“Speed Control first appeared on our horizon as an energetic and passionate group of young guys offering one of the best summer rock camp experiences out there at Stratford Ontario’s Summer Music Festival in the summer of 2012,” shares Rob Barg, Senior VP of Yamaha Canada Music. “With Yamaha’s highly respected Music Education System and our over 40 year experience with teaching in our own programs, we saw the connection they had with the kids and what they were able to accomplish with them in just one week, it was remarkable.”
“Following the summer camp experience we became more aware of their touring activities and school shows across the country and saw real value in being connected musically and philosophically with such talented and engaging artists” says General Manager of Sales and Marketing Steve Butterworth. Butterworth continues: “I’ve known or known-of Graeme since his University of Toronto Jazz Studies days and was glad to reconnect with him and the band. We discussed it internally with our Product Marketing and Artist Relations Managers and quickly came to the conclusion that we needed to be affiliated with Speed Control to help popularize music making, especially at the elementary level. They will be “Rawking” out with Yamaha Guitars, Basses, Drums and PA Gear on their next tours and we look forward to supporting and collaborating with them on their summer School of Rawk Camps.”
Rob Barg, Senior VP and Steve Butterworth, General Manager, Yamaha Canada Music

"Speed Control was a highlight at the OSAC Showcase in October 2011 and will have a multi show tour with OSAC in the 2012/2013 season as a result. Our Arts Councils saw the enthusiasm and humour the guys brought to the stage and saw how that could work in their own communities in developing and expanding audiences. We look forward to working with them in the months to come."
Kevin Korchinski, Executive Director Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils

"Every high school student will forever remember the rock legends, Speed Control, as their favorite cultural assembly ever!!"
Student at Kelowna Secondary School

;U GUYS WERE AMAZING!!! I actually didn't mind missing math for that. Lol :) keep up your awesomeness!! :)"
Student at Mount Bourcherie Secondary, Kelowna BC

"This was the best show we’ve had in our school since I’ve been here.
Vice Principal of O.K. Middle School, Kelowna School District
Great performance with Speed Control today. All three classes liked it. They are high energy and talented musicians."
Mike Dornian, Vice-Principal at Kelowna Secondary School

"On Monday June 27th, 2011, Whitehorse band Speed Control drove into Fort Nelson to bring some Rock & Roll into our community! The energy was contagious and the skills acquired in just 2 days were unbelievable. Due to the huge success of the program, the NRRM will be bringing them back when they have finished their tour in September for a 5 day program!"
Danielle Morine, Recreation Program Manager Northern Rockies Regional Municipality

"The participants and the parents were thrilled with the Rock “N” Roll Camp, especially the Showcase at the end. Parents and participants alike were already asking when the camp will be next year so they can plan."
Kim MacDougall, Program Supervior City of Terrace - Various

Little Band from Yukon Making Big Impact
by Tom Jackson's Onstage Success

A big shout out to Speed Control, a high energy 3-piece emo/rock band out of Whitehorse in the Yukon, who is having a big impact on their audiences!

A little over a year ago, Tom Jackson worked with the group as part of a Yukon Film & Sound Commission event. And soon after, the band began getting rave reviews on their performance. Graeme Peters, lead singer for the group wrote and told us:

“We just played a fairly big show (small arena type thing, like capacity 1000) and the guy who runs the 15,000 seat venue came to check us out. He said we had the best show and best stage presence he’s seen in 5 years. We talked for a bit after and he wants us to be on call for an opening act if and when a big name act comes to town and needs an opener!”
Then last October, Speed Control attended the Tom Jackson Productions Intensive Workshop in Nashville. Here’s a clip from their showcase at the end of that event:

So what’s been happening for Speed Control recently? Well, they played to 1800 students in Guelph Ontario, and they were the main stage performance at the Frostbite Music Festival, Whitehorse Yukon. In April they’ll showcase at Pacific Contact, a booking conference in Vancouver for buyers from Western Canada- schools, festivals, and communities.

And this summer and fall they’ll be touring Western Canada, teaching a 2-week rock camp in Alberta, be in Ontario for Frosh Week, and then tour Atlantic Canada!
The group cites Tom Jackson, Amy Wolter, and the rest of the team as the impetus for their upward momentum: “In 2 hours with Tom I learned more about performing, capturing the emotion, holding the power of the song, and flat out how to be a musician then I have in 18 years of performing.” (Graeme Peters)

These guys are pumped and they are building awareness of their band in many markets. Their live show has energy to burn and people everywhere are taking notice! - Onstage Success with Tom Jackson

“WOW you guys send out so much energy from the stage we should hook you up to the grid. Our newest renewable energy source.”
Marilyn Craig
Biggar & District Arts Council -

Speed Control building generation of fans through educational tours
Speed Control is "a real live rock band from Whitehorse, Yukon." That is far North of the border-hugging city circuit Canadian indie musicians typically tour. So how is it that the modern rockers have already lined up 210-plus shows in B.C. and Alberta in support of its third self-released album Still Standing with more being added weekly?

Speed Control is “a real live rock band from Whitehorse, Yukon.” That is far north of the border-hugging city circuit Canadian indie musicians typically tour. So how is it that the modern rockers have already lined up 210-plus shows in B.C. and Alberta in support of its third self-released album, Still Standing, with more being added weekly?

Guitarist/vocalist Graeme Peters, brother Jody Peters (bass) and towering drummer Ian March know a lot about building a fan base.

In their case, it’s 80,000-plus schoolchildren — ages 5 to 18 — who will take in the band’s Rawk EDU programs which range from rock ‘n’ roll: Canada vs. The World, Rock Anthem Workshop and Speed Control Rock Camps. In a set that has played to K-12, the band plays hits by Canadian artists of the last 50 years and shows how their music influenced both their generation and generations to come. With tunes from Paul Anka and Steppenwolf to Loverboy and, naturally, Speed Control, audiences gain greater understanding of Canada’s importance to global pop.


The idea was born from necessity.

“We formed in 2010 and did our first Western Canadian tour that summer where I think I called 318 places, 18 said yes and we went on the road and lost over $3,000,” said Graeme Peters. “So that was dumb, didn’t work and wasn’t going to. But then the idea of taking this history of jazz show a group I played in toured to elementary and secondary schools and making it into one about rock came to me.”

As a member of the critically-acclaimed Peters Drury Trio, Graeme was performing and recording professionally at age 16. He went on to back such notable artists as jazz trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and Polaris Prize-winning Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq before Speed Control became his primary focus. It was with Peters Drury Trio that the initial seed was planted. The three had ample expertise to develop something to pitch to school boards.

Graeme had studied education specializing in working with behaviourally-challenged youth. Jody Peters taught music in two schools in the Whitehorse district and was on faculty and the administrator of the Yukon Summer Music Camp and served on the board of the Canadian Music Educators Association. Capilano University Music Program grad Ian had a dozen years of drumming under his belt and had been a substitute teacher.

“So, yeah, we pitched the History of rock ‘n’ roll show to a bunch of schools, wound up playing 27 of those and the word on the street went around that these guys know what they’re doing and the next year looked better,” he said. “Then summer came and we were too new to stand any chance of getting any festivals, so we called a bunch of community centres and said we could teach a week long rock camp to kids. Then, at the end of the week, the kids could put on a show and be the opening band and we would follow with a free community concert.”

Program-hungry facilities jumped on this idea as schools had the History of Rock. Speed Control loaded up a rented trailer with gear rented from various students and the band added such locales as Fort Nelson, Terrace and Fort McMurray to its tour list. The list has grown every year. And unlike the rock circuit, these shows tended to include room and board as well as payment in something other than cheap beer and promises of exposure.

“Now we have this army of little Speed Controllers that has grown every single year for the past six and, by the time we hit this Christmas, we will have played over 1,000 school shows in front of over 400,000 kids,” he said. “Today, we have awesome gear sponsorships from Yamaha Canada, Enterprise Trade Fund, Government of Yukon and others and can show up anywhere with everything we need to do the full camp and performances.”

Today, all three musicians are retired from teaching — in schools, at least. Along with the music comes a dedicated workout schedule to maintain peak physical fitness. The members all want to be sure that along with the music comes a message of health and fitness rather than the whole myth of rock debauchery. Thanks to the success of the education model, Speed Control is incredibly busy.

The only problem? Getting time to play Speed Control shows to grown ups.

“We always finish all of our shows with our song Tent City, which is the greatest single that you’ve never heard, but your kid may have,” said Graeme Peters. “And that is the issue we are trying to figure out, because we are trying to transition it to where we have it at about fifty-fifty because we would all like to play with our favourite bands in bigger venues. The industry keeps saying we need to transplant and start working the grind and I’m like “we are working the grind, maybe harder than most.””





Peters admits that it is a strange situation that Speed Control finds itself in. Here they are making money purely as musicians and getting seen by an ever-expanding potential fan base, but getting that exposure to be able to work into doing a school show in the afternoon and an adult club show in the evening is a challenge. Festivals, on the other hand, have glossed on to how cool it is to have an act that can do something family-oriented on one stage and then turn its amps to 11 on another.

“Some people have laughed at us and called us an educational band as though actually having accomplished all this, being fully sponsored and so forth, is somehow embarrassing,” said Peters. “I’m having trouble seeing that, but I’d also love to play the Commodore.”

The 11 songs on Still Standing certainly hold their own compared to the rest of the crop of melodic modern rock bands trying to break it big. Very much in line with such charting acts as Jimmy Eat World, the group plays super tight, riff-heavy harmony rock such as This Time or the title track with the occasional mid-tempo ballad such as the impressive Are We Too Late.

It remains to be seen if Speed Control will get its chance to school the grown-ups in “RAWK.” The band plays across Alberta and B.C. this month, in the meantime, the kids are all right. - Vancouver Sun