Home this week to a host of volunteers preparing food hampers, Elmira’s Lions Hall won’t be filled with Christmas carols next weekend. And the volume will be anything but background. Easy listening ain’t on the menu as a handful of high school bands rock out 2012.
Headlined by Stained Glass Army, the concert December 29 will also showcase five other groups: The Suns, Dropout Distortion, Heaven Through Hell, The Three Pennies and Gwen’s Mascara.
All feature the musical talents of Elmira District Secondary School students.
![Trevor Bowman, Nate Dowdall, Kyle Wilton and Carter Leis are Stained Glass Army. They’ll be performing with five other bands at a concert Dec. 29 at Lions Hall in Elmira.[steve kannon / the observer]](https://www.observerxtra.com/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/arts1.jpg)
The four members of Stained Glass Army are Grade 11 students at the high school who got together last fall. They’ve been writing songs since that time, with next weekend’s show likely to include 10 or 11 originals to go along with a few covers.
“We do a lot of our own stuff,” said Kyle Wilton, who writes the lyrics and sings, along with looking after rhythm guitar duties.
The style is eclectic, reflecting the musical influences of each of the band members.
“It’s a little bit of everything. We all come from a lot of styles,” said Nate Dowdall, the lead guitarist.
“It usually starts with lyrics,” said Wilton of the songwriting process. He puts down some words, and the four of them come up with some music, either separately or as a unit. Along with Wilton and Dowdall, there’s Trevor Bowman on bass and Carter Leis on drums.
“We all put different things into every song,” said Wilton.
The first stuff they did together had definite metal overtones – drawing from the likes of Black Sabbath and Priestess – but they’ve also been inspired by some of the new alternative bands.
To underscore the heavier influences, the four-piece band breaks into “Dance and Fall” during a rehearsal in the basement of Leis’ Centre Street home. It’s a space clearly given over to the music, dominated by the drum kit decked out with the SGA logo.
Leis has been playing for six years, so is no stranger to providing the band with its percussive needs. Dowdall picked up the guitar four years ago, while Wilton (two years) and Bowman (about a year and a half) came to their instruments more recently. It’s clear, however, that they’ve got more than a little experience as a unit: the sounds is quite tight.
Regular rehearsals – at least once a week for the past year, more as holidays allow – have Stained Glass Army concert-ready, they say. There’s no issue of stage fright at this point.
In fact, they’ve already played a number of gigs, including some competitive battle-of-the-bands stuff. In the first such show, only months in, they captured a fourth-place finish up against some 40 bands in Cambridge. Later, there was a second-place finish at a similar competition in Kitchener.
The band is all set for next weekend’s show. An all-ages event, the concert goes December 29, 7 p.m. to midnight(ish) at Lions Hall, 40 South St. W. in Elmira. Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, available from any of the performers set to play that evening or by leaving a message at 519-501-5130.
