"Really we slayed a dragon and written in dragons blood on his chest was SPARKS THE RESCUE." It was a sign.
Sparks The Rescue has had some big breaks in the past year. Playing on this year's Bamboozle, "It was crazy," they say, "You get to play in front of so many people and meet so many people. It was a great exposure for us. We played near the port a potties so anyone who was in line got to see us."
Right before the Portland band got to play at the festival with over 80 thousand in attendance, they upstreamed from their label Double Blind, to one of the current biggest indie labels, Fearless, and re-released their album Eyes to the Sun. "We named Eyes to the Sun after a song "I Swear That She's The One." We were all sitting around sort of having a meeting discussing what we would call the album. Pat wanted to call it "Set To Explode." We had a bunch of names that were kinda silly, but we eventually decided to take a line from the album and that was the one that stuck out." Eyes to the Sun charted high on the Heatseekers Northeast charts.
Even with some chart success it can be tough to do a full US tour, "We did a full US with The Dangerous Summer and Racing Kites. Some of the shows were to the promoter and the bartender on a Wednesday in Somewhere, USA" but the Shh. It Happens Tour was "the best US tour we've ever done, for sure. It's been great to play in front of a big audience every night. All the shows have done really well. All the bands are really cool."
"Me, Ben & Nate were a band in high school," guitarist Toby McAllister says. "Alex was in a different band. Pat was in a different band. We used to compete together in competitions and play shows together then we formed this entity." Formally known as Pozer the guys released an album called The Secrets We Can't Keep, "That album was definitely a lot more screamo. It was still really poppy, we had that vibe but we had a lot of breakdowns and screaming... I think our older record has a lot more angst and aggression. We wrote it over five years ago.
The Sparks boys are fans of 90s alternative (Gin Blossoms, Saves The Day, Conor Oberst). Their album artwork is a silhouetted shot taken on a beach at 3AM by one of their dads, all a far cry from the neon that has saturated the pop scene. They even joke about a book club they should start because they're all avid readers. "I haven't read Harry Potter, I'm all about Twilight though," one of the guys say. Their bands name is an example of their love of literature.
"There are two different stories we like to tell. One involves slaying a dragon in Europe and trekking through mountains." "That's the one that really happened." "The story that most people believe (even though it's not the one that really happened): There's an author called Nicholas Sparks he wrote The Notebook, he wrote The Wedding, he also wrote a book called The Rescue. We were originally going to be The Rescue but that name was already taken so we decided to add his last name on: Sparks The Rescue." It was actually on Toby's book shelf; I think he walked by it every day."
"Did you like the book?" "It's alright." [CO]