Their bangs may obscure their view, but Seventh Rain aren’t short on vision

Seventh Rain may not be the trendiest band in Calgary’s burgeoning indie music scene, but frankly, they’re not that bothered. “We’ve always felt like outsiders in the Calgary music scene,” says lead singer Ryan Williams, who is, ironically, sitting on the patio of what has been for years the epicentre of local music scenesterism, the Ship & Anchor. “But I think it’s good, because it makes us work harder.”
    Formed almost seven years ago, the four-piece has grown from a teenage party band with no higher aspiration than getting drunk and picking up girls into a polished, melodic powerhouse with dreams of nothing less than chart domination. The band’s catchy guitar hooks, big choruses and heartfelt lyrics have been compared to such mainstream rock acts as the Goo Goo Dolls, Foo Fighters, Nickelback and Good Charlotte.
    “We’re not really worried about what’s trendy or not,” Williams says. “We’re proud to be a pop-rock band. Just because something is the cool thing to do doesn’t really matter to me. I want to do what I’m passionate about.”
    This passion and dogged determination has started to pay off. Over the years, the band has shared the bill with Nickelback, Evanescence, Collective Soul, Hedley and Sum 41, and in 2004, the group won Vibe 98.5’s Unsigned Vibe competition, netting a cool $100,000. The money came in handy when it came time to record their latest album, Byda, which was recorded at Bryan Adams’s Warehouse studio in Vancouver. Williams claims the location and big-name, state-of-the-art studio weren’t a big deal to the band. However, the people who worked on the album were. The CD was produced by former Age of Electric frontman Todd Kerns, engineered by Dean Maher (Rise Against) and mixed by Mike Fraser (AC/DC and Metallica).
    “These days, with the technology that’s out there, you can record an amazing sounding album in your basement,” says Williams. “But the people we really wanted to work with were in Vancouver, so it just made sense to go out there and live in a really, really cheap hotel and do it all out there.”
    The band also recently filmed a video for the CD’s first single, “Save Me”. The song has been getting substantial airplay on Vibe and other major radio stations. The band’s focus on mainstream success has made some fans and fellow musicians question Seventh Rain’s integrity. But Williams, guitarist Rich MacFarlane, bassist Lucas Shepard and drummer Phil Grossi are quick to defend themselves.
    “People tell us that we’ve sold out,” says MacFarlane. “But we’ve definitely not sold out. We’re passionate about what we do and we’re self-sufficient. We have no label telling us what to do.”
    “Anyone who saw us play when we started,” adds Williams, “knows that we’re playing the same music. It’s just that we’re more mature now.”
    Shepard adds his two cents by pointing out that doing self-promotion doesn’t necessarily equal selling out.
    “(If you’re not on a label), you have to promote yourself and do it all on your own,” he says. “You can’t wait for things to happen. If that was the case, everybody would be buying lottery tickets, sitting around waiting to win. You have to do things yourself.”
    The band members have been spending much of their energy on the release of Byda, which is named after William’s grandmother. “She just passed away a few months ago at the age of 91,” Williams explains. “She was pretty much the biggest supporter of our band. She came to every show we had. She was on Cowboys’s website because she was onstage at 90 years old, dancing up a storm and drinking beer with the best of them. So we dedicated this to her.”
    Seventh Rain plans to hit the road for an autumn tour in support of the album and hope to eventually make their mark as superstar rock gods. “We have big expectations,” states Williams. “We’ve been told by people to be realistic since day one. But we don’t listen to them.”