Not even out of high school, Freeze the Fall are a rising hard rock trio from Kelowna.
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Light Organ Summerlight 2024: Freeze the Fall
When: Aug. 10, noon-9 p.m.
Where: MakerLabs, 780 E. Cordova St., Vancouver
With Broken Glass breaking eardrums on YouTube and rock radio, Kelowna teen hard rockers Freeze the Fall adds yet another win to the release of its first EP Thrones.
Kicking off with its debut single Glitch earlier this year, the trio of 17-year-old singer/guitar shredder Quinn Mitzel, 16-year-old drum thrasher Jonah Goncalves and 15-year-old bass machine and singer Aria Becker has already dropped three other singles as well as a searing cover of Evolve by Mexican trio the Warning.
Support for the group’s Nü rock sound was strong enough to enable it to raise double the $5,000 amount it set for a Kickstarter campaign to record Thrones.
Over 80 per cent of the eventual $10,000-plus funding came from outside of Canada, including contributions from Germany, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Egypt.
Working to a tight schedule to save expenses, the band shot all five of its music videos in a single 10-hour-long shoot in a -7 C unheated barn on Dec. 28. After 15 costume changes, numerous retuning breaks and rapid-fire run-throughs of the songs, videos for Glitch, Masquerade, Daughters of Witches, Broken Glass and their take on Evolve emerged.
The full track list for Thrones is rounded out with opening track Grief and closing number One Left Standing.
Following a Vancouver debut at the Khatsahlano Street Party this past July 6, the group is back in town to play at Light Organ Records Summerlight 2024 event on Aug. 10. Light Organ Records is affiliated with 604 Records, a label started by Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger and entertainment lawyer Jonathan Simkin.
The company boasts an impressive roster of established and rising acts.
Freeze the Fall talked about making music before its local gig:
Q: Thrones sounds like a band that has been around a long time. When did you all come together?
Quinn: Aria and I met first going to the same middle school as we would pass each other in the hallways and often were wearing similar band T-shirts and both thought we should talk to one other. As we are both really introverted, that was a hard ask, but we eventually did and started jamming in the summer. Then we met Jonah in 2022 and things really clicked with us fast.
Q: How did you get so good so young?
Jonah: As a band, we practise three times a week, four hours a session.
Q: The sound you arrived at is very much a combination of modern metal and also melodic rock. Is it fun to play live?
Jonah: We kind of agree on a balance in our songs with a unique and creative approach to the songwriting while also keeping in mind that it be suited towards a somewhat radio-friendly formula.
Q: With the album out, what are your band’s plans?
Quinn: For now, to keep writing music, a lot of music that is heavier than what people have heard so far, but also to explore any other direction that we want to go in. We’ve never written a song with anyone else before, so it could be a cool experience to see how that goes. Also, to keep playing, branching outside of Kelowna. We’re honoured to be playing at Summerlight.
Q: Besides music, what else are you into?
Aria: I’m really interested in all kinds of art and I helped our merch designer with some of our designs, which was really cool.
Jonah: Besides playing drums and skiing in the winter, I’m really interested in architecture and think I might want to go on to study it.
Quinn: I’m really interested in languages and other cultures. I plan on studying linguistics after high school. Regardless of what happens, we want to maintain a balance between music and our other interests.