
Aversions are an alternative rock band from Vancouver that began with two friends. They picked up their lives and decided to take on the music industry from western Canada with their new band members. Aversions spend their time touring around British Columbia and Alberta and have plans to tour the east coast as well. Their main focus in creating music is carrying on traditions of guitars while celebrating everything new and weird. They have just released a song called “Cistern Chapel” that highlights their instrumental abilities and musical flexibility.
As opposed to the chorus, the vocals for the verses of “Cistern Chapel” are presented in a spoken-word style. This has a spotlighting effect on the chorus where the lead singer of Aversions shows off his natural vocal abilities. He is able to powerfully hit a wide range of notes, and still find moments where his voice rings effortlessly.
Although, Aversions is known for being an alternative rock band, “Cistern Chapel” represents more of a rock and roll tone. Their main instrumental focus relies on their electric and bass guitarists to hold the melody during the spoken verses. The guitarists take turns playing their chords each beat, creating a back and forth effect. The drummer plays a beat that includes soft taps of the cymbals and high hat, in a style that is comparable to the band 'Chicago'. Since their members each have unique instrumental talents, Aversions is a band that is well equipped for the rock music world. With “Cistern Chapel,” they are showing fans their musical versatility by dipping their toes into a rock and roll vibe.
You can find "Cistern Chapel" here.

Can you tell us about your creative process in making this song?
Our vocalist/guitarist Sam wrote the main gist of the song back in 2018 at home -- when we got together as a band it was one of the first tracks we worked out as a group. It hasn't changed much since the original bedroom version.
Can you speak to the lyrical side of your song and tell fans what message you were trying to express? How do you write your songs as a band?
We generally write very collaboratively, although we don't have a strict method. Some songs come together out of loose jams, while others are built off of a central riff or lick that one of the members brings to practice. "Cistern" is a bit different in that most elements of it were worked out by one member in advance.
Lyrically, the song tracks the inherent contradictions that male-chauvinist pop culture demagogues, like Jordan Peterson, face in trying to promote systems of 'better living' while consciously or unconsciously building up cults of personality around themselves. The narrator is a bit more self-aware than most perhaps -- he realizes what he's doing is philosophically bankrupt but he can't help soaking up the attention. It's not really based on any individual specifically, it's more of a pastiche of this type of real-life muppet.
“Cistern Chapel” focuses heavily on your guitar strengths. Why does Aversions choose to emphasize your guitarists?
We're a guitar band, pure and simple. Our members have played with synths and other sound palettes in other projects, but for this band, we wanted guitars to form the foundation. That's not to say we won't play around with different sound and textures in the future, but we see ourselves as always being a primarily guitar-focused band--we like working within the limitations that that imposes creatively.
Your band is planning on touring across Canada this year. Why did you choose to perform across Canada this year? After this tour, where do you see yourselves performing next?
Well, without beating an increasingly dead horse, all our plans are kind of out the window this year with regards to touring. We'll tour whenever and wherever we can, at this point, but wouldn't be surprised if we're not really able to do any touring in 2020.
We originally were going to focus on Canada for logistical reasons, because performing in the States is expensive and difficult for Canadian bands. But, we're just in the early stages of being a touring band, and certainly touring the US and Europe is in the cards for the future, especially since two of our members are EU and/or British citizens.
What can we expect from you throughout 2020?
At this point, we've shifted our focus from live performance to writing. We're not able to meet in person obviously, so we've been collaborating online through mostly sharing iPhone recordings back and forth. We expect by the time the curtain lifts we'll have a decent body of new work to play with.