This four piece from Ottawa are straight to the point good music. I could go on about it, but I think their music, in style, quality and general mood speaks for itself. The Transit are Adam Solomonian, Shaun Morris, Chris Catsiyannis, and Alex Edkins. Chris answered a few questions for me on goals, obstacles, recording experiences and such.
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Spreading the word by doing as many shows as humanly possible is the plan. 'Our goal right now, besides having a good time, is to get our music out there as much as possible', says Chris, 'that's why we're trying [to] tour as much as we can and play anywhere and everywhere and make people aware of what we're doing. Hopefully in the not too distant future, The Transit will be a house hold name.' Of course, that's the plan in a prefect world, but so many things get in the way, 'the biggest obstacle for any band is commitment', he notes, 'fortunately for us, everyone in our band is committed to taking it to the next level. Everyone of us has sacrificed either work and/or school to try and get this band going. We feel we have something very special between us and it's worth working on.' When listening to The Transit (as you should be doing right now, I put that link on the intro page for a reason), you can sense that they're a close group, the way they play off each other and sound together. Of that, Chris explains, 'mainly that we are good friends and that we connect well musically. It just seems that we're all on the same page when it comes to songwriting or just jamming and fooling around.' And so it goes with songwriting within The Transit. Either someone dreams up an idea and they all attack it, 'we'll just keep going until it all comes together instinctively', he adds, or it just grows from fooling around. Lyrics are frontman Adam's department, Chris says 'we all love the way he writes and he does a good job of capturing what we all feel towards friendships, the scene or whatever.' |
Aspects of presenting themselves as a group is a factor, but the music is the main focus of the band. Chris explains, 'Our cd covers are probably where we place the most importance when it comes to artwork. After that, I can't say that we worry too much about show flyers or photos. If anyone has any good live photos of us we'll usually put them up on our website. Other than that, we just let our music do the talking rather than fancy t-shirt designs or whatever.'
| Their first release came way by their split cd with The Vanishing Red. Chris described the experience of recording for the split as 'a very rushed and inexperienced one. We recorded it at Raven St. Studios here in Ottawa. Our friends (who were members of TVR at the time) engineered it. When we finished they asked if we wanted to do a split with them and we agreed.' A-List Records is cited as being the outfit that released the split with The Vanishing Red, a little label that Chris and bassist Shaun cooked up. 'Shaun and I have been good friends for many years and we had always talked about starting a label one day. Well, when we finished recording for the split cd, we needed a label to put it out so we decided now is as good time as any to start.', explains Chris. To get a handle on their sound, nothing beats their current release, It's Lights Out for Downtown. The recording experience on this record was 'much more professional'. After having created a previous release, Chris says, 'we were more prepared as a band to go in to the studio and record this ep. We had put way more work into our songs and we were starting to find our niche as far as musical sound.' |
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Promo plans for the album are to tour massively and, notes Chris, 'hopefully our label spectrasonic sound will take care of the distro and the promo for the cd.'
Shaun Scallen heads Spectrasonic, 'an old and very reputable label from Ottawa', described Chris. And about Shaun, '…been a pillar in the Ottawa scene for many years. We had talked about maybe doing something for the label with him, which was on hiatus for a little bit, and shaun was down with it, so we were pretty stoked to release something on his label.' Hopes for the future, though, include being added to a slightly bigger label.
The Transit are just getting focused on their goals and ways to achieve them, and in the meantime, It's Lights Out for Downtown, is a shining example of what these four are capable of.
