The Oot ‘n’ Oots lead singer hasn’t even finished high school and she’s about to have an adventure many musicians three times her age can only dream of.
Ruth, along with bandmates and family members, Ari, Gabe, Matthew and Ezra Cipes, were nominated for a Juno this week. They’ll all be heading to Toronto on May 15 to find out if their album, Ponderosa Bunchgrass and the Golden Rule!, will be chosen as the best children’s album in the country.
“This is our first nomination and our third album” Ezra said on Friday.
When they found out, they stood up and hugged each other in a moment of celebration and Ruth went to school and he and his brothers were back to work, all of them taking the whole thing in the impressively calm stride that’s indicative of the type of band and family the Cipes are. They’re lighthearted, fun and after a long pandemic, they’re ready to get audiences moving again.
“We’ve been playing very little for the last couple of years … it’s nice validation. I always wondered, we have families and careers and jobs and I wonder if people think we’re crazy playing in a band,” Ezra said.
Certainly, they’re not boastful about their creative endeavors or the accolades they’ve picked up along the way, the latest of which, of course, being the Juno nomination.
“Ruthie doesn’t even tell her friends about the Oot ‘n’ Oots; they don’t know that she’s in a band, travels around and plays gigs or that her songs are played around the world — they have no idea.”
Whether the Juno nomination will jolt them from their signature laid-back approach remains to be seen, but it’s likely this experience itself will put the band into the frame of mind needed to restart life.
The family will be in an audience with some of the country’s biggest musical names when they head to Toronto, and then they’ll be ready to continue touring.
They are going to be playing at Ignite the Arts festival in Penticton on April 2 and 3 and again May 2 in the Venables Theatre.
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