Where Dolly, Aretha, and Ryan Adams meet, Ann Vriend delivers her unique brand of soul/Americana to thrilled audiences around the world, headlining at festivals as far away from her hometown of Edmonton as Berlin and Australia. "With her soaring vocals, impressive songwriting ability, and instrumental prowess, Vriend is truly an all in one package", writes Obscure Magazine (NYC). Dubbed the "Aretha Franklin of Americana" Vriend connects alt-country and folk to soul and blues in a "style all her own" (South Australian Independent). Her natural, often humorous rapport with her audiences, combined with her exquisite song writing has enabled Vriend to sell over 13,000 albums off the stage independently.

Until recently, Aidan Knight was known as a helpful backing musician, playing everything from pop-rock bass lines to violent, pounding hardcore drums. He has recorded and performed with Maurice, The Zolas, and Counting Heartbeats amongst others. All the while, he was writing songs of his own, recording in intensive three day bursts whenever he was able to raise enough money. Sleeping on the studio floor at Buena Vista Audio, Knight immersed himself in the project, waking up to play most of the instruments himself. Over the course of 2 years, producer Jonathan Anderson (In Medias Res, Kensington Prairie, Eisenhauer) and Knight carefully pieced together the songs, collaboratively. With the arrangements in place, he invited Toronto's The O' Darling to fill in the additional drums, guitars, girl harmonies, strings and horns.

This past year Kings Without has released their debut self titled CD, which they followed by a 2 month long tour, consisting of 42 shows, stretching from Vancouver Island to Montreal. After six more Western Canadian tours, the band has attracted the attention of several producers and are going to release a new album in the next six to eight months. Having played close to 200 shows a year for the past 3 years, Kings Without are busier than ever with performances all over Vancouver Island and Western Canada. For a few summers they were the house band at the prestigious Clayoquot Sound Wilderness Resort where they were exposed to the ruggedness and beauty of west coast living. A recent highlight in their music career occurred at the resort when the band backed up Sarah Mclachlan at one of her charity events. The early stages of the band's existence and development was spent under the watchful eye of the resort's general manager and former manager of Blue Rodeo, John Caton.