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Ottawa may not be known for producing successful rock bands, other than Hollerado. Most of the other greats have remained local or regional secrets, to the great loss to the rest of the music scene.
That trend seems to be changing with a rise in local rock bands generating significant buzz, with many on the verge of breaking through. Bands like the New Hires, F!TH, Bearings, and many other amazing groups have shown they have the potential to take the next step in 2025.
One of these groups to keep a keen eye (and ear) on is Cevilain, who take to the Bronson Centre stage this Saturday night to open for legendary rockers I Mother Earth. Formed in 2018, the foursome was ready to make a big push in 2020, but with the pandemic causing a false start, they’re even more poised to blow up.
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We caught up with frontman Cliff Menzies to chat about the rough road to date, their star-studded collaborations, and what 2025 may bring.
Apt613: In terms of timelines, you formed in 2018, you start building up buzz, and your song “How It Ends” starts breaking out. And I don’t know if it’s irony or what, but you release your début album On Death and Dying, literally as everything shuts down because of the pandemic.
Menzies: Yeah. Obviously, not intended. We had no idea that the world was going to shut down. It ended up being an anthemic album for that period. I think that’s helped fans lean into and connect with that album. It was just strange timing. We had a lot going on then too—we had just learned that we would do a song with Adam Gontier (of Saint Asonia and Three Days Grace). We had been talking with him about doing a song and what the process looks like, and Saint Asonia was touring at the time, so we were supposed to be their opener on that Canadian tour. The pandemic killed all those plans, and things have gone in different directions since.
Fast forward to 2023, you come out of the gates with the rework of “How It Ends” with Kellin Quinn (from Sleeping With Sirens). How did that collab come about?
It was cool. We knew going into 2023, once everything seemed like it was settling and the world was getting back to people going out to concerts, we wanted to get on the road. That was the first time we were planning to go to the States and in doing so, we wanted to take our most successful song and find a way to re-market it in a way that made sense.
We didn’t want to just put the song back out and say ‘Here you go, you’re getting exactly the same thing.’ We wanted to give it a little bit of a different flavour and a little bit different life. It would make sense for fans to come back to us after all that time off, and it would make sense for new fans.
So we reached out to Kellen. He had some downtime between Sleeping With Sirens tours, so we just sent him the song, and asked him if he’d be interested. He dug it, came back to us, we worked out the things he wanted to do. Obviously the song already had some levels of success. But we wanted to give him space to be creative. In addition to him, we also worked with an incredible artist based out of Australia, Misstiq, who makes these great symphonic arrangements. So having both of those bits of input allowed that song to have some familiar parts to it, but also have something new to it to appeal to fans again and to appeal to new fans.
It certainly helped us when we were going back out on the road to have something strong to market and put out there.
Now you’ve got four songs out of the new project, including collabs with some pretty big names, like the anticipated collab with Adam Gontier and another great local band.
Our good buddies in F!TH. Vinny’s such a great dude and we’ve played a bunch of shows together. We had them come out when they were first starting and had them support a couple of our hometown shows, becoming great friends with them. So it was a lot of fun getting in the studio with Vinny.
On your site, you mentioned there would be a song every six weeks. You’re behind schedule a little bit.
Yes, and I’ll give you a good explanation as to why the schedule is a little bit off. In putting these songs out every six weeks, we got those first four songs, and now we’re turning our attention to 2025 to get one more big single out, and then the entire album out, and then we’re going to tour it. Initial plans to tour are already in the works, including getting back down to the States again.
So yes, we’ve fallen off the schedule for sure, but it was very purposeful. It wasn’t that we weren’t getting the work done!
Other than opening for I Mother Earth, any other local shows in the works?
We are potentially announcing another pretty cool show next week or the week after. Just waiting on contracts and confirmation. So that’ll be another really great one in February, back at the Bronson Center. But I can’t elaborate any further yet.
And before we get on the road in the States, early to mid-May, we’re doing a run of shows in Canada. So we’ll do six shows off the top of my head. Then down into the States, late May, June, July.
Catch Cevilain opening for I Mother Earth at Bronson Centre Saturday, Dec. 7. Doors open at 7 and tickets can be found here. The Bronson Centre is fully accessible, with ramps and elevators for entry and exit, accessible seating available upon request, and quiet rooms provided as needed.
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