutual friend while in Nashville.
“I was shooting a food show and Blake was there recording his album,” he said, adding he'd always been a fan of Reid's music. “We were sitting in Robert's (Western World) having a whiskey and the band was just killing it on stage. I blurted out this crazy idea I had. There we are in the music mecca of the world with our backs turned talking about No Roads In.”
Naugler played in several bands in high school and said entering the sound industry was a natural transition. He's spent years working in the television industry working on shows for the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.
“I worked on so many of these reality TV shows, you almost get a little jaded,” he said. “For me it was like, I've got to get back to something real for a change and they only way to do that was to do it myself.”
Naugler was born and raised in the Blackie area. When he saw the abandoned house in his search for the perfect farmhouse, he was sold.
“Those really are relics,” he said. “This is our history and it's disappearing. I wanted to document that before they're gone.”
The cast and crew set up trailers in Naugler's field a couple miles away in what they called Shanty Town and set to work.
“It was never supposed to be a documentary,” he said. “What we found as soon as we started this thing was it really wasn't about music at all. This film showcases so much more than that. It's about love and loss and this house was such an amazing beacon for something that we didn't know we needed. I like to say that the house showed us the best versions of ourselves.”
Naugler was transformed by the experienced.
“It turned out to be an extremely personal story for me,” he said. “I was so engrossed in the music I didn't realize they turned the cameras on me. It really turned out to be a personal story. For almost a week we had music almost 24/7, laughing and sharing stories.”
Naugler said he's frequently asked why they didn't use a studio. The answer is simple.
“I wasn't just going into a house for pretty pictures, it was an instrument on the album,” he said. “I wanted to embrace the wind, embrace the wheat, embrace the sound in the house. It's completely authentic. I challenged my crew to not use the technical crutches we use today.”
Having the documentary hit television screens April 4 is icing on the cake for Naugler.
“It's been all around the world already,” he said. “For us to be able to bring it back home and share it, it's going to be pretty special.”
The Blake Reid Band plans to release its debut album No Roads In later this spring.
