September 12, 2025 • 11 mins
Norm Murray speaks with Matt Sykes, one of the lead singers of cover band, Almost Cool. They are one of the performing bands at this year's Head For The Hills Craft Beverage Festival, September 13, 2025 at Georgetown's Trafalgar Park. Norm is emceeing, as he has for the past 10 years.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm Nora Murray. You're listening to News Talk Saga nine sixty.
Great to have you along today, and I'm so exciting
about tomorrow's Head for the Hills Craft Beverage Festival. You know,
I've been very, very fortunate to mc the event every year,
and this is the tenth year for the Head for
the Hills. Used to be called the Beer Fest Georgetown
Beer Festival. They changed it all because they've got all
sorts of beverages now besides beer, you know, there's ciders
(00:38):
and all sorts of other stuff. It's so fun. It
is a nineteen plus event and there's like two three
four five thousand people every single year at this event.
It is huge fun. And part of the reason it
is so fun, besides the food that's there, all the beverages, obviously,
the people and the friendship and all that is the entertainment. Now,
(01:01):
there's so much going on entertainment wise. Samantha Ave is
going to be joining us. Mountain Lion Trappers are going
to be there once again. They performed every year and
they closed the show, closed the day. And we've also
got a fantastic cover band joining us called Almost Cool.
Almost Cool. First of all, I love the name of
the band and joining us from the band from Almost Cool.
(01:22):
On the phone right now is Matt Sykes, who's one
of the lead singers.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
How are you, Matt, Hey, Norm Thanks for having me
on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It is a pleasure. Thank you for being here, and
thanks for doing the event because a lot of money
is raised for charity too, Matt, so we appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
We really. We've been members of the community all our lives.
I am actually fifth generation on my father's side from
Georgetown and Glenn Williams area, so community means everything to us.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So that's amazing. So you're probably familiar with the event then,
because it's been going on for years. You've probably heard
about it every once.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
In a while, definitely, and I've attended a couple of
years in the past.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Oh sweet, Well, it's going to be great to see
you on stage with the band Almost Cool. Can you
tell us a little bit about your band, Almost Cool?
First of all, how many how many are in the band?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
There's currently five members in the band. We've got two
lead vocalists, both rhythm guitar players, a lead guitar player,
a bass and drums.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Geez, okay, you're pretty full.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So how long you guys have been playing together now?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
We've been playing together now close to twenty years. We
hosted an open mic night at the Saint George in
Georgetown for fifteen years. That went on every Thursday until
the dreaded COVID happened and that shut things down and
(02:54):
put a little damper on some people's spirit. But we
kept the band going throughout it and came out the
other side still playing awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Tell us a little bit about the music that you
guys play as a cover band, self titled cover band,
proudly a cover band, Matt, how would you describe your music?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
We have a very vast and eclectic mix of songs.
We play anything from nineteen fifties pop, rock, country, folk,
you name it, pretty much. Being a cover or being
hosting an open mic for so many years, people would
(03:39):
come up and say, hey, do you guys know this song? No?
How does it go? So we just learn on the fly,
and as you learn on the fly, you'd start building
your repertoire pretty quickly, so we were always learning new
songs and we have a set list of roughly four
hundred songs that we can choose from, but it's anything
(04:01):
from nineteen fifties to today and every genre you can
imagine pretty much.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, you were telling me before we started recording here
at Rock Country and maybe even East Coast for that matter,
Pop love, the mix of all of that, it's going
to be so fun. That's great. So do you guys
play your favorites? Is that it like you just think,
you know what? I think we should learn how to
play that one.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Well, we play our favorites, but we also we take
requests as a band. When we're up on stage, we're
listening to the crowd, you can hear people talking and oh,
we want to hear this song. This song, Well, we'll
just play that next. We make our set lists kind
of on the fly, or when we walk into a room,
(04:46):
we look at the demographic and sort of choose whether
it's an era or a type of music that we
think is going to hit hard with the band, or
we'll just start throwing songs out there and see what
the crowds react to.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
We're talking to Matt Syke's Matt Sikes from almost Cool.
Find them on Instagram at almost Cool band. They're also
on Facebook at almost cool and go to their website
and that's almost Cool dot c A. And where are
you guys going to be playing in the next little while.
Do you have any other gigs coming up that we
(05:19):
should take note of that are local at least, or
what are the plans going into the autumn and winter season?
Is that a big time for you?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, Actually, we're pretty booked solid for the next seven
or eight weeks. The next couple gigs we've got going
on is actually the night of the thirteenth, we're playing
at the Barbertown Pub in Georgetown. The following weekend, on
the twentieth, we're playing as a duo at the Furnace
Room Brewery in Georgetown, which you know, they're going to
(05:49):
have a booth at the Craft Beer Festival at Head
for the Hills, so there, you bitch like the beers
there you can come and see us on a Saturday afternoon.
And then the whole band is going to be getting
together for the Red Heart Anniversary. It's going to be
their tenth anniversary. We've played every year there since they
(06:11):
opened ten years ago, and that's going to be on
October fourth at eight thirty.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Awesome, you are this is turning into a full time
gig for you. You okay with that? You're going to arrest
your throat. You're gonna wear a scarf around your neck
like Mick Jagger does.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I mean you know, no, no need for that. We
just love having a good time and entertaining crowds. So
the more people are out coming to see us, the
more people that are engaged with us, the more fun
we have.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah. We love the charities that are involved. Food for Kids,
Halton Cancer Assistance Halton Hills for example, Community Alliance reaching
everyone that's care and since its inception Head for the Hills,
the Craft Beverage Festival has provided financial support to all
of those and almost six hundred thousand dollars are close
(07:02):
to it has been raised over the years. Has been
really something, so we look forward to having everybody out
tomorrow tomorrow at the Trafalgar Sports Park. It's the Head
for the Hills Craft Beverage Festival once again, a yearly
event on the grass and no lawn chairs allowed to
be brought in. There are some tables there though, to
a lot of them if you can grab one for
yourself or whoever you're with, and a lot of different
(07:25):
beverages served up, definitely, and great entertainment like almost cool. Now,
when did you get into music, Matt? You've been playing
most of your life, Like, from a musical family, how
did this all start for you?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I'm from a musical fan. My uncle they're all very
musically inclined. My one uncle has actually recorded an album
different genres of music. Of course, a couple of my
other uncles are into barbershop and all the rest of that.
(07:58):
But we've always been a very musical family. And I
picked up the guitar for the first time in two
thousand and within three years I was playing, playing with
groups and getting out there and getting on stage and
sharing my love of music with other people.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
That's awesome. And you know, playing all this time. Barbershop,
by the way, now there is a genre that is
a by gone era kind of and I just love it,
and I just hope that people will still appreciate it.
If there's a barbershop quartet playing somewhere, you've got to
check them out. It's so nice that your uncle was
(08:39):
part of that too, So so yeah, I mean it
sounds like you got everything all together here for tomorrow's show.
What can we expect what's going to happen? I know
you said that sometimes you don't even come up with
a set list till you arrive on the stage. Is
that right?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
For the most part, we have a pretty good idea
of what kind of demographic we're going to be walking
in too, so we've done a little bit of preparation
this time around. But yeah, we've got some East Coast
to start things off, and we've got some hit coming.
What else we got here, We've got some country a
little bit later on in the set. We're just going
(09:17):
to have a great time play some nineties rock in
there too. It's going to be a.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Great day beer drinkers. That is a genre and demographic absolutely,
so you know who you're singing to. Well listen, Matt,
I look forward to meeting you tomorrow up at the
Trafalgar Sports Park for the head for the Hillscraft Beverage Festival.
Find the Almost Cool Band on Instagram at almost cool Band.
(09:43):
They're also on Facebook at almost cool and go to
their website almost cool dot C. Matt has said, he's
going to keep updating that as much as you possibly can.
It's quite a job to all this social media stuff,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
It certainly is.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Hey, you know, and especially for some like you and
your band. I mean, you're you're playing here, there and everywhere,
so it's hard to keep it updated. But anyway, you
do a great job. It looks good and we look
forward to seeing you on stage on set. Do you
know what time you're hitting the stage by the way, tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I believe we are the first act, and from my understanding,
we start at noon, twelve noon.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm there around eleven o'clock so that
sounds right. So okay, well, Matt, thanks so much for
spending time doing this with me. I really appreciate you,
and we look forward to the to the show tomorrow
the head for the Hills Craft Beverage Festival.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
We'll talk to you then, perfect Norm, thank you very much,
and we'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
You bet man.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I look forward to seeing all your listeners.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Do absolutely come on out and tickets at the door.
You can get them when you go to the website
head for the Hills dot CA. I believe you can
still get them on the website. They've been selling them
in advance for a couple of months. But if not
at Head for the Hills dot ca a get them
at the gate when you come in. Make sure you
come out. The weather's gonna be great. It's gonna be
a great with lots of games there and beverages all over,
(11:03):
food trucks and such, and of course the music and
the entertainment and the dancing out in the yard is
going to be incredible as it always is. It is
a nineteen plus event, remember that. And free bus service
is available, by the way to get you in and
out of town. We all always do that from a
number of different places in and around Georgetown. But go
(11:24):
to Head for the Hills dot Ca to find out more.
And it's Matt Sykes from Almost Cool. I'm Nora Murray.
This is News Talk SAGA nine sixty. Don't go wait,
we'll be back after this.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
No Radio, no problem. Stream is live on SAGA nine
am dot CA.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm Nora Murray. You're listening to News Talk Saga nine sixty.
Great to have you along today, and I'm so exciting
about tomorrow's Head for the Hills Craft Beverage Festival. You know,
I've been very, very fortunate to mc the event every year,
and this is the tenth year for the Head for
the Hills. Used to be called the Beer Fest Georgetown
Beer Festival. They changed it all because they've got all
sorts of beverages now besides beer, you know, there's ciders
(00:38):
and all sorts of other stuff. It's so fun. It
is a nineteen plus event and there's like two three
four five thousand people every single year at this event.
It is huge fun. And part of the reason it
is so fun, besides the food that's there, all the beverages, obviously,
the people and the friendship and all that is the entertainment. Now,
(01:01):
there's so much going on entertainment wise. Samantha Ave is
going to be joining us. Mountain Lion Trappers are going
to be there once again. They performed every year and
they closed the show, closed the day. And we've also
got a fantastic cover band joining us called Almost Cool.
Almost Cool. First of all, I love the name of
the band and joining us from the band from Almost Cool.
(01:22):
On the phone right now is Matt Sykes, who's one
of the lead singers.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
How are you, Matt, Hey, Norm Thanks for having me
on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It is a pleasure. Thank you for being here, and
thanks for doing the event because a lot of money
is raised for charity too, Matt, so we appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
We really. We've been members of the community all our lives.
I am actually fifth generation on my father's side from
Georgetown and Glenn Williams area, so community means everything to us.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So that's amazing. So you're probably familiar with the event then,
because it's been going on for years. You've probably heard
about it every once.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
In a while, definitely, and I've attended a couple of
years in the past.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Oh sweet, Well, it's going to be great to see
you on stage with the band Almost Cool. Can you
tell us a little bit about your band, Almost Cool?
First of all, how many how many are in the band?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
There's currently five members in the band. We've got two
lead vocalists, both rhythm guitar players, a lead guitar player,
a bass and drums.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Geez, okay, you're pretty full.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So how long you guys have been playing together now?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
We've been playing together now close to twenty years. We
hosted an open mic night at the Saint George in
Georgetown for fifteen years. That went on every Thursday until
the dreaded COVID happened and that shut things down and
(02:54):
put a little damper on some people's spirit. But we
kept the band going throughout it and came out the
other side still playing awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Tell us a little bit about the music that you
guys play as a cover band, self titled cover band,
proudly a cover band, Matt, how would you describe your music?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
We have a very vast and eclectic mix of songs.
We play anything from nineteen fifties pop, rock, country, folk,
you name it, pretty much. Being a cover or being
hosting an open mic for so many years, people would
(03:39):
come up and say, hey, do you guys know this song? No?
How does it go? So we just learn on the fly,
and as you learn on the fly, you'd start building
your repertoire pretty quickly, so we were always learning new
songs and we have a set list of roughly four
hundred songs that we can choose from, but it's anything
(04:01):
from nineteen fifties to today and every genre you can
imagine pretty much.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, you were telling me before we started recording here
at Rock Country and maybe even East Coast for that matter,
Pop love, the mix of all of that, it's going
to be so fun. That's great. So do you guys
play your favorites? Is that it like you just think,
you know what? I think we should learn how to
play that one.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Well, we play our favorites, but we also we take
requests as a band. When we're up on stage, we're
listening to the crowd, you can hear people talking and oh,
we want to hear this song. This song, Well, we'll
just play that next. We make our set lists kind
of on the fly, or when we walk into a room,
(04:46):
we look at the demographic and sort of choose whether
it's an era or a type of music that we
think is going to hit hard with the band, or
we'll just start throwing songs out there and see what
the crowds react to.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
We're talking to Matt Syke's Matt Sikes from almost Cool.
Find them on Instagram at almost Cool band. They're also
on Facebook at almost cool and go to their website
and that's almost Cool dot c A. And where are
you guys going to be playing in the next little while.
Do you have any other gigs coming up that we
(05:19):
should take note of that are local at least, or
what are the plans going into the autumn and winter season?
Is that a big time for you?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, Actually, we're pretty booked solid for the next seven
or eight weeks. The next couple gigs we've got going
on is actually the night of the thirteenth, we're playing
at the Barbertown Pub in Georgetown. The following weekend, on
the twentieth, we're playing as a duo at the Furnace
Room Brewery in Georgetown, which you know, they're going to
(05:49):
have a booth at the Craft Beer Festival at Head
for the Hills, so there, you bitch like the beers
there you can come and see us on a Saturday afternoon.
And then the whole band is going to be getting
together for the Red Heart Anniversary. It's going to be
their tenth anniversary. We've played every year there since they
(06:11):
opened ten years ago, and that's going to be on
October fourth at eight thirty.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Awesome, you are this is turning into a full time
gig for you. You okay with that? You're going to arrest
your throat. You're gonna wear a scarf around your neck
like Mick Jagger does.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I mean you know, no, no need for that. We
just love having a good time and entertaining crowds. So
the more people are out coming to see us, the
more people that are engaged with us, the more fun
we have.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah. We love the charities that are involved. Food for Kids,
Halton Cancer Assistance Halton Hills for example, Community Alliance reaching
everyone that's care and since its inception Head for the Hills,
the Craft Beverage Festival has provided financial support to all
of those and almost six hundred thousand dollars are close
(07:02):
to it has been raised over the years. Has been
really something, so we look forward to having everybody out
tomorrow tomorrow at the Trafalgar Sports Park. It's the Head
for the Hills Craft Beverage Festival once again, a yearly
event on the grass and no lawn chairs allowed to
be brought in. There are some tables there though, to
a lot of them if you can grab one for
yourself or whoever you're with, and a lot of different
(07:25):
beverages served up, definitely, and great entertainment like almost cool. Now,
when did you get into music, Matt? You've been playing
most of your life, Like, from a musical family, how
did this all start for you?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I'm from a musical fan. My uncle they're all very
musically inclined. My one uncle has actually recorded an album
different genres of music. Of course, a couple of my
other uncles are into barbershop and all the rest of that.
(07:58):
But we've always been a very musical family. And I
picked up the guitar for the first time in two
thousand and within three years I was playing, playing with
groups and getting out there and getting on stage and
sharing my love of music with other people.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
That's awesome. And you know, playing all this time. Barbershop,
by the way, now there is a genre that is
a by gone era kind of and I just love it,
and I just hope that people will still appreciate it.
If there's a barbershop quartet playing somewhere, you've got to
check them out. It's so nice that your uncle was
(08:39):
part of that too, So so yeah, I mean it
sounds like you got everything all together here for tomorrow's show.
What can we expect what's going to happen? I know
you said that sometimes you don't even come up with
a set list till you arrive on the stage. Is
that right?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
For the most part, we have a pretty good idea
of what kind of demographic we're going to be walking
in too, so we've done a little bit of preparation
this time around. But yeah, we've got some East Coast
to start things off, and we've got some hit coming.
What else we got here, We've got some country a
little bit later on in the set. We're just going
(09:17):
to have a great time play some nineties rock in
there too. It's going to be a.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Great day beer drinkers. That is a genre and demographic absolutely,
so you know who you're singing to. Well listen, Matt,
I look forward to meeting you tomorrow up at the
Trafalgar Sports Park for the head for the Hillscraft Beverage Festival.
Find the Almost Cool Band on Instagram at almost cool Band.
(09:43):
They're also on Facebook at almost cool and go to
their website almost cool dot C. Matt has said, he's
going to keep updating that as much as you possibly can.
It's quite a job to all this social media stuff,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
It certainly is.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Hey, you know, and especially for some like you and
your band. I mean, you're you're playing here, there and everywhere,
so it's hard to keep it updated. But anyway, you
do a great job. It looks good and we look
forward to seeing you on stage on set. Do you
know what time you're hitting the stage by the way, tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I believe we are the first act, and from my understanding,
we start at noon, twelve noon.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm there around eleven o'clock so that
sounds right. So okay, well, Matt, thanks so much for
spending time doing this with me. I really appreciate you,
and we look forward to the to the show tomorrow
the head for the Hills Craft Beverage Festival.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
We'll talk to you then, perfect Norm, thank you very much,
and we'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
You bet man.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I look forward to seeing all your listeners.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Do absolutely come on out and tickets at the door.
You can get them when you go to the website
head for the Hills dot CA. I believe you can
still get them on the website. They've been selling them
in advance for a couple of months. But if not
at Head for the Hills dot ca a get them
at the gate when you come in. Make sure you
come out. The weather's gonna be great. It's gonna be
a great with lots of games there and beverages all over,
(11:03):
food trucks and such, and of course the music and
the entertainment and the dancing out in the yard is
going to be incredible as it always is. It is
a nineteen plus event, remember that. And free bus service
is available, by the way to get you in and
out of town. We all always do that from a
number of different places in and around Georgetown. But go
(11:24):
to Head for the Hills dot Ca to find out more.
And it's Matt Sykes from Almost Cool. I'm Nora Murray.
This is News Talk SAGA nine sixty. Don't go wait,
we'll be back after this.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
No Radio, no problem. Stream is live on SAGA nine
am dot CA.
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