(Supplied photo)

Consider this a warning to any band "fortunate" enough to find itself headlining a bill with pop-reggae act Bedouin Soundclash.

You might want to keep a close eye on your fans -- there's no telling when this up-and-coming Toronto trio might make it their mission to claim your audience for its own.

"When we're (the opening act), the goal is always the same: No matter who we're opening for, and no matter how much respect we have for them, we want to blow them off the stage," says Bedouin bassist Eon Sinclair. "We have a limited amount of time, and we're working with limited resources, but the goal is still to steal all their fans."

Of course, the band's mandate changes a bit when it's the Bedouin boys (Sinclair, frontman Jay Malinowski and drummer Pat Pengelly) occupying the headlining slot. Then, their goal is to "not get blown away" by whomever's opening for them, Sinclair says with a laugh.

And over the course of the last couple years, the Soundclash crew has had plenty of opportunity to play shows in both contexts, thanks largely to the fanbase they've built up in Canada on the strength of their sophomore disc Sounding a Mosaic.

Just recently, they wrapped up a six-week tour of the U.S., where they were opening for fellow Canuck rockers Hot Hot Heat. And while their upcoming gig in Winnipeg has them playing the prestigious Burton Cummings Theatre (they also sold out a surprise gig at the West End Cultural Centre a couple months ago), they're not above playing a gig in a Best Buy store, like they did in Halifax a few weeks back.

Sinclair says the trick is to know which performances will best serve the band, a skill he and his bandmates have put into practice since scaling their tour schedule back from 300 dates a year.

"To play a club show, there's no guarantee as to how many people will come," he explains. "Whereas when you play a Best Buy, you have a forum to play for your fans for free, but also -- hopefully -- to attract a few new fans who otherwise wouldn't have known what you sounded like."

That last bit's probably wishful thinking, as you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn't heard the band's biggest single, 2005's When the Night Feels My Song, which went on to become the second-most played song on Canadian radio for that year.

Recently, the band followed up on Sounding a Mosaic's success by releasing Street Gospels, another album they crafted with the help of producer (and Bad Brains bassist) Darryl Jenifer.

"With Sounding a Mosaic, we found that it was more a collection of songs, where through popular demand we ended up pressing it, and things just developed from there," says Sinclair. "With this one, we wanted to come across as people who could write good songs ... Lyrically, we wanted to express personal stories -- things that had happened to ourselves and our friends -- but in a universal way."

The album still manages to incorporate the band's two predominate but disparate influences -- the dubby rock-reggae vibe of acts like The Clash and Bob Marley, plus the folk-inspired singer-songwriter approach perfected by the likes of Paul Simon.

In Bedouin Soundclash's case, the combination of the two extremes has helped them appeal to a very broad fan base. But it also proved to be a liability when the band was first trying to score radio airplay.

"The diversity of our influences has allowed us to play with a lot of different bands," says Sinclair. "But at the same time, because we're not easily placed into a category, it was hard for the industry to be accepting of what we did."