Inner Surge

digeridoos and digeridont’s

By Chris Andrade

You know something significant is happening when you’re the second interview in an hour for a local band; even more so when that band is getting more attention from around the globe than their own backyard. Steve Moore of Inner Surge is counting on all that to change now.

Moore started the band in 2001 as a solo project because, as he says, “it’s hard to find the right people.”

He recorded the first album on his own, and he wrote the second alone and recorded with a live band. The new disc, Signals Screaming, marks the first time he’s happy calling the musicians with him a band.

“This is the first time I’ve felt like it’s exactly what I want it to be. I have [bassist] Jim Fernandes, [drummer] Brian Sandau and [guitarist] Scott Taylor. All amazing musicians, and we wrote the CD together so it was a total collective.”

Getting musicians together and releasing the third album isn’t all Inner Surge has in store. In early March the band shot two music videos in town, at the Warehouse and Fish Creek Park with film director Fredy Polania. The videos are part of Polania’s 2007 movie Cabras, which, though veiled in secrecy, revolves around the legend of the Chupacabra monster.

“He’s doing something that’s never been done before,” says Moore. “He’s got twenty independent bands that he thinks are the best that he’s found, and he’s traveling to Canada, to Israel, to Mexico…all around the world to film videos.”

The videos will be released through www.cabrassoundtrack.com and the music is to be featured in the movie and/or on it’s soundtrack. The first video for Retribution Song will also be released to MuchMusic.

Although the music is definitely heavier, you can’t easily categorize their music as heavy metal or hardcore. The band draws inspiration from various musical currents, but more importantly, the lyrical content is far deeper than you may expect, especially when they are hoping to do some benefit shows supporting human rights issues in the future.

“There’s a few issues that we’ve studied in depth,” Moore tells me. “One of them would be the Rwanda genocide of 1994, the US not admitting that it was a genocide until after the fact so they wouldn’t have to intervene; the bureaucracy of the UN. The whole root of that is what Inner Surge is about. The rage, the emotions that come from that.”

Signals Screaming is being released through Cyclone Records, a Calgary label started by Brad Trew that has since relocated to Toronto. Since the label doesn’t have full distribution, they’re focusing on electronic distribution through the Internet.

“He’s basically at a stage where he’s just making a ton of contacts,” says Moore. “His goal within the next year is to be a full-service label.”

Hopefully that will allow Inner Surge to tour. In the meantime, that will likely be achieved with both the band and the label cross-promoting each other. The new disc, which was produced by Casey Lewis of The Failure, will be available at the band’s CD release party on April 1 at the Warehouse (there are two shows; one all-ages and a later, licensed show). They will follow up with two more CD release shows in Edmonton on April 8 and Medicine Hat on April 20.