About Me
From the Strokes to the Subways to the Arctic Monkeys, it seems that younger bands are becoming more and more prominent players in the indie rock music scene. Perhaps it’s due to a raw energy that can only truly be captured in the dog days of youth, or perhaps it is that these bands are too young to know or care about the rules of crafting a proper pop song leading to more experimentation, less melodic clichés and an overall more interesting, let alone powerful, listening experience. Whatever the case may be, the wave of young artists coming into the fold is undeniable.Enter From Day One; five lads who just literally graduated high school in, of all places, Ottawa, Ontario known more for its parliamentary procedure and being the coldest capital on Earth as opposed to its music scene. Rather than just joining the fray of bands in the indie rock movement, these lads have the ambition, as well as the tunes, to emerge as leaders of the pack as Arcade Fire or the Arctic Monkeys have before them.With a blend of off-hand guitar riffs, bombastic bass lines and an affinity for using the toms in jungle-like manner coupled with a vocalist who seems to forget that he’s actually just 18 years old by the sound of his lyrics, From Day One have been making immense headwaves in a town where a musical saviour may as well be the real thing and where many bands are vying for the position.Before they found their sound however, From Day One began their lives as a punk cover band. It was the brain child of guitarist Dave Cutler and bassist Chris Gillen who just wanted a quick way to learn how to play their instruments at the beginning of their high school lives. Realizing the need for a drummer to actually be able to call themselves a band they recruited fellow classmate, and self-professed nerd Joel Agnew to complete the line-up. Having done six months of jazz drum lessons, Joel was by far the most experienced musician in the bunch. It was also Joel who decided that another guitarist would complement the line-up well and he recruited another recent guitarist, the stand-out 6’4 redhead Eric Turcotte.With the musical line-up complete there was just one problem the band soon learned of, no one could sing, even by punk standards. Holed up writing songs in a Green Day/OK GO fashion in Joel’s garage, it was Chris Gillen who brought Matt Powell along to a jam one day after realizing that the kid he grew up with for the past ten years actually had a pretty solid voice. Chris and Joel discovered Matt at a school coffee house singing John Mayer and other girl favourites in an attempt to woo all the attending ladies into going on a few dates. Not only did the ploy worked, but it also landed Matt the job as lead singer of the newly christened From Day One.With Matt taking over the most experienced musician title having taken guitar lessons since the age of 9, he quickly converted the band onto a more indie rock approach by getting them into such acts as Muse, The Strokes, Interpol and others. The rest fell into place quite nicely. Well, almost. Not quite willing to give up their punk roots, Dave and Chris almost left the band one rehearsal after Matt kept that Green Day sucked. It took a bit of convincing, but the two lads decided to stick it out give this ‘indie rock’ thing another chance. From there the band began to stick with a more melodic and less power-chord oriented form of writing and they soon realized that their chemistry was quite amazing. They would spend hours feeding off of each others sounds to form cohesive tracks which would all become demos for future studio recordings.As of today, From Day One has played various gigs in basically all major Ottawa live venues, including a second place finish in a Battle of the bands that had over 60 bands in the first round alone. Considering that the whole event was dominated by Death Metal, hardcore and pop-punk acts, From Day One had extra work cut out for them in winning the crowd over. Not only did they do it but they made it all the way to finals where they finally lost out to a hardcore band that disbanded just two weeks later.Having caught the attention of producer and former Sony/BMG star JC Boies of Projet Orange, From Day one are currently in the studio working on their debut EP. The lads may be young, but they know what it takes to make it in the music business, and most of all they know how to write great songs. Now it’s just a matter of how many people will be privileged enough to hear it for themselves.
