Playing in front of an outdoor crowd at the Central Music Festival on Friday, Aug. 17, could be one small step up the long ladder towards fame and fortune for Ruined Escape Plan.
The Red Deer band was formed at Notre Dame High School when three of its members were in Grade 12. Drummer Danial Devost was only in Grade 10 at the time, but he put in such a smokin’ performance with the school’s jazz band that the older students recruited him as a drummer for their group.
“They lured me with an iced cap,” recalled Devost, with a chuckle.
Fast-forward three years and Ruined Escape Plan has become known around Red Deer for playing at gigs including The Hub, the Elks Lodge, and Catholic school board-organized concerts at Red Deer’s Sacred Heart Church.
While group members have travelled as far as Bluffton to entertain at a Halloween party, the three 20-year-olds — singer Maria Pelletier, guitarist Kyle Hansen and bassist Reid LeClair — are still waiting for 17-year-old Devost to turn “legal” so they can start lining up some bar dates.
More recently, Ruined Escape Plan won the Central Music Festival talent show, getting to open the three-day event that runs Aug. 17 to 19 on private property just north of Red Deer.
The idea of playing for a large home-town crowd has become all the more exciting for band members, since they intend to relocate to Calgary or Edmonton this summer.
“It’s not that we’re dissatisfied with Red Deer,” said LeClair — but there’s a need to test a larger marketplace.
“I want to be famous,” quipped Hansen.
“I just don’t want to be broke,” interjected Devost.
Pelletier said she wants to continue as part of a hard-working rock band. “I’d be happy with being a house band somewhere.”
Hansen rolls his eyes, commenting on his bandmates’ lack of big-time ambition.
Collectively the four young people produce an unexpectedly seasoned sound. And LeClair writes lyrics that attempt to plumb deep into the human psyche — which would figure, since the bassist is a psychology major at Red Deer College.
Pelletier jokes that the group’s “magnum opus” is the seven-minute song Glass, which objectively examines a relationship through a lens.
According to Hansen, the song recognizes that “sometimes you can look through the glass, but sometimes you have to break it.”
In other words, there’s a need to go after what you want, instead of always observing from the outside, said Devost.
“It’s a metaphoric piece,” explained LeClair, who envisions Glass becoming part of a larger “storyline,” involving a series of songs. “It sets the framework for the rest of the concept piece.”
Ruined Escape Plan has written and recorded demos for other original songs, including the contemplative Somewhere to Hide, the haunting Evil Quartet, and the hard-rocking From the Ashes.
Devost believes the group’s sound has become more complex over the years. “We had to figure out a songwriting method that worked, because it used to be that a few of us would like a song and one of us would hate it,” said Devost —“usually her,” referring to Pelletier.
LeClair believes Ruined Escape Plan has developed a “very accessible, good rhythm.”
The goal, he added, is to produce music that everyone can get something out of.
“They’re still thinking too small-scale. Give them time,” joked the ever-ambitious Hansen.
“If we can do it on a large scale, then even better,” LeClair added, with a smile.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com