Circumstances at the venue forced them to change their Elmira show, but local band Excuses Excuses will be heading on tour this week nonetheless.
The re-imagined band of Stained Glass Army’s Kyle Wilton and Trevor Bowman were set to return home with new bandmate Jason Nicoll to kick off the band’s first tour.
Although reminiscent of the Stained Glass Army sound, Wilton says Excuses Excuses leans a bit more towards the punk side of rock.
“With the last band, I would describe it as a rock band – we played quite a variety of stuff. This is a little more focused on punk rock,” he said, noting that with its alternative edge, it sounds closer to Billy Talent or the Foo Fighters. “So it is fairly similar to what we used to do, just a little bit more refined. And obviously with the new member, our writing style changed a little bit just from different influences from the musicians.”
The band was conceived after Stain Glass Army wound down.
“We lost some members and decided to still keep going because, Trevor and I, it is what we love doing,” he said, noting that the trio of Wilton, Bowman and Nicoll was conceived after the Elmira boys met Nicoll while attending school in Kingston. “He worked out perfectly with us and we decided to keep going. We weren’t really finished with playing music, it is really just our passion.”
The tour will be taking the group through six cities over close to a week and a half period with stops in Guelph, Hamilton, Toronto, Montreal, Kingston and Oshawa.
As a high energy group, Wilton says they cater to the lovers of live performances.
“That is really just what we focused on: lots of crowd interaction. We like to make sure that everyone is involved as much as we can and just put on a good visual and sonic experience for everyone,” he said. “We just try to make sure that everybody is entertained.”
Earlier this year, the group released their debut EP, which features five songs, and set them out to tour all around Ontario with the likes of rock bands such as Bleeker.
“It is always kind of hard because my favourite is probably different from what necessarily our fans favourite would be, defiantly our most popular song is The Outsider, but personally I really like (Is That) What You Meant,” he said of picking a favourite track. “It is a very personal song to me, so that one definitely really sticks in my mind.
“It is just about kind of following your passions and your dreams and making your life what you want it to be, not necessarily what other people want you to be.”
Following the tour, the band is looking forward to heading into the studio this fall to work on their new album.
