Carol-Lynne Quinn, lead singer of Edmonton power-pop band Rend has a busy year ahead of her.
They will be stopping by the Victory Church, March 15 to play an all ages gig as part of the Victory Church’s Revolution program en route to their first visit to Canadian Music week in Toronto.
“We’ll be playing the same show well be playing at Canadian Music Week. So there will be a lot of songs from the album and some new songs,” Quinn said.
“It’s an all ages show. We love playing all ages shows because teenagers get so into music,” she said.
The first single “Hide” got a lot of Top 40 radio play, but especially in Ontario and Quebec.
“That was pretty cool, because we’re an indie-rock band from Alberta,” she continued.
They just released the video for “Battlecry” , the second single off of their debut Cd. “No Lines” which they hope will do just as well.
“We did a video for ‘Hide,’ but that is just a basically us in concert. “Battlecry” it is just a fun song so we wanted a video that was fun but also had a story to it.”
So they filmed it with a group of paintball players from Calgary filming the battle between the band and the paintball players on a chilly day in November.
“We filmed it with a professional camera crew and professional paintball players. They raise money for cancer, so we’ll be playing a concert for them,” she continued.
“They laid back so we could actually hit them,” Quinn laughed.
Rend has also been nominated for an Edmonton Music Award for best female fronted band.
“That was super cool, because the five people nominated come from all different genres. So it is pretty exciting to be nominated. We’re the only rock band,” she said.
“We work hard. We’ve played about 200 shows over the past two years,” she said.
They are pleased to be part of the Edmonton music scene, which she noted was actively encouraged by modern rock station Sonic, who choose an Edmonton band to feature every month and play their music numerous times.
“It can be difficult if you don’t know where to look,” she said adding a lot of bands come out of the Grant MacEwan music program including Rend, which began when she and bassist Jeff Quinn started jamming.
“It’s an intensive two year program, so jamming can be difficult because it’s like homework. But we started playing together and it was anything but jazz. But we got our drummer (Chariss Logan) and guitarist (Steve Roe) through an ad on Kijiji. And our guitarist ended up also going to Grant MacEwan,” she said. Keyboardist Nate Glubish rounds out the group.
“When we write I play guitar and keyboards, but I only sing live because it means I don’t have to pack 6,000 things into a van,” she said.
They are playing Lethbridge in part due to local band Fail, who spread the word about Rend to all of their friend
“We played a couple of festivals with them and they got our city and the next thing we knew everyone was saying ‘we want this band to come here,’” she said adding to expect an energetic show.
“We have tons of energy definitely. It’s definitely rock, but we have different sounds. And most of our m songs are upbeat.
“There’s lots of crowd interaction. We’re definitely different edgy rock, ” she described adding they have improved a lot since releasing their debut CD last year.
“We got a Rawlco grant and hadn’t played a lot of gigs before recording. We’ve already started writing the next album. The first CD is more multi-faceted. The next one will be more consistent. “We‘ve found our sound,” she said.
There is no charge for their March 15 show in Lethbridge at the Victory Church. It will begin at 8 p.m.
