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INUVIK
Tom Benke, Welder's Daughter's bass-wielding, Eminem-rapping friendly giant, likes to say the band was baptized in the North in April 2003 when they played their first show in the NWT.

Tom Benke, left, and Karen Single make up half of Welder's Daughter. The band splits their time between the Mad Trapper in Inuvik and the Gold Range in Yellowknife. Their last show in town this year is Sept. 10. - Nathalie Heiberg-Harrison/NNSL photo

The band now calls North of 60 home, and is booked solid until 2013, splitting their time between the Mad Trapper in Inuvik and the Gold Range in Yellowknife.

"You've got the Ice Pilot, the Ice Trucker and we're the Ice Band," Benke said. "So if any loved ones of ours want to see us perform, they'll have to come to us."

The group, which consists of Benke on bass, Karen Single on vocals, George Orliczki on the drums and Attila Novak on guitar, has carved a niche for themselves in the territory's music industry.

They perform at the Trapper until Sept. 10, then from January to March 2012 and June to September next year. In between they're booked at the Gold Range.

Single said the schedule lets them put down roots and become a part of the community.

It also lets her and Novak, who are married, keep their five-year-old son Endre as a part-time student at both Sir Alexander Mackenzie Elementary School in Inuvik and N.J. Macpherson School in Yellowknife.

In between sets every night they put him to bed.

"We're like the Partridge family," she said. "Then I have to come down and be a rock star again."

The group plays more than 40 songs a night, with a set that ranges from Rihanna to Rammstein.

They also take requests, but never perform them without first perfecting them behind doors.

Wooly Bully by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs took them a couple hours to learn, while Jacob's Ladder by Rush took them a couple months to learn.

"What you see on the stage is the fruits of our labour," Single said.

Novak, Benke, Orliczki and Single all agree that the best part of their job is the fans.

"We really love the Northern people. They have accepted us, embraced us and supported us," Single said. "This is home now."

When she gave birth to her son five years ago, they moved back home to Deroche, B.C., and Novak got a "real job," as he described it.

"I hated it," he said.

Four months later they were on the road again, and eventually gave away everything in their home.

"Our band isn't a hobby, it's a job. It's the best job in the world," she said.

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