Kyle Chyzyk (Kyler Tyle), from Regina, plays guitar at the Owl Acoustic Lounge on Oct. 12. Lethbridge was his last of six stops on his western Canada tour.

Inverted lamps hang from the ceiling and sit, with crooked shades, around the small stage. They give just enough light to reveal the records and artwork lining the walls – it is a room full of personality, even if it were abandoned. Quiet chatter becomes the lyrics of the layered, atmospheric guitar music coming from the front of the Owl Acoustic Lounge.

Kyle Chzyk, who goes by the stage name Kyler Tyle, shares the stage with his amplifier, pedal board and an empty drum set. His solo style of using a looper pedal to layer sounds creates the illusion of multiple guitarists playing together.

“I don’t really have anyone else that wants to play the same kind of music as me, so it’s kind of out of desperation. Instead of jamming with other guitar players, I write guitar music by myself,” he says before taking the stage for the last show of his tour.

The lone musician comes from Regina, Sask. and is finishing his second tour of western Canada. For his whole life, Chzyk has wanted to be a touring musician and says being able to call himself one now is the greatest achievement of his career.

“I never started touring until my thirties. I felt like I wasted all my twenties trying to be in bands that were never going to tour,” says the performer.

Though Kyler Tyle has released one full-length album, Chzyk does not know if his goal is to be a full-time musician. He says going on tour alone can be tiring and lonely, but when he has played in bands in the past, he always felt like too much of a control freak.

“I find creatively it’s a lot easier when you are solo because I have 100 per cent creative control,” he says.

As Chzyk finishes his short set, two local musicians prepare to take the stage. Cope is a creative project for two friends who have been playing music together for over 10 years in different groups. They play regularly at the Owl.

“Because we have played together so long, I think there is a natural back and forth that just sort of happens organically,” says Mickey Hayward, drummer for Cope. “Sometimes it’s dumb, we are like ‘why didn’t we record that!’ A 15-minute jam will sound like two or three songs.”

Tyson Weibe, guitarist and singer for Cope, says it is hard to balance full-time work with booking and playing gigs. This is a struggle he shares with Chyzyk, who works a desk-job between tours. Another similarity between the performers is the reason they play the music they do. It is a creative outlet, not a job.

“The beautiful thing about this band is that we don’t really have any [goals]. It is whatever it is,” says Weibe.

He and Hayward say their band is more of an art project than a band, comparing their writing process to throwing paint at a wall.

“We couldn’t decide what song to play first, so we just decided to play them all at once,” says Weibe, as he slings his guitar over his shoulder and turns to the audience.

They quickly change the energy of the room with their in-your-face style and loud instruments – they make enough noise to sound like a full band.

Weibe says Lethbridge is full of talent, with a lot of hobby musicians and highly reviewed bands.

“The beautiful thing about the college and the university is that there are creative minds coming in from outside all the time, we just need a place for them to go,” he says, adding there are not enough quality venues in Lethbridge to support the number of performers.

He says the Owl is a venue that puts work in to both support the diverse local scene and book touring musicians.