Tim Baker of Hey Rosetta! on awards at East Coast Music Week

Newfoundland's Hey Rosetta! collected three East Coast Music Awards Thursdaynight in Sydney, after an unusually quiet award season for the popular band.

Despite seven nominations from the ECMAs, thegroup received no nods from the Juno Awards or thePolaris Prize for its fourth album Second Sight.

• Hey Rosetta! takes home 3 ECMAs from Sydneyawards gala

"It's easy not to care much about it when you're getting them,and then this record hasn't done so well on the award circuit," lead vocalist and songwriter TimBaker says.

"It definitely made us stop and sort of, oh, maybe we do care about these things when you don't get them."

'It feels lovely'

Baker joins world renowned fiddler Ashley MacIsaac, guest hosting for CBC Radio's East Coast Music Hour Saturday out of Sydney, N.S. The Cape Breton community is full of musicians and fans this week for a long series of concerts.

"I think it's the same for all musicians," MacIsaac added.

"You don't really think about it and then when you get one, it feels lovely. That's the point."

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Awards 'push things ahead'

At the same time, awards can help a career, MacIsaac said, and "push things ahead."

Hey Rosetta!is based in St. John's, which MacIsaac says might be considered a "career-limiting" move. For example, the group maintains an international touring band of seven, he noted.

"Believe me, getting that many people on the road out of St John's is not a way to make a lot of money," MacIsaac says.

"Even so, Hey Rosetta! is a very successful band with a large and dedicated following."

Compromising art'never occurred to me'

Hey Rosetta!'s music is complex, with horn lines uncommon in most pop music almost "the thinking person's musician," MacIsaac says. Could the art be traded or compromised for something a bit more award-winning?

"That's never occurred to me," Baker says. "It's never been a thing for us, a thing that we've strove for."

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Hey Rosetta! is on a touring hiatus at the moment. Baker says he's taking time to relax and write, including a children's choral composition "just slightly outside my comfort zone."

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Keep up-to-date with CBC reporters for the entire East Coast Music Week with live coverage on @CBCMusic and @ECMusicHour, or via the hashtag #ECMW2016.