Not only is
Marianas Trench the deepest known spot in any ocean (located in the floor of the North Pacific Ocean), it's also a Vancouver-based rock band that is the brainchild of vocalist/guitarist
Josh Ramsay.
Ramsay -- whose dad once owned the Little Mountain Sound studio that recorded bands like
Aerosmith and
AC/DC in the '80s, and whose vocal teacher mom recorded and toured with
Leonard Cohen for two years -- had been writing and recording since his teen years. He unsurprisingly learned to track his own songs early on, crafting music under the influence of rock and pop-punk bands as well as vocal groups with an ear for bright harmonies. Still a teenager, he began shopping his solo stuff around and took plenty of advice for improvement over the next several years. The rotating cast of musicians comprising the band that eventually appeared around
Ramsay settled down by the early 2000s with people from the local scene: guitarist
Steve Marshall, keyboardist
Matt Webb, bassist
Morgan Hempsted, and drummer
Ian Casselman. Initially, they were called
Ramsay Fiction, and the frontman's persistence paid off when the band finally scored a deal with 604 Records (co-founded by
Nickelback's
Chad Kroeger) in early 2003. By the 2006 release of their debut, however, the group -- by then called
Marianas Trench -- was comprised of
Ramsay alongside
Casselman, guitarist/vocalist
Matt Webb, and bassist/vocalist
Michael Ayley. Their label debut,
Fix Me, surfaced in the fall of 2006, and the single "Say Anything" soon broke into the Top Three on the Canadian singles chart; "Decided to Break It" also did well on radio and MuchMusic.
Marianas Trench then contributed a song ("Alibis") to the spring 2007 soundtrack for ABC Family's popular teen sci-fi show
Kyle XY. Their sophomore effort, Masterpiece Theatre, was released in 2009 and quickly became both a critical and commercial success after going platinum in their native Canada. Feeling ambitious,
Marianas Trench decided to try their hand at a concept record, releasing the more narrative Ever After in 2011.
–
Corey Apar, Rovi