Canada gets a hard rap. The United States gets the credit for having more interesting movies, heroes and presidential debates. This is unfortunate, seeing as Canada does have a rich indie music scene, bursting with things to say to the world, though we have yet to find a lot of people to put us on the map.
October Sky fits the bill. Hailing from the Montreal area, the indie rockers were started in 2000 by Alexandre Racine and Karl Raymond, the drummer and lead vocalist/guitar player respectively. Two years later they picked up Andrew Walker to play bass, and in 2004, they picked up Yanik Rouleau to play keyboard. This marked the final step in the completion of the band and what they consider to be successful components to their sound and their name.
“Its kind of funny, because three of us were born in October,” explains Walker. “And our little joke here is that my last name is Walker and I’m the one that wasn’t born in October, so it’s like, Skywalker. It’s our Star Wars reference. It’s kind of goofy, but it’s our little gag.”
The group success has been anything but a gag. In 2005, the band got its first big break, after winning a series of contests. Though having just set out on their first cross-Canada tour, before now the four piece ensemble has been the subject of much attention through the music scene in the east and with good reason. Their debut video, “Hit the Ground,” beat out Madonna on the Musique Plus Countdown (the Quebec version of Much Music). They’ve begun to climb the charts on Much Music and were nominated for the Best Out Of Province Award at the 2008 Toronto Independent Music Awards. Though the band achieved a lot of conventional success, they draw influence from some of the most unconventional directions.
“Yanik [Rouleau], our keyboard player has more of a classical and techno and movie score kind of influence. Andrew says “Alex and Karl, the drummer and guitar player, respectively, they both have like, a hard rock and alternative influence and myself, I have more of a blues and jazz with rock. It’s like a mix of different styles that kind of blend well together. Like, we each bring our own element to the band and it creates for a good mix.”
Their debut full length album, Hell Isn’t My Home, put the group’s production muscles to use when they recorded it themselves.
“We won a big contest and the prize was a lot of studio time”, says Walker. “The two guys that were working at the studio showed us the ropes and gave us the keys, so we just played around a lot and spent a lot of time there. We learned through trial and error and that’s how we were able to do Hell Isn’t My Home, all on our own. That’s the only way to do it is by just playing around with it and learning for yourself.”
Since winning the studio time, music has begun to take up a lot of the boys’ time, which has resulted in some realizations.
“Our lives have begun to revolve around music,” Walker says. “We’re seeing it more than ever on tour. We’re away from our family and friends, but it just kind of makes us realize how much we love doing this and how sure we are that this is what we want to do.”