Alternative emo act the Spill Canvas are on the road with their 20th anniversary tour, and the band have just added a new show in Orlando.
Back in January, The Spill Canvas announced a 20th anniversary run including a stop at The Abbey in Orlando, now the show has been moved to a bigger venue,
THE SPILL CANVAS: 20th Anniversary Tour - Featuring songs from their ENTIRE discography - with guests Have Mercy will take to the stage at House of Blues Orlando on July 7.
Tickets ON SALE - Get yours NOW before they’re GONE
The band commented on the current run, "Wow. 20 years. What a wild ride it’s been. Thank you for helping me keep this dream alive and burning bright. Your support of this music has literally saved my life countless times. And for that, I’ll spend the rest of my days continuing to create and keep this flame alive. Come celebrate the whole catalog with us!"
Alternative emo act the Spill Canvas rose out of South Dakota in the mid-2000s with an aggressive, yet deeply melodic sound based around the songwriting of frontman Nick Thomas. Commercially, the group hit their stride with 2005's One Fell Swoop and 2007's No Really, I'm Fine, the latter of which notched an impressive number two showing on Billboard's Heatseekers chart. Heading into the next decade, the band's activity began to wane and following 2012's Gestalt, they entered a recording hiatus while continuing to tour sporadically. In 2021, nine years after their last LP, the Spill Canvas returned with Conduit, their sixth album.
Much like Bright Eyes and Five for Fighting, the Spill Canvas initially started as the pseudonym for a solo artist before transitioning into a traditional band. Sioux Falls native Nick Thomas played in a variety of local punk bands in his early teens before transforming himself into a solo acoustic emo act along the lines of Dashboard Confessional.
At the age of 19, he signed with the indie label One Eleven Records and recorded Sunsets and Car Crashes almost entirely on his own, save for a few guest musicians. Following the album's April 2004 release, Thomas put together the first full-time touring lineup of the Spill Canvas, with himself on vocals, guitar, and keyboards; Dan Ludeman on guitar; Scott McGuire on bass, and Joe Beck on drums.
The first collaborative album by the Spill Canvas, One Fell Swoop, was released in August 2005. One year later, the band signed with Sire Records and began recording new material, with newcomer Landon Heil replacing the departed McGuire on bass. The Denial Feels So Good EP arrived in early 2007, marking the band's first release for Sire, and the Spill Canvas spent that summer on the annual Warped Tour, where they drummed up some buzz for their upcoming third album. No Really, I'm Fine was released toward the end of that year; emo vets like Anthony Green and Andrew McMahon made cameos on the album, and a series of additional tours kept the Spill Canvas busy until late 2008. Although most of 2008 was spent on the road, the band also found time to release an EP titled Honestly, I'm Doing Okay.
A pair of EPs, Abnormalities and Realities, arrived in 2010, followed by Formalities which included acoustic version of songs from both EPs as well as new material. After a brief hiatus, the band returned which what would be their final only album of the decade, 2012's Gestalt. With the Spill Canvas on the backburner, Thomas released a 2014 solo album, Shadowars, and toured as a solo artist backed by Heil on bass and newcomer Bryce Job on drums.
Over the next several years the Spill Canvas, which now included Job and lead guitarist Evan Pharmakis alongside Thomas and Heil, toured occasionally and eventually broke their silence with the three-song 2018 EP, Hivemind. This same lineup made a full return three years later to launch the Spill Canvas' next phase with the 2021 full-length Conduit.
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