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 The Wilkinsons (Supplied photo) |
Country trio The Wilkinsons are not big on controversy.
But an unexpected coincidence, which saw the Canadian band filming a music video about a fatal school shooting just two days after the Virginia Tech massacre, has thrust them in the middle of a one.
Steve Wilkinson wants to make it clear they are not trying to profit from the tragedy. In fact, he says the video for Nobody Died, which was planned long before the recent shootings, is meant to raise awareness about school violence.
"I was concerned that people would think we were jumping on a bandwagon to make a million dollars off someone else's loss," says Steve, who along with his daughter Amanda and son Tyler, came to Calgary yesterday on a promotional tour for their CD, Home.
"Our motive ... was to shine a light on the issue and get people taking about it."
The Wilkinsons first recorded Nobody Died, which was written by a friend of the Wilkinson family after the 1999 Columbine high school shootings, in 2001. Steve says, at the time, the group decided not to release it as a single because they felt it was too controversial. But after the 2006 Amish schoolhouse killings in Pennsylvania, the band decided to re-record it.
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"To tell you the God's honest truth, we were scared the first time. Radio sometimes needs convincing about playing something, especially something that has strong content behind it," says Steve.
"The lyrics of this song really don't talk about anything graphically, but it certainly deals with a sensitive subject."
The video for Nobody Died, which focuses on a bullied boy who fatally shoots a classmate, is expected to be released on Country Music Television within the next week.
Amanda says the band wants to focus on solving violence in schools, so they teamed with Kids Help Phone to raise awareness about bullying.
"When you come to a larger city like Toronto or Calgary, you see people walking down the street and nobody is interacting with each other," she says, adding because we have become an isolated society, many kids have no one to talk to.
"That's why an organization like the Kids Help Phone is so important -- they can really help these kids before they start thinking about hurting people."
The Wilkinsons plan a Canadian and Australia tour, in support of Home, which will kick off in November.
They say the CD's early success in both countries has been a nice surprise.
"We just found out our cover of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car has been picked up by a huge number of pop stations, as well as country stations in Australia. That's a strange thing for us," says Steve. "But I guess great music is great music."