Ottawa Rock Veterans The Escape Society Announce Debut Summer Single “Sweet Days”
The Escape Society is thrilled to unveil their debut summer rock single “Sweet Days.”
This long-anticipated collaboration of local award‑winning rock musicians has immediately captured significant interest throughout the community, with Andrew Elliott of LiVE 88.5 dubbing the single a “SUMMER BANGER of the highest order!” The Escape Society will be performing “Sweet Days” along with many other exciting new songs at HOPE Volleyball SummerFest in Ottawa on July 15, 2023. They will also be celebrating with an upcoming limited edition “Sweet Days” beer, in partnership with a local microbrewery.
The Escape Society is all about feeling good and celebrating life. Combining vintage cool with contemporary ingenuity, the rocking band features veteran players Troy Huizinga, Scott Norris, Dean Watson, and Jay Watts. Drawing inspiration from chart stalwarts like Foo Fighters, Queen, The Killers, Sparks, and T. Rex, The Escape Society demands your attention and jump-starts your energy with honesty, catchy hooks, and dance floor bangers.
As lead singer Troy Huizinga sees it, “We’re here for a limited time on earth so let’s make it thrilling and fulfilling!”
Watch the video for “Sweet Days” below and learn more about The Escape Society via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
I’m Troy Huizinga, lead singer, and songwriter for The Escape Society. The Escape Society is a brand-new rock band out of Ottawa, Ontario. We specialize in uptempo, feel-good, power-poppy, summer rock tunes. My bandmates are Jay Watts, Dean Watson, and Scott Norris on drums, bass, and guitar, respectively. Dean also records our band at his studio Buckingham Palace Audio, in Buckingham Quebec. We have all enjoyed working together in various other musical projects over the years. The Escape Society is what I like to call my “supergroup.” These guys are not only my dearest friends, but they are also my favourite musicians. If you asked me to form my dream band, I would choose Jay, Scott, Dean, and myself…and I’ll have to keep dreaming on this last one, but I’d have Burton Cummings singing with me. He’s the best. It’s a scientific fact.
Tell us a bit about your most recent release.
Our debut single “Sweet Days” is a high-energy, feel-good, rock song with a positive message and a fun music video. Murray Foster of Great Big Sea/Moxy Fruvous recently described the song as “big, hooky, epic, power-pop.” I think that’s a lovely description. I wrote “Sweet Days” in a fit of inspiration at the height of pandemic uncertainty, for my partner Stacy. The lyrics are words I felt she needed to hear at the time. To my delight, a lot of people have told me they relate to the song. The music video was a blast to make. It captures the playful spirit of our band and effectively serves the emotion of our song. It also involves mysterious, psychedelic cake. As you may know, mysterious, psychedelic cake is not an everyday occurrence. It’s something you’re going to want to see.
Where do you tend to pull inspiration from when writing?
Thin air, mostly. When I’m writing for The Escape Society I write quickly and spontaneously. I want the songs to feel playful and immediate, so every song is written in a half hour or less. Make a sound right now. Do it. Okay, that was kind of weird, but it felt good, right? Now take that sound and mould it until it sounds pleasing. Maybe repeat it a few times to see if it makes a nice refrain. This is where I begin the process, simply having fun with sound. My lyrics develop in a similar way through a process of subvocalization or glossolalia. I toss nonsense words into the air and hope that a few of them stick. Refining and finding meaning comes later in the editing phase. Sometimes all the words stick. We have a song called “Caught in the Aeroplane” that I improvised on the spot. If the song takes three minutes and forty-one seconds to listen to, then that’s how long I took to write it. I simply hit the record button and sang something, and what came out is what you will hear in the finished recording. Lately, I’ve been coming at writing from a different angle. I find a story from my life that has great personal meaning, and then I pair it with a suitable title before developing music to serve that story. It’s less immediate but yields powerful results. I feel that our song “Sweet Days” is a lovely blend of these two methods.
Do you have any upcoming shows you’d like to tell us about?
We’re absolutely thrilled that our first-ever live performance will be at Ottawa’s H.O.P.E Volleyball SummerFest on July 15, with OK Naledi, The Blue Stones, JJ Wilde, and The Beaches. The Beaches were a huge influence on me when I was writing songs like “Sweet Days,” so the opportunity to share the stage with them for our first performance feels beautifully poetic. H.O.P.E (Helping Other People Everywhere) is a wonderful charity event and an Ottawa tradition that we’re proud to be a part of. This year H.O.P.E is raising money for the Education Foundation of Ottawa, Make-A-Wish Canada, Waupoos Foundation, and Camp Quality Canada. It’s a big summer party, and we get to debut our big summer tunes next to some of Canada’s finest rock n’ roll artists. It doesn’t get much better than that for a band’s first show. We’re counting our lucky stars.
What’s your goal for 2023?
For you to play our music this summer at the cottage, on that road trip you have planned, or at the family cookout. These songs are born of the sunshine, and that’s where I want you to be when you hear them. We’re all here for a limited time as the earth dances around the sun, so go drink in that summer breeze and form some core memories. If our music can play a part in that for you, then I will feel artistically fulfilled. Beyond that our goals are simple: make our next show better than the last, and make our next record better than the one before. So we’ll see you out there. Thanks for taking an interest in our music. I hope you’ll check in with us again soon to see how we’re doing with our goals. Have a great summer!
Connect with The Escape Society:
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