After a year of gigging and creating new music, Toronto rock band Fade Awaays made their way back to Montreal while on The Beaches The Professional Tour. I caught up with Reid MacMaster, Sean Hackl, Duncan Briggs and Owen Wolff about their busy year, what's changed and what's to come.
Your debut EP Taste Of Life has been released for over a year now. Has anything surprising happened?
One thing that changed recently was getting a booking agent. We released Taste Of Life back in January 2019 and then for a few months we were playing a lot of great shows. We played at the Horseshoe Tavern a couple times but then we got picked up and that set us off onto a more professional path.
We definitely got taken care of differently of at shows. It started out with a few shows where we actually had a rider and security for us. We played a show in Hamilton where we had everything covered and no one was there ahah.
What’s on your rider?
Preferably a decent variety of beers. Veggie trays. And our manager recommended to ask for like bread with meats and cheeses to make sandwiches. Nothing too crazy yet.
What’s the difference of playing these bigger venues rather than small club shows?
A lot of people haven’t heard of you and don’t know who you are. It’s weird sometimes standing on stage and seeing people in the crowd just standing there observing. You can never tell if they like it or not. But you just have to be confident rather than think about what people think. These are real proving grounds. It's the same thing we’ve been doing but now we’re on a bigger stage. We’re just starting from the bottom of another level. Its cool to see people being won over every night, people who’ve never heard us before and they start bopping. Having that opportunity to very literally try and gain new fans is a really cool thing to be doing.
You guys did Ones To Watch, which is a pretty big deal, how was filming that?
That was definitely a learning experience for us. We maybe didn’t take it as seriously as we should’ve because we didn’t really understand the scope of it going in. There was a bit of nervousness and it made it apparent that it was becoming a big deal. I think we went into it a bit unprepared production wise. Some bands bring lights and stuff to make a big show because it’s going on YouTube. We also went into it playing our best songs but we played too many and got criticized a bit for that. Going into it we didn’t have much context so we did prepare like we would for any show, you know like pick a really good set that you think people are going to like and keep them engaged but it was a different thing and that was a good learning experience for us.
In that video you perform I Won’t Lie, is that a new song?
Yes, we’re going to be releasing it next month (March 27). We’ve been writing a lot for these past few months. We’re also trying to write more all four of us together because in the past its been one person bringing an initial idea and then we all build from there. We have a few new tunes where we worked on it fully from the ground up and it feels good. Its much more cohesive and strong.
Where do you see the band in 5 years?
At least two thirds of the way up on the Reading Festival lineup. Not headlining just yet but not at the bottom. It would be cool to record in other places. Do a record in the States like L.A. or Nashville. I think just being somewhere else than freezing cold Canada. Also, playing bigger festivals, doing an European tour eventually and having more music out.
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