Local alternative outfit Legion of Saints comprises of catchy choruses and intricate guitar hooks. Band members include lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Bryce Atkinson, lead guitarist Floro Belly Jr., bassists Shawn Bowser, and drummer Sebastion Bax. The band has been active since 2010 and released a LP in 2015 called Last Call — which is available wherever you get your music. We caught up with Bryce for this edition of Spotlight Profiles.
How did you get together?
I (Bryce), Sebastian, and Floro went to the same high school (Immaculata). When we graduated high school, Seb and I remained close and would jam for fun and eventually wrote our own songs. One day I ran into Floro on the street and invited him to join us for our weekly jam. We then integrated him into
our band. We played a couple shows as a 3 piece band (without a bass player mind you) and from there decided we needed to find a bass player. We went online and found Shawn at Bandmix.ca (a dating site for bands). We sent him a message and the rest is history.
Why are you in a band?
Mainly for the love of music. We enjoy writing new songs together and sharing our songs with music lovers around the world.
How often do you practice/write/work on music as a group?
Usually, we meet once a week at Seb’s place in Barrhaven. We will either practice a set, write new songs, or talk about goals and tasks that need to be done.
What are your musical backgrounds?
I took piano lessons with the same teacher for 14 years and got my grade 10 certificates with the royal conservatory of music. I now teach piano as a part-time job. I taught myself how to play the guitar by playing along with Billy Talent songs.
Seb has been a long-time lover of music and follows trends in music very closely. He learned to play the drums firstly by playing rock band (the video game). He then honed his skills on a real drum set by hard work and practice.
Floro took guitar lessons when he was young and since then continued to practice on his own. He also participated and featured in other music projects with Ottawa-based artists such as Tramp, Pleasant Park, Picks ‘N Sticks, and Dan Pickard.
Shawn took classical guitar lessons at St. Peter’s high school. He has since taught himself how to play the bass, was the first of us to heavily experiment with effect pedals and has become an expert at crafting beautiful and extremely functional wooden pedal boards.
It may be hard, but list the top 3 influences for your music.
Foo Fighters, Billy Talent, and Blink 182. All four of us are big fans of these three bands.
What do you define band success as?
When people voluntarily choose to come see us play, and that those same people demonstrate that they enjoy our music by dancing, cheering, or talking to us after our show.
If there was one thing about Legion of Saints you would want potential fans to know, what would it be?
We are all big lovers of video games and on our spare time, we sometimes get together to play Mario Party…which we may or may not have turned into a drinking game.
What are your thoughts on the Ottawa Music “scene”?
Generally positive. It’s fairly easy to book a show with a venue, there are plenty of venues around town that have live music at least.
Check out the music video for their single, Red Silhouettes, and get out to one of their shows.