Raising Atlantis

An Oakville rock band comprised of four teens has just signed a deal with an independent artist discovery and development firm based in Los Angeles, California.

Raising Atlantis has signed the agreement with the firm A&R Worldwide, which has helped develop such talent as Coldplay, Muse, Dido, Temper Trap, Lily Allen and many more.

“What A&R is saying is we have our music and they’re very happy with it. We have our ideas and they say that’s what you need,” said the band’s lead singer Alex Garnett. “What we need to work on is creating an image for ourselves because right now they say we don’t have much of an image, we need to do a lot of marketing.”

That’s where A&R comes in. It is not a record label, but it is a development company that aims to help musicians get recognized by labels.

“We need to be practicing up to four hours a day, music is our full-time job. We need to improve in the next eight months, get very tight,” Garnett said.

A&R representatives will come to Oakville to work with the band on its image.

“We’re going to get our performance choreographed so that our live show is a lot better,” Garnett said. “Our live show is very good right now, but we want to get more professional and more organized so our live show really blows people away.”

Raising Atlantis consists of four 18-year-olds who met in elementary school and graduated from T.A. Blakelock High School this past June. Along with Garnett in the band are Mike Beaudry (drums and percussion), Andrew Zamora (guitar / back up vocals) and Bradley Capstick (guitar / back up vocals). They formed the band in Grade 9 and in the last two years the members became serious about their music and began practicing on a frequent and consistent basis.

Raising Atlantis has done regular live shows and recorded a number of songs, putting together a six-song CD, which band manager Grant Furlane used to get them recognized by A&R.

Garnett said the band members will remain in Oakville for the next four to eight months, rehearsing and perfecting their craft, and then they will head to L.A.

“When we do go down to L.A., we want to be 100 per cent prepared to put on live shows there and show them what we’ve got and at the same time release singles while we’re down there.”

A&R organizes a concert called MUSEXPO in Los Angeles, which the guys at Raising Atlantis hope A&R will include them in.

“Those (A&R) bands are looked at higher than the rest just because they’re recommended by A&R. So all the labels that are there will be looking at them more than at the other bands,” Garnett said of the concert.

“If we do get recognized by A&R for this MUSEXPO, we’re hoping that a label will catch our eye and we need to be prepared for that and that needs to go very smoothly because that’s basically the goal: to get picked up by a label eventually.”

Garnett said the band is also working to improve its web presence. - Oakville Beaver