"It's been a crazy-busy year for us," says bassist Ferdy Belland of Cranbrook's prog-metal stalwarts Phaeton. "We had our second album in the can literally a week before the pandemic erupted, so we lost several years to that. But we reignited ourselves in early 2023, and everything's been accelerating. And 2024's been just amazing - we've been playing live across BC and Alberta and impressing people wherever we go. And we got on the bill for the Loud As Hell Festival, which will be the biggest and best show we've done yet!"
The Loud As Hell Festival (formed and curated by former Cranbrooker Geoff Bourrie) will present its 12th annual iteration at Dinosaur Downs in Drumheller AB on the long weekend of August 2nd through 4th, featuring headlining performers from renowned metal talent such as Beyond Creation, Striker, Kelevra, Tyrant's Demise, and 40 other nationally-rising acts). Over 3,500 people regularly attend the event, which has rapidly grown over the years into Western Canada's largest metalfest. And if winning a slot on the vaunted LAH stage wasn't enough of an accomplishment, other interested parties were reaching out to Phaeton.
"We were recently contacted by the casting director of Canada's Got Talent, if you can believe that," says Belland. "Completely out of the blue. It was surprising and flattering, and we asked the director if they realized just what kind of act we were, and they did - but not only is it difficult for us to condense our songs down to two minutes for TV broadcast, the whole modern-day television singing extravaganza spectacle isn't really our scene. But it was nice to be noticed by the mainstream music industry, so clearly we're doing something right."
Phaeton (named for the ancient proto-planet which collided with the primordial Earth billions of years ago, the impact of which triggered off life as we know it, as well as forming the Moon) was formed in 2017 by drummer Colin Righton, who gathered together technically-motivated musicians he'd played with seperately in earlier bands to create something new and exciting: guitarist Kevin Thiessen (ex-Datura, ex-Aszension), guitarist Daniel Airth (ex-Chaos Logic), and Belland (ex-Anarcrist).
Combining influences from artists such as Rush, Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, Symphony X, Mastodon, and others, the band writes a compelling all-instrumental / non-vocal approach to crazy riffs, intricate song arrangements, and powerful onstage delivery, combining the best elements of classic progressive-rock and modern heavy metal.
Phaeton's second album Between Two Worlds (independently released in 2023) was critically acclaimed in the UK's Prog magazine, and their upcoming third album Neurogenesis is scheduled for release before 2024 is out. And they even took the time to play what was, oddly enough, their debut Cranbrook performance earlier this year.
"It was a great time for us to play a pair of Rush covers live onstage at the Key City Theatre," says Belland. "It was the Canadian Artists Tribute fundraiser - everyone else was playing Gordon Lightfoot and Anne Murray and the Tragically Hip and all that, and here we come out of nowhere and blast out 'La Villa Strangiato' and 'YYZ!' We took the crowd by surprise, but everyone loved it. And we did too. We're proud of our band, and what we do, and we're proud add a different musical slice to the arts community of the Kootenays. Full-On Phaeton!"
