In conversation with EMERG: “We will just keep perfecting our craft and grow even stronger”

Rising four-man rock band, EMERG, are a group of lads, all under twenty, from Ontario, Canada. They are taking the industry by storm, having already released a debut EP, album, and brand new single, ‘Star Song’. Their music is passionately symbolic and wildly powerful, tracing their limited life experiences and marvelling at the future, all interwoven into a delicately crafted storyline which will leave you wondering what exactly just happened, in the best way possible. The band sat down with me to chat through their journey so far, and where they’re headed next…

All four view music “as a gateway to the soul”, making “whatever [ they ] feel”

With all members of EMERG being no older than I am, I wanted to understand how they’ve managed to achieve this level of success and drive so young. They told me how they found themselves “naturally gravitating towards” their instruments, their “journeys with music” individual, each member self-motivated, practicing to achieve their personal dreams, before the band was conceived towards the end of 2024. Only one of the band studies music, the remaining three either studying an “unrelated” course, “or are still in high school!”, intending to pursue music immediately upon graduation. Regardless of the band’s varied educational stages, “one thing is for certain: [ they’d ] all rather be doing music full-time”, and that is undeniably clear in the mark they are already carving into their artistry.

Colton and Mitch, the original members of EMERG, “realised there was something special between them” just over a eighteen months ago, and – from that point – the search for other members was on, Gavin a friend of a friend, and Sammy a close friend of Gavin and Colton’s, brought in after the previous bass player stepped away from the band. All four view music “as a gateway to the soul”, making “whatever [ they ] feel” – they want to try new things, “grow [ ing ] more defined and vast as time goes on”, striving to balance their niche, with the genres that inspire them at the time.

The band are independent, meaning they aren’t signed to a record label, allowing them more freedom than they might have were they signed. They find the experience “very liberating”. Of course, with EMERG wanting to make music a full-time career, they “are looking to be backed by a label in terms of funding and professional assistance”, eventually looking to be signed, given that their music “is going in a direction that a label wouldn’t discourage”. Their faith in their own skillset is undeniable, clearly trusting their creative instincts, seeing their future ahead of them. This manifests in EMERG’s live performances too, the band being “live performers at heart”, trying to structure their shows so that they are “simultaneously a party as much as they are an intimate conversation”: the band want escapism, but they also won’t shy away from life’s darker moments.

Their fascination with the existential art of experience brought them to a named phenomenon – anemoia

Their independence also shines through in their inspirations, each member attracted to something different, creating EMERG’s identity of self-written amalgamation. They aren’t just ‘this band’, but a musical conflation of all which they have experienced, both in real life and in the mind’s eye. Citing “80s glam metal, prog-rock, Midwest emo, and screamo, as well as indie and folk” amongst their influences, EMERG aim to blend ideas to give their music “both familiarity and original qualities” – everything that makes stars.

EMERG released their debut album, Anemoia – Vol II, last year, off the back of the success of their first EP, Anemoia – Vol I. They described the title as “derived from the feeling you get when viewing pictures of liminal spaces; the spaces in which [ their ] story is set.” Their fascination with the existential art of experience brought them to a named phenomenon – anemoia – leading Colton to write a story which the band then worked together to translate into music. Diverse influences parallel this phenomenon; the frontman is intrigued by “how a group of individuals can come from different worlds with different stories, yet still holding some core memories and a shared collective longing for something they have never known or experienced”: there is something spiritual about this anemoia, encapsulated within EMERG’s debut works.

The album opens with the track ‘Suburban Notebook’, beginning with birdsong which both “sets an atmospheric mood which positions the listener in the role of the protagonist as he traverses through a vacant suburb and reminisces about where he grew up”, and acts as an “outlier” in the album and their entire discography, surprising the listener once they had delved into the rest of the record. The birds used in the opening of the song are mourning doves, a sound attached to the experience of growing up in suburban North America, thus reinforcing the feelings of nostalgia and longing.

The band know “there is also a lot to look forward to”, “grow [ ing ] restless about dreaming about the future and what that might hold”

‘Liminal’ acts as an electronic interlude on the album, “giving listeners a break” following the “short, sporadic, hard-hitting trifecta” which came before, foregrounding the lead single, which follows ‘Don’t Talk Too Loud’ in the track list. The track also reveals the band’s ambition – despite their lack of familiarity with electronic, ambient music, they recognised that was what the record required of them at that moment: they made what they felt. The other instrumental track on the album is ‘The Room of Doors’, a track which lacked influence, the band wanting it to “not really make any sense, translating into its incredible chaotic sound” of synth experimentation.

Anemoia – Vol II concludes with the title track, ‘Anemoia II’, taking listeners on a journey from “The PlayPlace” to “The Entities” to “The Outcome”, telling the character’s last moments of story chronologically as they are first chased through a PlayPlace (“yes, like the one at a McDonalds”) before being confronted by monsters and “pushed up against a dead-end in the labyrinth”, “confronted with a choice to either fight, or descend a slide at the end of the tunnel”, the outcome being unknown “until Vol III”.

Aside from their debut, EMERG have recently released a new single, ‘Star Song’, which centres around themes of ambition and aspiration – the other side of nostalgia. Ambition, while undeniably a positive trait, can often lead to disappointment and mistreatment. The band “certainly look adversity in the face of a number of times”, often being turned down from performing at venues due to legal age restrictions and preconceptions regarding their young talent. Nonetheless, the band know “there is also a lot to look forward to”, “grow [ ing ] restless about dreaming about the future and what that might hold”, the new track coming as a result of these thoughts and conversations.

EMERG are definitely a band to look out for, and hopefully they will head to the UK soon! Their passion and self-motivation were evidently clear while speaking to them, and I am looking forward to seeing what they do next!