Hitting the ground running with debut album

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This article was published 13/01/2018 (3172 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If it seems as though you’ve been hearing about the release of local trio Attica Riots’ debut album for years, it’s because you have.

The band — made up of brothers Kyle and Anders Erickson, formerly of Inward Eye, and Bobby Desjarlais, formerly of the Bokononists — has been sitting on a completed full-length record and teasing its release since 2015, waiting for just the right moment to officially send it out into the world.

And that moment is now; Love Sunshine & Hysteria finally drops Jan. 19, and local fans can get their hands on a copy tonight at Attica Riots’ CD release show at the Pyramid Cabaret.

“These things, you work so long on them and there’s so much money invested in them,” Kyle, the guitarist for the three-piece, explains.

“And records disappear once they’re released, oftentimes, so we just wanted to really make sure, since we’re coming out of nowhere — we’re a new band to everybody except Winnipeggers — we wanted to drum up as much noise as we could so when we do release, a few more people outside of our home territory are aware of who we are and what we’re doing.”

But just because they’ve had a completed record in the bank doesn’t mean the indie-rock group has been taking it easy: they regularly pop up at venues all over town, developing a strong fan base through their high-energy live performances; they’ve been dropping singles from the album every few months; and all the while, vocalist/songwriter Desjarlais has been penning tons of new songs the trio is eager to record and release.

Before they can focus on the fresh material, however, they have to get Love Sunshine & Hysteria out the door.

“We have two or three records ready to go. We have demos made and everything. It’s like we’re getting kind of squirrelly sitting on this older record, because when you’re musicians, that’s what you want to do — you want to create and get it out into the world, let people hear it and kind of get it off your chest,” Kyle says.

“This will be a big relief to get this record out.”

After the Winnipeg release, Attica Riots will head out on the first half of veteran Canadian rockers Big Wreck’s 20th anniversary tour — which visits cities in Canada and the U.S. — and they already have plans to release more music later in the year; Kyle says a new track could be out as early as summer.

“We want to hit the ground running now, we have all the material ready and we have a good team in place — that’s the plan, once we get the momentum going we’ll just keep running with it,” Kyle says.

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @NireRabel