Brothers Taylor and Cole Perkins, along with Dan and Dustin Steinke were nearing the end of high school when they had to make a critical decision.
“All our friends were going on to school, college, university, things like that,” Perkins said. “Right around there we were in talks about getting a record deal.”
The two sets of brothers were members of an increasingly popular rock band known as Bleeker Ridge. The Orillia, Ont.-based band had been generating attention from various labels for some time and were faced with the decision to pursue music full time or attend post-secondary school.
“All your friends are going to do something different and you’re taking this chance on a music career, which is one of the hardest things to do,” Perkins said. “So, we stuck it out [with music] and thank goodness we did.”
The decision to pursue music full time paid off in 2010 when they were signed to Roadrunner Records. Perkins explained that being signed to a record deal was vindication for the band.
“When you start a band you think ‘oh we will get signed this will be easy,’ but when we finally did it and we actually signed our names in blood pretty much, we were all really jazzed about it,” Perkins said. “It was good to say to people to say that we did this, it was a good feeling for sure.”
On Wednesday (Jan. 29) Bleeker Ridge will be making its first-ever performance in Nanaimo, alongside Buckcherry at the Port Theatre.
Bleeker Ridge originally formed in 2003 after two sets of brothers saw each other playing at local venues in Orillia.
“We [Taylor and Cole] started going to local blues places,” Perkins said. “Orillia is a small town so we got to play in bars, and me and my brother saw the other two guys play, and then they saw us play, and a week or two later they called us up and we started jamming and we did a record, like, nine weeks later.”
This past June the band released their fourth album, Four, their second under Roadrunner Records.
“We made the record all on our own and we didn’t do any co-writes or anything. We really went back to more classic rock feel, we just naturally went there,” Perkins said. “It’s doing really well and everyone is starting to dig it.”
The band resorted to using PledgeMusic.com, a site where fans can donate money to fund various projects, as a means to finance the album.
“We did this basically all on our own,” he said. “We got picked up by Universal after we made the record.”
“There are some cities that are better than others … I think the small towns and the places that are really excited to see us are fun because they don’t have too much going on all the time. I would definitely say the smaller cities are the more fun to play in show wise,” Perkins said.
Bleeker Ridge has also had the luxury of sharing the stage with a handful of respected bands such as Buckcherry, Theory of a Deadman, Airbourne, Creed, Puddle of Mudd, The Trews, Three Days Grace and Finger Eleven.
“We’ve learned a lot from them [Buckcherry],” he said. “We’ve toured with them a few times and it’s pretty cool to play with those dudes. There show is amazing and their energy is awesome and we learn a lot that way.”
The concert starts at 7 p.m. For more information on Bleeker Ridge, please visit www.facebook.com/BleekerRidge.
