In The News: Art Of Dying, Peterborough Examiner
June 05 2009, 08:54 AM
Filed in: Music News
The following article is posted as it originally appears in the Peterborough Examiner
Art of Dying at Moho
Posted By KRISTIAN PARTINGTON, SPECIAL TO THE EXAMINER
In the world of rock music, the small town of Norwood carries a big punch. It's a place that breeds a core of musicians eager to spread their art into the wider world and in a business that's cutthroat, at best, they're leaving their mark.
The latest group is Art of Dying, a five-piece band whose name inspires something dark or sinister, but whose members are anything but. These guys are fuelled by a passion for music and a love of all things beautiful in life.
"The art of dying," says the group's front man Jonny Hetherington, "is really the art of living well - making the most out of every moment we have here. That what we're about and we're having the time of our lives right now."
The band toured with Chicago-based powerhouse Disturbed. They'd converged upon Norwood to rehearse in the backyard studio of bassist Cale Gontier, and to play acoustic guitars around the bonfires of town as occasion permits. Gontier is a cousin of Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace, a band founded in Norwood.
Art of Dying is officially billed as a Vancouver-based act that has spread its tentacles across North America and Europe, but it was the addition of Gontier and guitarist Tavis Stanley - both former band mates in Thornley -along with drummer Jeff Brown that finally completed the core development of this group.
"We've been constantly evolving" says guitarist, Greg Bradley, the other founding member," but last year when we hooked up with these guys, we knew we found that core sound. The way we all connect is so natural and the sounds we're creating mesh like never before."
The attention the band has been getting as of late is a testament to this fact. They toured the United States in late 2008 with Disturbed and made such a mark with fans that they were invited to join this recent tour.
Producer Howard Benson, who's producing the upcoming third album for Norwood's Three Days Grace, has expressed interest in producing a new album for Art of Dying, and record labels are circling with offers.
For now, though, the band is simply enjoying the act of creating new music and sharing it with new fans. The Disturbed tour wrapped in Hamilton on Wednesday and they're headlining at the Montreal House on Saturday.
Then it's back to Norwood to take in a little of the water, and continue the art of living well.
Kristian Partington runs Parting-ton Writing Studios out of his home office in Norwood.
