Ottawa Teenage Rock Band Five+None Are Far Beyond Their Years

Photo credit: Sean Sisk

When you think of teenage bands you generally don’t think professional or ready for the big time. Heck, I was once one of those teenage bands that thought we were the be all end all when we weren’t anywhere close. You can’t say the same for Ottawa’s teenage rock phenoms Five+None. For being such a young group, the maturity that is displayed on stage and in their writing makes this band a standout  who are on their way up the industry ladder to great things.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Lead Vocalist Maryn Pagan.

Ottawa Life Magazine: Tell us a bit about yourselves and how you got started in music.

Maryn: We’re five teenage musicians ranging from fifteen to seventeen, all based in Ottawa, and we all started playing at a really young age. The band formed through the BSOMA Rock University program that we all signed up for, however we’ve had a few members come and go after the original formation.

How did it feel being formed by someone else and how did the chemistry feel off the top?

Definitely at first it was very weird. We were all just a bunch of kids that wanted to play music, but it was super evident that no one was all that self confident at the get go. We had to get used to each other a bit first before we really felt comfortable. Now we’re like family!

Tell me about the contest you won and what it’s done for you?

We recently won the Ottawa Student Showcase and that was pretty huge for us. It was extremely exciting to win and has definitely been a big turning point for us. It’s opened some doors in regards to live shows. Being able to play the Bluesfest stage was phenomenal and an experience that you really want to work hard to keep the momentum going.

You have a great EP recorded at Audio Valley in Ottawa, how has the response been?

It has been really great, you hope that good things will happen when you put out your first music, the studio gave us great mixes and we’ve been lucky enough to get some radio play. The infamous Alan Cross actually gave us a shout out recently about our EP and said that rock needs more female fronted bands!

What has been the biggest challenge of fronting such a young band?

Probably professionalism! It’s definitely difficult to control a group of teenage boys sometimes. However, I can’t complain too much when they play music this good!

What are your goals for the next year?

Make a million dollars? Seriously though, I think we’d definitely like to release more music. That’s what we love doing and it’d be awesome to get some more of it out there. We are currently writing new songs and getting ready to launch some pretty cool new stuff in the next few months and we can’t wait to show everyone!