Make Your Exit

"Make Your Exit wowed me from the get-go."

*Full Review At:

http://itsnotthebandihateitstheirfans.blogspot.com/2009/05/lovely-killbots-whale-tooth-make-your.html - It's Not The Band I Hate, It's Their Fans

"...if you like music, you’ll love these guys."

*Full Article At:

http://blog.muchmusic.com/nxne-friday-night - MuchMusic

"Remind Me The Reason I Came: exhibits the bands masterful song writing with a calming and laid back feeling, warm ambience, and elegantly textured harmonies."

*Full Review At:
http://www.earshot-online.com/reviews/Di splayReview.cfm?DiscID=89990 - Earshot

"They manage to find a great balance in the generally precarious space between sparse and filled-out arrangements."

*full article at:
http://www.cavacool.com/spotlight/make-your-exit/

- Ca Va Cool

the band delivers intricate harmonies and acoustic melodies..."

*Full Review At:
http://www.iheartmusic.net/serendipity/index.php?/archives/1766-Get-into-Make-Your-Exit.html - i(heart)music

....bands like Make Your Exit transform from a group "with a few nice ideas" (as I previously wrote) into a surprisingly awesome indie-rock band.

It's not every night that you enjoy all the bands on the bill and to top it off, Make Your Exit proved they have come a long way in a short period of time. The show I saw in October 2008 was definitely good, but at the Rancho last Friday it all came together in such a way that it flipped that switch in my brain. The good switch. The visible change was the addition of a few more players, which I'm sure partly contributed to improvement in sound, but it was more than that. The performance had that flavor of a band that has gelled. Looking forward to seeing them again sometime.

-Pete Nema

http://www.petenema.com/article.php?story=make_your_exit-0901 - Pete Nema

“... Make Your Exit gave an outstanding performance. From the moment they stepped onto the makeshift stage assembled in the East Village Arts Co-op garage, Toronto band Make Your Exit amazed and indulged the crowd... Though they are a new band, listeners might assume they have been professionals for a while. Their music was full of surprises and there was perfect band chemistry.”


Maggie Pajak
The Gazette, October 19, 2009
http://www.uwogazette.ca/2009/10/19/make-your-exit-outshines-headliners/ - The Gazette (University of Western Ontario Newspaper)

It’s a busy month for Toronto’s Sneaky Dee’s as they open their doors to welcome oodles of Canadian indie musicians. Included amongst their booming schedule is the highly anticipated CD release party for Ontario’s Make Your Exit. The group has been eagerly awaiting the chance to drop Remind Me the Reason I Came, their second EP album.

The follow-up release from Jeff Buckley, Mike Dellios, Mike Thomson, Skidboot and Oliver Pauk exposes their most creative and innovative song-writing to date. For Remind Me the Reason I Came, the boys traveled to Trenton, Ontario where they converged at an abandoned church – now a recording studio – to begin work on this latest compilation of tunes.

“We recorded it back in June – the end of June [2009]. We went to the studio for 10 days and I think the process of recording that album took some time. Three months prior to that we were doing pre-production stuff for it,” says bassist Dellios. “We went up to Trenton where we spent ten days basically living in the studio.”

Lead vocalist and guitarist Buckley says recording at the abandon church was like living in a “musical playground.” Creating this project outside of the hustle and bustle of Toronto produced a sharpened end result he confesses, adding that it was a satisfying experience to concentrate solely on his singing and song-writing.

“It was a pretty cool experience,” Buckley says. “It was pretty awesome to actually get out of the city and all of the other stuff that usually distracts us. We could actually focus on what we were there to do. Hopefully, although we’ll never know, it yielded it a better product.”

Prior to the release of their sophomore album, the boys of Make Your Exit, and their ambient indie rock, was featured at the renowned Canadian Music Week and the North By Northeast Music Festival. Buckley and co. have shared the stage with top Canadian independent talents like Black Diamond Bay, Fox Jaws, The Paint Movement and Dan Griffin of the Arkells.

Remind Me the Reason I Came marks the first time all five boys have been in a studio together. Dellios says that working as a team made this project more pleasurable and the final piece is truly a collaboration of colourful artists.

“It was really cool how we got to lay down the tracks we have been working on collectively and get them into a format where we could listen to them on our CD player,” Dellios says. “Finally we had this product that we were super-excited about and very proud of and we’re fond of the memories that it took to make it. All in all it was a very positive experience.”

Remind Me the Reason I Came was released independently on September 22nd, but its official release date was September 25th.

The band will be hitting the road throughout the fall to promote their EP. In October the boys will be making visits throughout Ontario, stopping in Kingston at Clark Hall Pub, in Ottawa at Cafe Dekcuf and in Hamilton at Maxwell’s Music House. They will be touring with The City, Corduroy, The Paint Movement, Cam Malcolm, The Owls and Fox Jaws.

For more information on tour dates and to download free songs from Make Your Exit log onto their MySpace page at: http://www.myspace.com/makeyourexit. - LucidForge.com

The five members of Make Your Exit were excitedly handling and examining their new EP, Remind Me The Reason I Came when I arrived at the Red Room. I think only two of the five looked up as I joined their table and it reminded me of children opening Christmas presents. They were excited and it was cool to watch.

On top of that, while I had mentioned that I only needed one or two members to be there they had insisted on all coming to meet me. While it makes it harder for me to transcribe (there are seriously three Mikes in the band), it shows a group solidarity that really shines on stage when all members of an ensemble are so committed and eager.

Remind Me The Reason I Came is actually Make Your Exit's second release. About a year ago they released a self-titled EP, but what really got them started was discovering who would handle lead vocals. They all sing; their style is what I would call a raw, without-borders Midlake sound, but initially no one would take the lead mic. Mike Dellios (bass) spoke a bit about it.

"We played in high school together, but broke up at the end of it. I guess we've been playing together for two years now as Make Your Exit, and although we played great together right away, we struggled with bigger issues... like who was going to sing. Lucky for us, [Jeff] Buckley stepped up to the plate and that's when things really got going."

Buckley jumped in to explain how he'd interjected. "I was like, 'this is ridiculous that we can't find a singer, I'm going to try singing,'" while Dellios added "I remember he came in with some recordings to jams we had done. We told him 'you're going to be our singer now.' It's working out really well."

What I was most fascinated with was the recording process that this band endured with their new EP. I'm not sure that I've ever heard anything like it. A friend of a friend bought an old church, gutted it, installed a recording studio and the "sickest amount of gear". Buckley told me about their experience: "Buddies of ours [ProvincialParks] told us about this guy in Trenton who set up a studio in a church, so we went out there for ten days. We slept in the church; we basically lived and breathed recording for ten days straight. It was amazing; we barely knew the guy. But by the end we were close and had this awesome heartfelt good-bye. He understood what we were going for and that's part of why this album feels so good."

Dellios continued, with more on their church friend: "The first day we met him, we show up with our gear. He's got like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment in that church, and he's just like 'You guys can crash here, I've got some beds set up. To us, that's the way our whole band dynamic works. We're all super-tight like brothers, so he just fit right in with our goals."

Although they are very excited for their CD release show at Sneaky Dee's on Friday, September 25th, one of their members will be less capable of the craziness that generally ensues on stage. Mike (guitars) has seriously injured his ankle: "I went up to a friend's cottage last weekend for a bachelor party and I fell off some stairs and broke my ankle. It's pretty bad."

What Mike meant to say, according to his bandmates, is that he shattered his ankle and it is very literally only being held together by a series of nuts 'n' bolts. Bachelor parties: one of the many reasons I object to marriage and everything that it involves. - BlogTO

The Toronto-based lo-fi rock band Make Your Exit’s performance contained jazzy and gentle guitar riffs, smooth bass lines, soothing saxophone melodies, and high spirited gang vocals. Make Your Exit had and enchanting ability to be upbeat and relaxing at the same time, creating music that could hold your focus and mellow out simultaneously. One guitarist for the band known as Skidboot played through the band’s entire opening with a broken guitar string, simply soldiering through until the end of the track. Lead singer Jeff Buckley crooned the crowd with his endearing vocals like he was the last man on earth. All in all, Make Your Exit was like the silky soundtrack to a hearty night on the town among old friends. - Fazer Online Magazine