Colton Douglas and Bob Favell never would have envisioned playing in a rock band together.
In fact the two lakecity youths, who now go by the name Dynamic Downfall, were once bitter enemies while growing up in 150 Mile House.
“We pretty much hated each other,” Bob jokes. “But as time progressed I’d known him for a while and it had gotten to the point where we didn’t hate each other anymore, but we never hung out.
“One of our [mutual] friends came up with the idea to start a band and we ended up where we are now.”
That was four years ago. And while their lead singer and bass player have left for other bands, Colton and Bob both say they’re continuing to love every minute of playing together, performing and writing their own music.
Colton plays lead guitar while Bob plays drums. Both band members are 17 years old heading into their Grade 12 year at Williams Lake Secondary School this September.
Bob began playing drums at 10, while Colton started strumming a guitar at 11.
“When I was a kid my mom would drag me to church, literally,” Bob says. “The only part I liked was after I’d get to play on the church drum set, so I’d rock out. When I was 10 my parents decided, ‘Hey, let’s get the kid a drum kit.’”
For Colton, he began playing on his grandpa’s guitar.
“My grandpa always played guitar,” Colton explains. “When I was a kid after school I’d always go to my grandma and grandpa’s house and he had a guitar he’d always let me play.”
The band has gone on to play multiple gigs in Williams Lake over the years including the Stampede Parade, the Stampede Street Party, Relay for Life, Get Loud (a concert held at Williams Lake secondary in 2010), the Williams Lake Food and Toy Run and the 2012 JobFest.
They’ve also recently wrapped up recording three tracks (with singer Nathan Mortimer and bassist Nick Carrier) — Here Today Gone Tomorrow, A Pirate’s Life For Me and Shadows Fall — of a professional-quality demo CD at Kelowna’s UBCO campus with Big Audio Productions.
Colton says his inspiration comes from Guns N Roses guitarist Slash, while their favourite bands are Billy Talent, Rage Against the Machine and Alexis on Fire.
The duo says they’ve progressed, musically, by miles over the four years they’ve been playing together.
“When we first started out it was probably the most amateur recordings you could think of,” Bob says. “There’s this little program that’s on everyone’s computer that’s used for recording voice notes — all in all it’s terrible. You might as well be using one of those echo mics you get at the dollar store. But, for the time, and not having any experience, it wasn’t terrible for how old we were.”
Now, Colton and Bob have learned to master their own tracks and use more technical digital recording equipment.
Colton says a big change came in the band’s sound when they changed names from Aftervision to Dynamic Downfall.
“That was when our music started to sound good, I guess,” he says. “That’s when I changed my tunings to drop D, and that’s when we started making more technical songs, also a lot heavier songs.”
They say playing gigs without a lead singer and bass player has, perhaps, allowed more people to appreciate their music from a technical perspective.
“We’re still going strong,” Colton says.
“It’s at the point now where Colton and I still like doing it together. And really, who cares as long as we’re enjoying it?” Bob adds. “No matter what happens we’re going to keep going.”
The duo do plan to add a lead singer and a bassist when the time is right, however.
“I’d say not having a singer for the past three years before we had a singer was kind of what shaped our musical ability,” Bob says.
Colton agrees.
“It made us play more technically,” he says. “And once we got a singer it sort of disciplined us. I’d say it was definitely a good thing because it made us more musical.”
Now, they hope to expand their audience, continuing to play gigs for any size audience.
“For the past few year what we’ve been doing it fine, but I think now we’ve reached the point where we’d like to expand a little bit,” Bob says.
“What we’d like is definitely to find someone who can sing for us, and we’d like to get our music a little more out there and play a few more gigs.
“Nothing is too small or too big. We don’t have a problem playing for a small crowd of people.”
They also plan to film a music video in the future.
For more on Dynamic Downfall, and to listen to some of their music, visit their Facebook page by searching “Dynamic Downfall” or visit their YouTube page by searching the user “Gunsanroses99.”
Photo submitted
Bob Favell (above) plays drums. Together, Bob and Colton write, record and perform original songs at multiple venues in Williams Lake.