“My mother always really hated that name,” Evidence guitarist Dean Rudd says of his old band, The Failure, over a pint at the swanky Oak Room. Rudd then concedes that calling your band The Failure is probably not setting yourself up for imminent success. “The name was kind of a tribute to all that we didn’t accomplish in our previous bands,” he admits. For several years, at least, things went along pretty well. There were two CDs, a video and a fair bit of general interest but as they say, shit happens. Whether it was Karma, self-fulfilling prophecy or just plain entropy, a fair bit of shit happened to The Failure.

Drummer and lead vocalist Casey Lewis broke his hand on the soccer field. After months of healing and rehabilitation, The Failure set out on tour again, only to blow up their touring van’s engine on route to Medicine Hat. Five grand and five months later, the van’s new engine blew up, on that very same stretch of highway. When their bass player threw in the towel, it was time for a re-think. “We needed to hit reset — things had really gone off the rails,” says Rudd. Everybody they encountered seemed to have helpful suggestions to “fix” the band’s perceived problems. This re-evaluation lead to a realization: “The start of the Evidence was us saying; ‘look, we like what we do, we know there are at least some people out there who like it as well, so, fuck, we’re just gonna do it!’”

Rudd has a degree in business administration and, on the phone, at least, he comes across more as an accountant than a punk rocker. In the flesh, he is fully three-dimensional and multi-faceted. He wears the punk rock-business man mantle with a canny mixture of passion and pragmatism. Half an hour of his band’s bi-weekly practice is devoted to goals and strategies. “We have a white board and we actually check up on our objectives,” he says. “I like to approach it professionally because I appreciate it when a band puts forth their best efforts. You know when you’re watching something that is sincere and legitimate, this is the real thing.”

Armed with a newer van, a new bassist and a new, winning attitude, The Evidence put away all challengers to win top prize in 2008’s Band vs Band competition. Their debut disc, Polarity, released on their own Meter Records label, is a beautifully packaged, fully realized collection of polished but jagged rock songs. Polarity toes the line between indie punk and power pop with immense energy buoying up catchy guitar hooks, and just enough prog-rock elements to keep it interesting for the guitar geeks. Lewis lays down a dense, over-the-top drum bed, while delivering commanding lead vocals. Rudd and fellow guitar slinger Tyler Pickering shine forth with admirable restraint, notching it up whenever the need arises.

The disc was recorded and mixed over a two-year period at Lewis’s Echo Base studio, which gave them the chance to experiment and try out new ideas. “We had the luxury of working on it until we were happy with it,” Rudd says. “If we were anyone else, we’d have ran out of money before we were finished.”

Whatever the future holds for this hard-working foursome, the pluses have more then outweighed the minuses over the past seven years. “Most often, it doesn’t last,” Rudd reflects. “Real life gets in the way, or the friendships don’t last or you get to a point where you can’t reconcile your own fiscal needs with playing in a band. I think we’ve all been just determined enough and careful and considerate enough to keep it together.”