Default

By Josh Hammerstedt

Touring with Nickelback is a piece of cake for Default, a Vancouver band that’s begin- ning to make its mark on the Canadian music scene.

- Comprised of vocalist Dallas Smith, guitarist Jeremy Hora, drummer Danny Craig, and bassist Dave Benedict, this band is making waves with their hit singles “Wasting My Time” and “Deny,” both from their new album The Fallout. Their honest song-writing and impassioned vocals make Default a musical force to be reckoned with. -

The Default saga began with a vision: a vision to form a band that would play music the way they wanted it played. They wanted a gui- tar-driven rock band, no bones about it. They wanted to play original music, written themselves; in Dave’s own words, “If you make the songs yourself, they’re hon- est, and that’s what we’re looking for.” With this in their minds, and a few years of the Vancouver music scene already under their belts, Jeremy and Danny decided that the summer of 1999 was the time for them to start a serious band.

Hey, when you’ve gotta start a band, you’ve gotta start a band. Joining forces with their longtime friend Dallas on vocals, they first formed the band under the name The Fallout. With Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger producing them, the band spent the fall of 1999 in the

studio, as well as playing around Vancouver. After an appearance on the Vancouver Seeds 2000 com- pilation, legal issues resulted in the name change to Default, and their first inde- pendent release, The Fallout, sold over 2000 copies. Record labels began to volley for Default’s attentions, with TVT records eventually win- ning out. After adding bassist Dave and switching produc- ers, they finally released their first major-label record, also titled The Fallout. Now that they've made their major- label debut, they are on tour to show North American audi- ences what Default is all about.

The members of Default have known both each other and Nickelback for years, so touring together is one big fun musical adventure. It’s like The Sound of Music, only without the Nazis. For exam- ple, during one visit to play at a university campus, mem- bers of the band and one of their techies were bombing around on_ motorcycles despite warnings from securi- ty. The biking was just too fun, though, so they kept doing it until their techie got caught, and the band was booted from the venue for life. Did this incident perma- nently scar the band’s ego? Not really. “We got, like, an eviction notice, and we were keeping it on our bus. We were going to have it framed.”

(Continued on 14)

By Dana Schwehit

From left to right: Jeremy Hora (guitar), Danny Craig (drums), Dave Benedict (bass).

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