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Like many independent artists, Rich Foty is no stranger to slaving away at a day job in order to realize his musical dream.
For the past three years, the 28-year-old's days have been spent working as an epidemiologist at Sick Kids Hospital while his evenings and weekends are dedicated to FOTY, a rock group he formed in 2005 with bassist Joel Dawson, drummer Aaron Spink and guitarist Ben Payne.
Foty isn't the only band member doing double duty. While Payne and Spink work as music teachers and play in other bands to make extra cash, Dawson works at a ski resort, near his home of Flesherton. They come together as often as possible to promote FOTY. And it's a difficult undertaking given their diverse day jobs and that they live in different parts of the GTA. It takes Dawson two hours to drive to downtown Toronto.
But with the recent release of FOTY's debut CD, Ten Minutes Too Late, the four are giving it all they got. Released late last year, the 12·track album cost $20,000 to record and produce. The promotion and marketing of Ten Minutes hasn't come cheaply either, Foty says over a pint of Guinness al James Joyce Irish Pub on Bloor. But Foty and crew know that if they are to succeed in the music business they have to work hard doing "whatever" on the side. "As an indie musician you need to have a day job," says Foty, who also conducts the youth choir at St. Gabriel church in North York, "It' s a full time passion, but you have to pay the bills.”
As the band' s founder, lead singer and only songwriter, FOTY assumes a lot of the responsibility. Music has been a major part of his life since he was six. After going to St. Michael' s Choir School and studying classical piano and voice, Foty was a teen when he realized rock music was more his thing. He taught himself to play the guitar and began pouring his feelings and emotions into songwriting. "You spend your entire life writing your first CD," says Foty. "I learned a long lime ago you need to be honest in your music." The goal is to create a song that is personal, yet universal , he explains: not too situational that it only relates to a few people, but not too general that it loses its purpose.
"It's a cathartic experience but it takes a lot of energy because you're sorting through your emotions," Foty says, in between sips of beer. "Either I write songs about things I desperately need or about something that pisses me off."
"Ditch”, the ninth track, follows those guidelines. A melancholy, pensive number, the song is about a low point in Foty’s life, a year in which he felt worthless. " I was in a bad place," Foty admits. "I didn't like the person I'd become." Writing "Ditch" and having the support of his friends helped Foty put his life into perspective and see light where he 'd been seeing only darkness." I was able to understand where I was in life and how much farther I needed to go: ' he says, adding his band mates encouraged him to write the song. But that honesty takes a lot of energy. Writing about your emotions and eventually making them public, takes a lot from a songwriter, Foty admits.
What also takes a toll on him is the difficult and competitive nature of the music business. Bands like his have to go out of the city to get good gigs, he says. There are some good bars and clubs in Toronto who are more than accommodating to new bands, but the majority allow new bands to play only on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday nights - nights that usually turn the more popular bars into barren spaces. The coveted Wednesday through Saturday nights are usually kept for better known acts. Still, Foty and his band males have hope. They have a gig lined up in February in Guelph and are shopping Ten Minutes to radio stations.
They know they make good music and have a slew of dedicated fans. All they need now is more fans and the success will come, Foty says. "This band started with us jamming in a friend 's basement," Foty says, draining the last of his Guinness. “All we want now is a hell of a lot more friends and a bigger basement."
- The Town Crier (Toronto, Canada)
Ten Minutes Too Late by Foty has a dynamic magnetism that makes it so distinctive with an eclectic overall sound that may sometimes be described as a roots rock hybrid, the CD features guitar-driven hooks making it a straight ahead rock album. This unique and refreshing band works as a musical democracy, with each essential member adding coloring to a disciplined, structured songwriting style (put in place by the bands leader, Rich Foty) enabling the band to better accentuate the grooves of their busily complex yet always accessible interplay. Foty is a fun band in the spirit of the Grateful Dead and the influential Dave Matthews Band. Their debut CD, Ten Minutes Too Late has arrived just in time for the summer of 2008.
Al Joynes
- Al Jonyes (Q107, Toronto, Canada)
Discography
"Ten Minutes Too Late" - LP
Make it Mine, SFM, Never Enough, Ditch are streaming on our myspace site (www.myspace.com/fotymusic). Complete album is currently available on etunes.com and napster and was released on iTunes and Amazon mp3 in March 2008.
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Bio
Al Joynes of Q107 (Toronto) describes FOTY as “a band in the spirit of the Grateful Dead and the influential Dave Matthews Band” and having “a dynamic magnetism that makes it so distinctive with an eclectic overall sound that may sometimes be described as a roots rock hybrid”. FOTY are a consummate live band; the sheer honesty and poetry of their lyrics grab you by the heart then the live show throws you into a visceral, balls-out, crowd-fueled, request-fest, rock orgasm! FOTY take the crowd’s energy and give back double…and the crowd responds in kind.
FOTY’s debut record is the actualisation of a year of struggle, heartache and personal conflict. Appropriately titled, “Ten Minutes Too Late” are lyrics from their hit song Runner Up and originally referred to missed opportunities….being just out of reach of your deepest desires.
As the songs developed and the album took shape, so too did the band's personnel, and by the time the record was complete the title became an homage to the realisation that we make our own time and are therefore never late.
Amidst the smoke of the 1st Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic recession, Rich FOTY came of age in the grunge era of the early 1990s. Though his musical roots stemmed from classical piano and liturgical chorales, Rich found solace and his artistic inspiration in the music of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, U2 and the Dave Matthews Band. High school was all about playing acoustic guitar and jamming in school stairwells and cold basements with friends. Once in University, Rich found his voice. Playing other people’s music wasn’t enough, he had something to say. Rich’s songs are his deepest emotions put to music. His cathartic rhetoric leaves him bare and vulnerable, and the honesty of the lyrics captivates audiences. The lyrics and melodies grab you by the heart and don’t let go until you have no choice but to succumb to the music and sing at the top of your lungs.
FOTY is Ben Payne, Joel Dawson, Aaron Spink and Rich Foty. In 2005 Rich and Ben happened to play at a street party together, and found that the music they made was greater than the sum of its parts. Ben’s Humber College music program connections netted them Joel Dawson and Aaron Spink, a colossal rhythm section on which to balance those parts. The tunes are as intricate as they are catchy and the band thrives on the audiences energy and involvement. A typical fan description of a live show goes something like this: “There is a peculiarity one experiences at a Foty show. It’s unlike any other. The show starts out basically as a standard rock show, even if asses do tend to shake more than usual. The first couple of songs go by, and you think, ‘Damn. These guys can play.’ You leave it at that. Then, all of a sudden, you’re standing on the sidewalk, wearing your coat, wondering what the hell happened. Things are fuzzy. You walk to your car, trying to piece together the previous three hours. The best you can figure is that after that first beer, the show got a little louder. Rich started to jump around a bit. Ben took off his shirt. Aaron and Joel grew horns, and the evening degenerated into some face-melting rockin’ debauchery!”
It’s still about sitting around jamming with your friends…but now it’s a bigger stairwell and you’ve got a hell of a lot more friends!
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