Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

A heavy Weight

Misery Signals, Haste the Day and more travel across Canada with the Weight of the World Tour
58124_l

What: Weight of the World Tour with Misery Signals, Haste the Day

When: Sunday, June 7

Where: Garfinkel’s

Cost: $10 in advance at www.clubzone.com/me/ciaconcerts

Misery Signals may be dubbed as "melodic metal," but if you're a true music lover you won't shy away from the hardcore genre.

Many of Misery Signals' die-hard fans are actually musicians themselves, and regardless of their allegiance to another genre they find themselves drawn to the group's technical skills, which are reflected in their odd time signatures and impressive riffs and breakdowns.

"People that are into our band are typically more musician types, to tell you the truth," said Stu Ross, one the guitar players. "Obviously, there's stuff that the average person grasps onto and can enjoy, but the compliments we get are from the more musically-inclined."

On Tuesday, the men of Misery Signals - Kyle Johnson on bass, Karl Schubach on vocals, Ryan Morgan on guitar, Branden Morgan on drums, and Ross on guitar - had just arrived in Kelowna after an epic 14-hour drive from Grand Prairie, Alberta the night before.

"When we got here, we discovered we had a broken lead spring on our trailer, which is a piece that holds that axle onto the trailer, basically," Ross said with a laugh.

They spent the evening hunting down parts for the trailer, and unloading their gear so the trailer could be repaired in time to make their next show in Vancouver on Wednesday night.

Which just goes to prove that the life of a musician isn't always glamorous.

The group is currently co-headlining their Canadian "Weight of the World Tour," which includes other bands with a similar heavy-hitting vibe like Haste the Day, Dead & Divine, Architects, and Sights & Sounds.

"We were planning to do a headliner no matter what this summer, and we wanted Architects to be a part of it because we've done a few tours with them this year already - they had us over in the UK and we just really got along really well," Ross explained.

So, they invited them to Canada for a tour, also enlisting some old friends, Sights & Sounds, who recently released a new record. And with that, a tour was born.

"It's really easy because a lot of us have all toured together already, so it's pretty comfortable," Ross added, "There was no point at the beginning of the tour where no one knows each other, we just jumped right into it."

On a musical level, the groups all have a heavy tendency, though their approaches are a bit different. For example, Sights and Sounds is more of a rock band and focuses more on melody and vocals, while Misery Signals are a bit more aggressive.

"Everybody kind of shares the same melodic vibe throughout, so it's good," Ross said.

For audiences along the tour, this means they're treated to performances by groups with shared traits but five very different sounds.

Growing up fed on a steady diet of Metallica and Def Tones, it's pretty easy to see how Misery Signals' sound was influenced and shaped over the years, though Ross points out that they strive for originality with all of their music.

"It's not like we directly try and take influence from other bands, because we try and keep it fresh and do something sort of on our own, keep some identity to the music," Ross explained, "We're definitely influenced by all sorts of stuff - hip hop, rock, and all sorts of stuff."

Misery Signals was originally formed by Morgan and Johnson back in 2002. They enlisted Jesse Zaraska as their lead singer, who then brought his friend, Ross, into the picture as the bass player. But in 2006, after Zaraska decided to leave Misery Signals, the rest of the group was left scrambling to find a suitable replacement. And like any other member of the tech-savvy MTV generation, they turned to the web for help, posting an instrumental version of a new song on MySpace and inviting singers to come up with the vocals.

"It's pretty much the main medium for bands to get their music out," Ross added.

Schubach was the lucky winner.

Today, the members are spread across North America, from Milwaukee to Regina, but since the band spends so  much time on the road touring the distance doesn't really make a difference.

"When it comes time to write music, we just get together and do it," Ross said.

The band released their third full-length album "Controller" just last July, garnering praise from fans and industry-types alike for its balance of metal and melody - elements that had respectively dominated their first two previous albums.

"Everybody seems to enjoy the record... I like it the most, actually. It's my favourite album that we did."

In fact, this current tour is named after the shortest track on "Controller" - but even just shy of three minutes in length, it's jam-packed aggressive melody and meaning.

They also brought in Morgan's father, a percussionist for the Madison Symphony Orchestra, to lend a special sound to the latest album.

"We're a band that tries to incorporate as much ambiance and melody as we can throughout the record, and we knew that we would end up doing that sort of stuff in there anyway, so it was kind of cool just to have Ryan's dad come down and add some stuff to it."

After they wrap up this Canadian tour, the band plans to take the rest of the summer to relax before heading back into the studio to start work on their fourth full-length record in the fall.