By Taylor Burgess
It isn’t uncommon for young bands to be some combination of reckless and precise, but Winnipeg indie quartet Right Through seems to be the inverse of metal and hardcore bands, opting for the lo-fi sounds of ’90s indie rock instead. Rather than worrying about specific scales, these boys worry about harmonies and rocking hard.
The band started about two and a half years ago when Jesse Hill, 19, was playing in the Fo!ps, and Cole Woods, 18, and Rob Gardiner, 18, were in the Playing Cards.
Over a coffee in the Exchange on a soon-to-be bitter autumn evening, Jesse said, “We played shows with each other, and then we became friends, and we started jamming.”
Woods added, “And then Rob and I have been friends for a long time, been playing together in bands for a long time.”
“Well, he was just Rob’s brother,” said bassist Alan Gardiner, 16. We all cracked up.
Tease each other as they might, they still have faith in each other. Jesse said, “If I’m stuck with a song, that’s like the perfect time to bring it to Right Through, because I’m really confident in these guys’ abilities to take something I have and make it way better.” They can most definitely read each other, and when they play, they’re in the same mind-space. I picture them swinging their arms and pounding their guitars among mostly barren trees and snow-dusted ground , much like a world presented in their promo photos.
They’re careful not to–or perhaps it never even crossed their minds to–name-drop any influences, but their brand of loud-quiet-loud indie rock is somewhere between Pavement and post-rock, limited to two guitars, one bass and a drum kit.
Late in October, the band will be releasing their first full length album, titled the sun hot. They recorded it themselves, with the help of Jesse’s brother, getting all of the instruments done in a couple of days, but then doing the vocals over a much longer stretch–the next six months.
It was quite vexing for Jesse. “I’m a pretty big perfectionist, so just the fact that I was on my own recording my vocals, over and over again, I got really obsessive about it… It was just really stressful. And it probably would’ve been less stressful if… uh… we were in…”
“In a real studio?” Cole offers.
The CD release will be on October 23 at Crescent Fort Rouge United Church, a venue the band plays frequently. If you’ve never been there, you should also know it’s one of the better venues in the city. The sound carries like a dream, full and dramatic, and always compliments Right Through’s drastic shifts in dynamics, from slow strums and muttering to gut-wrenching and screaming. As Hill says, “We try to be as quiet as we try to be loud.”
As the weather starts pushing Winnipeggers back indoors for the winter, a new televised concert series is set to bring live, local music to your home television set. Live at the West End captures six performances by Manitoba-based acts and is the brainchild of Johnny Marlow. He’s been a record store owner and an indie label rep. Now he’s working in a new venue: on-demand TV.
By Curran Faris