Rainbow Road

Rainbow Road is a 4-piece electronic pop band from Australia and Canada, based in Vancouver BC. Their signature percussive sound, created with bell and synth samples played live on drum pads, is a carefully crafted blend of lush texture and irresistible anthemic hooks.

It took two one-way tickets from Perth, Australia to Vancouver, Canada for Rainbow Road to form. Before that, lead singer/songwriter Lane Small spent his musical life drumming, mostly for punk bands, all the while building a catalogue of his own songs that didn't fit with any scene he was accustomed to. It wasn't until 2012, when he met Danni Ammon (through responding to the same Craigslist ad) that he found a safe space to explore the pop impulses that had formerly been confined to guilty pleasure status. The two wrote a handful of surf-pop songs together under the name Flash Summer, before Danni had to return to Perth. 

At that time, frustrated with the limitations of a traditional band arrangement, Lane went about learning principles of sound design and applied that knowledge to his growing skill set in Ableton Live. When it came time to actually perform the melodies he had written, he returned to his native instrument: drums. With the use of three Octapad midi controllers, Lane mapped out every key, and the foundation of Rainbow Road.

Over a year later, in December 2014, Danni reached out to Lane, alerting him to the imminent Vancouver arrival of Willem Leiftink, a fellow Australian and multi-instrumentalist. Lane had resigned himself to making a solo project by that time, but the two hit it off as friends, independently of music. But as chance would have it, a 2015 Seattle Seahawks playoff win was enjoyed at bar that neighbored Lane's rehearsal studio. After the game, he took Willem there and showed him the songs he had spent nearly two years working on. Willem picked them up immediately, first on guitar, then on drums. This beer-induced jam provided enough chemistry that two days later, Lane invited a friend, John Gillich, to join them for another session. The three of them instantly turned Lane's solo project into the band that it was clearly destined to be. 

Within a few months, they recorded and self-released their debut ep, "BeLL dRunK", and played their first show as a 3-piece. Shortly after, Danni returned to Vancouver and joined Rainbow Road, completing the current lineup. They have since been the feature band for a Vancouver Alternative Fashion Week premiere event, played to ever-increasing crowds at their own shows, and even opened the sold-out Justin Bieber tribute night at the Biltmore in East Van. 

Looking ahead to 2016, Rainbow Road will be touring North America, and releasing their first 7" in early summer. They're a summer band.

SMK