The corner of Alverstone and success
Local outfit names band after street, wows city and industry with killer live set
Jen Zoratti

Alverstone is a pretty forgettable Winnipeg street, most recently in the news when police raided a suspected drug den.

But one of those paint-chipped houses was once the home of a fledgling rock band that decided to name itself after its beloved address.

“It was a slum when we moved in,” laughs Alverstone guitarist Bobby Desjarlais. “It was the kind of neighbourhood where neon lights would be on all the time… someone growing weed for sure.”

“It was a year-and-a-half straight party,” adds bassist Chris Peluk.

“And for our mental and hygienic health we moved out,” Desjarlais says.

The four-piece indie rock band called Alverstone — which is rounded out by Kevin Desjarlais (Bobby’s singing brother) and Chris Aquin (drums) — has come a long way from playing basement gigs in that West End home back in 2002. Thanks to a tight live set, a supportive scene and a steadily growing audience, the band has become a hot one to watch — at least to anyone outside the group.

“It’s really hard to get the sense of that,” Peluk says. “When you’re in the scene for four years, it’s sort of a gradual thing, going from playing The Zoo for no one to playing it to slightly more than no one.”

“Yeah, it’s not like we sit around and go, ‘Hey, did you hear we’re a buzz band?’” Desjarlais says.

“I think anyone who’s playing in more than their basement can be a buzz band,” Peluk says, laughing.

In large music industry centres such as Toronto or Vancouver, Peluk’s logic would be insane, but his joke actually makes a point about the nature of local breakout bands. In Winnipeg, it’s completely possible for a band to generate — and perpetuate — a healthy buzz solely on a stellar live show and a crude demo.

That said, anyone who has his or her ear to the rumblings in the Winnipeg music scene has been predicting — and expecting — big things from Alverstone. Anyone who’s caught the band onstage will invariably say something like this: ‘These guys are awesome, and when they release an album it will rule.’

“It totally makes you work harder,” Aquin says of the buzz-band label. “You don’t want go back.”

“I think this EP is going to make it happen,” Desjarlais adds. “It’s something we can actually put out there.”

The release date for the EP Desjarlais speaks of is still tentative, but the disc is hotly anticipated by fans who will finally be able to take a piece of Alverstone’s angular, dance-rock swagger home. Such tangible proof of the band’s talent should also get momentum rolling outside the city and begin attracting the necessary attention to finance a full-length album.

Actually, that’s already starting to happen. It turns out Rob Lanni of ’Peg-friendly label Coalition Entertainment (home to The Waking Eyes) hopped on a flight to catch an Alverstone set in late November.

“It’s nice when people from anywhere come out to see you,” Desjarlais says. “Something like Warner/Coalition, that’s not something that happens every day to every band. But seeing how we want to be successful at this, it’s a step we knew had to happen.

“But at the end of it, we’re still an indie band. We still have to practise the next day.”