Local rock four-piece Crooked Spies on the comeup
By Rachel Woodward, November 15 2016 —
Crooked Spies is a four-piece rock band featuring brothers Dylan and Steven Evanik alongside Aaron Samson and Mark Lawlor. The group just released their first single “Waiting” from their second feature-length album set for release early next year.
“We formed about two and a half years ago. It started with a bunch of university students that I met at school through the geology program plus my brother and it kind of evolved from there,” Dylan says. “We played a show and then didn’t really do anything for three or four months and then started getting involved in it. We pretty much are just based out of Calgary and have been for a while until eight months ago.”
For the past eight months, the band has worked long-distance since Dylan Evanik — lead guitarist and vocalist — moved to Vancouver for work.
Evanik says the band had to be creative to continue producing music.
“I moved to Vancouver for work but we’ve been keeping the band alive through Skype for musicians and flight benefits through WestJet, so I’m back pretty much every two weeks and we jam and try to play a show,” he says. “We usually do about two shows a month.”
They released their first album Treason two years ago and after a hiatus of gigs and jam sessions, Crooked Spies is working to release their second album. They will release a second single from the album while the band finishes the album over the Christmas break. The group will also tour Kamloops, Kelowna, Vancouver and Saskatoon in the new year.
The group members have backgrounds from various genres. Evanik feels that this multidimensional aspect is what sets the band apart from other musicians in the city and what listeners will find unique about the album’s first single.
“I think it definitely stems from the name — ‘Crooked.’ Each of us listen to different genres of music and that definitely comes across in the songs that we write. It’s this weird mix of these blues-inspired riffs with an edge,” he says. “Every song that we have is very different too. We definitely just want people to listen to [“Waiting”]. It’s about taking a look at your life — where you’re at. Everyone has some kind of baggage that is holding them back from pursuing what they want to do. That’s what the song is about — stop waiting for that and just go do it. This is a newer sound from us so it will be interesting for people to hear that.”
Even though the members of Crooked Spies are geographically separated, Evanik feels that Calgary is a great home base for the group.
“There are Calgary staples but I didn’t realize the actual wealth of talent in Calgary for bands,” he says. “Any given night, you go to Broken City [or] the Palomino [and] you’re going to see some kind of amazing band. It’s so diverse in terms of genres, it’s actually pretty bumpin’.”
For more information, visit crookedspies.com