By Sara Hanson
Most bands, whether they admit it or not, aspire to fame. They want to hear their songs on the radio, play sold-out shows at packed venues and enjoy screaming fanboys/girls throwing themselves at their feeet, clawing at them lustily, nothing but animal passion driving them. After being named as one of five winners in The Fox’s 2006 seeds competition, the four members of Fully Loaded are one step closer to signing breasts and snorting blow off the loins of endangered species.
For a band that started out as two brothers–guitarist Andrew and lead singer Mike Twining–jamming in their basement, Fully Loaded has certainly come a long way. While their success today reflects a ton of hard work, they have also had more than one lucky break along the road. The boys were discovered about a year ago by Tom McDonald, who some may know as the bass player for Hedley. McDonald used his industry connections to get Fully Loaded prime recording time, which they used to produce their first self-titled EP. A few months after the album was complete, Fully Loaded got their big push to fame when Vancouver’s biggest rock station, 99.3 The Fox, added them to rotation.
“There’s not much of a rock scene in Vancouver,” says Andrew Twining. “People don’t go out to see rock shows, so it’s hard to really promote yourself. But since we’ve been on the radio, you get the people who really like live music coming out and we’ve been packing places.”
For a band to be really famous they need to learn how to grab the attention of their fans.
Creating an album is only half of the musical process. The other half involves building a really awesome live show that leaves fans feeling overwhelmed for days. Twining stresses that Fully Loaded aims to be that kind of awe-inspiring band.
“One of our main priorities was getting our live show amazing,” he says. “We hate going to see bands that suck live. We wanted to sound better than we did on our album–that raw rock feel when you go to a show where the band is all over the place. You’ve got the drum solo and the guitar solo, stuff you don’t hear on the album. We spent a lot of time working on that; it’s not something that just comes with practice. You need to play shows like that. So we pretty much just saturated ourselves within the Vancouver rock scene.”
Twining has set high expectations for the band’s live shows, so hopefully the two brothers are able to get along throughout the band’s tour of Western Canada. He insists, however, that the two of them have no problem playing together.
“We can really feed of each other writing music,” says Twining. “It really works well because we have the same influences and we grew up listening to music together. We can mold our songs together and make them something better.”
Fully Loaded have acquired almost everything they need to be classified as “famous.” All they need now is a set of groupies to follow them as they tour from Vancouver to Winnipeg. Maybe there is a set of sisters out there who want to initiate a following.