Artist Spotlight: Late Night Takeaway

The White Rock trio’s main goal is to keep alternative rock fun

Late Night Takeaway’s success is more of a happy accident than an end goal for members Mike Bremner, Miller Koop, and Ryan Robinson. The band is easy to groove to, vaguely jazzy, noticeably upbeat, and inspired by a little bit of everything.

Their first record, Late Night Takeaway, was released only last month and makes for easy listening for fans of riff-based, sunshiney alternative rock. At five songs long, the EP is a collection of the band’s favourite samples of their early work, when they were playing with only an acoustic guitar, a bass with a tiny amp, and a drum kit that was falling apart.

“We would just play together and be like, ‘Wow, this doesn’t sound really bad. We should continue forward,’” laughs Robinson, the band’s drummer. “I don’t think we anticipated doing this on any level. We just like playing music and it snowballed from one thing to another.”

Bremner, the frontman and primary songwriter for the band adds, “I think we’d be blowing a lot of wind out of our ass if we were like, ‘We were really trying to tackle some concrete themes with this one.’ We just got it completed and we got our music out … I wouldn’t say this has been a very lyrically-driven EP, if you will, or that the songs have a definite narrative structure to them.”

The three musicians met as high schoolers in their hometown of White Rock and have been writing together since. Although the city is small, they’re grateful to have lived somewhere scenic and closed-knit enough for them to find each other and start Late Night Takeaway.

“There were a lot of people who played music that surrounded me, so it was part of my everyday life. It was easy for it to turn into a band,” says Miller, who plays bass and keys. “Still, when you’re travelling or you’ve gone through a really tough time in your life, it can generate some really good creative energy.”

Bremner agrees, “There are a lot of good things that can come from being challenged by your surroundings and from variety. When you’re exposed to the same things day-in day-out, it’s difficult to foster some sort of new inspiration.”

The love-hate relationship they have with their city isn’t doing anything to stop the band from moving forward. They’re already equipped with a fully functional home studio and are regularly gigging in White Rock and beyond.

Their next show will be on Nov. 5, from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm, at Backyard Vineyards Winery. Fans of the new EP are encouraged to come out, have a glass of wine, and enjoy Late Night Takeaway’s “stream-of-consciousness” lyrics and lighthearted sound.

“If there’s one thing I’d like to get across to someone who listens to our music, it’s this—please don’t take us too seriously, because we don’t,” says Bremner. “I would hate for someone to listen to our music and think, ‘These guys are douchebags.’ We’re not douchebags. We don’t take no guff. Have fun with it.”