New Town Animals were a Canadian punk rock band based in Vancouver, British Columbia,"Rebels with barely a pause". The Globe and Mail, August 8, 2001. best known for their 2001 single "Three Steps Backward".
History The New Town Animals formed in Vancouver in 1998; band members at the time were Nick "Newtown" Wright on vocals, Jeff "Pop" McCloy and Alex Angel on guitar, Steve "Kicks" Poulin on bass, and Chuck Renaud on drums."New Town Animals: Is Your Radio Active?". PopMatters, July 25, 2001. Signed to Mint Records,"The making of Mint: The little label that could". Vancouver Sun, August 30, 2001."New Town Animals: Is Your Radio Active?". AllMusic review by Charles Spano They released their debut 7" single in 2000 before following up with the full-length album Is Your Radio Active? in 2001."New Town Animals Is Your Radio Active?". Exclaim!, By Rob Ferraz, Sep 01, 2001 Shortly after the album's release, Renaud left the band and was replaced by Bryce Dunn of The Smugglers.
The band toured across Canada with labelmates Operation Makeout to support the album;"Operation Makeout at Trasheteria". Peterborough Examiner, September 26, 2002. in March 2002, they performed at Canadian Music Week on a bill that included Royal City, Stars, Constantines, and Buck 65; the show was broadcast live by CBC Radio 2's RadioSonic."Pop". The Globe and Mail, March 2, 2002. Tracks from the album received substantial radio play on campus and community radio,"!earshot's top 200 of 2001". !earshot. and "Three Steps Backward" entered rotation on MuchMusic."The Clip List". Billboard, March 2, 2002.
The band broke up before releasing another album. Poulin went on to play with The Briefs, McCloy, and Dunn joined the Tranzmitors, and Wright later formed the new band The Split-Ups. A 2001 recording of the band performing "Three Steps Backward" on CBC Radio 3 was released on the compilation album Mint Records Presents the CBC Radio 3 Sessions.
References