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Still Lights (PROVIDED PHOTO)

Still Lights contains more than one metalhead member — including Putrescence drummer Cory Thomas — but when the Winnipeg band says it plays new wave, it doesn’t mean the New Wave of British Heavy Metal or any other headbanger movement.
   
"New wave has always been a huge thing for me," says Thomas, 31, citing non-metal influences such as Depeche Mode and Joy Division.
   
"I’d go crazy if it was just metal. Actually, this is my first love. Putrescence is more of a fun hobby. Grindcore doesn’t move me to the point where the hair on the back of my neck stands up, it’s just fun, but new wave music I have a passion for and love. We all do."
   
The "we" Thomas speaks of is singer Kris Buhrer, bassist Andy Haleen, keyboardist Kyle Satterthwaite and guitarist Jean-Louis Wittinger, also of Putrescence, who joined Still Lights after the departure of original guitarist Taras Babiak.
   
Thomas says finding a solid and suitable lineup was a long process full of weird, beret-wearing keyboardists and shitty vocalists.
   
"The hardest part was finding a singer," Thomas says. "I wanted a depressing band when I started this. I wanted to make you feel like shit, really dark music, and that’s what we’re achieving now, but it was really difficult to find a person who could sing this stuff. I was having a hell of a time, especially here in Winnipeg, because nobody sang it right. They weren’t on the same wavelength or their voice wasn’t right."
   
Turns out the voice Thomas was looking for wasn’t in Winnipeg — or even the Western Hemisphere, for that matter.
   
Buhrer hails from South Africa and was living in England when Thomas found him online. As luck would have it, Buhrer was already planning on moving to the ’Peg.
   
"I was actually on the website looking for band members when I was in Winnipeg the first time," says Buhrer, 27. (He came to Winnipeg to be with his wife, who, along with her family, had already emigrated here from South Africa.)
   
"My visa ran out and I had to go back and that’s when I got a response from Cory. I just had got back to the U.K. and I get this message saying, ‘Hey, let’s start a band.’ We kept in touch and kept things going and, when I landed here, that was it, we got right into it."
   
Still Lights made its live debut two years ago, opening for You Say Party on New Year’s Eve at the Albert, although Thomas says the group truly started when Wittinger joined a year ago. In September 2011, the band recorded four songs with audio engineer Jared Weiss (Legion of Liquor, ex-Port Amoral).
   
Titled Dead of Night, the EP is being released by Quebec’s Galy Records, a label known for extreme metal bands such as Unexpect, Neuraxis and Beneath the Massacre.
   
"We’re the first non-metal release by Galy Records," Thomas says.
   
"I’ve known Eric Galy (label founder) a long time and we’ve always kept in touch. I posted the songs on Facebook right after we recorded them, and he emailed me saying they were fucking awesome and that he wanted them to put them out.
   
"A lot of labels are branching out. Galy said, ‘Well, we’ll see what the metal community thinks when I release this.’
   
"Jason (Netherton) from Misery Index says he likes our stuff. It’s to our surprise when we hear metal guys love this stuff — our pretentious, art-house music."
   
Still Lights unleashes Dead of Night on Feb. 17 at the Park Theatre. For more on the band go to www.stillights.com.
   
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STILL LIGHTS
Feb. 17, 9 p.m.
Park Theatre
w/ This Hisses, Phlegm Fatale, The Manic Shakes