Moving forward with Stuck on Planet Earth

Vaughan-based alternative rock trio planning North American tour this summer

Yorkregion.com
March 24, 2016
By Adam Martin-Robbins

After years grinding it out on the indie music scene, alternative-rock trio Stuck on Planet Earth have their feet firmly planted on the ground, but they’re still reaching for the sky.

Bandmates Adam Bianchi (vocals, guitar), Al Capo (vocals, bass) and Andrew Testa (drums) quit their jobs last year and are committed to trying to make a living solely off their music.

“At the end of the day, we want to make a career out of this,” said Bianchi over a meal of burgers, fries and Stuck sandwiches, a nod to their frequent patronage, at Cabano’s Comfort Food on Keele Street in Concord.

“I don’t think it matters, if we’re playing stadiums or if we’re the biggest band in the world. I think it’s just more like; can we make a career of this? Can we do this for the rest of our lives?”

It’s been a long road, filled with peaks and valleys, for the Vaughan-based band.

The guys marked their 10th anniversary playing together early last month.

Bianchi, who hails from King City, and Capo, a Woodbridge native, met as high school students at St. Michael’s College in Toronto.

They formed a band, dubbed Expo, in their early teens.

In their senior year, the pair invited Testa, a North York native, to join the band as their new drummer.
Shortly afterwards, the band was rechristened Stuck On Planet Earth and embarked on what they dubbed the Backpack Tour.

They’d show up unannounced at high schools across southern Ontario, chosen at random, and videotape themselves performing with acoustic guitars. Then they’d post the videos on YouTube, then in its infancy.
At first, they were being “kicked off” the property, but eventually it caught on and students began “demanding” performances at their schools, Capo said.

Six months later, they released an EP and it “snowballed from there,” Capo said.

The band became a mainstay on the Toronto circuit and began getting airplay on 102.1 The Edge, thanks in part to then-host George Stroumboulopoulos.

And they kept on producing EPs.

Their latest one, released in 2012, enjoyed a measure of success on iTunes’ alternative charts. But they decided to shift focus and started putting out singles, on the advice of their long-time producer Fil Bucchino.
“We kinda went with it and we started getting a lot of college and campus radio play,” Capo said.

In 2013, the single ‘Fast Forward’ soared to the top of the charts on CBC Radio 3 and The Verge, on SiriusXM Canada and stayed there for eight weeks.

“That was a pivotal moment in all of Canada seeing who we are,” Capo said. “As soon as you’re on satellite radio, it kind of legitimizes you. We were going to the States and people were showing up who heard us on satellite radio.”

It was also the point at which they started making some money, he added.

That same year, the trio entered SiriusXM’s Rock The Grey Cup contest and wound up performing during the half-time show of a Toronto Argonauts game at the Rogers Centre.

“It was kind of crazy, we played to like 20,000 people,” Capo said. “At that point, that show was probably the craziest experience.”

Little did they know, things would get even “crazier.”

Last May, they opened for former Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland during Canadian Music Week. He would die seven months later.

“That was kind of special,” Bianchi said. “We were kind of honoured to have been able to play with one of our heroes before he went.”

Then, in September, the band was tapped to perform during Riot Fest at Downsview Park, sharing a bill with the likes of Motorhead and Weezer.

They followed that by opening for Finger 11 in Guelph.

But, they admit, the ride hasn’t always been so heady.

“It’s like a f***in’ rollercoaster man. There’s a lot of ups and downs,” Capo said. “We’re lucky that we’ve been able to sustain ourselves and make a good living, right now. But we’ve also learned you can never really get to comfortable in this industry because the moment you get comfortable, you get f***in’ thrown off.”

Fortunately, they’ve learned how to block out distractions and focus on making music.

“There’s a lot of things in the industry that can irk you some times, but we’re just in grind mode and in grind mode you’ve got to put the blinders on and not worry about the highs and lows,” Testa said.

Through it all, their goal has remained unchanged - create songs that can stand the test of time. 

The bandmates are optimistic about their new batch of songs and about what lies ahead.

“I think it’s going to be a pretty good year for us to be putting out music,” Capo said. “We’re in the midst of making demos and, this year, the goal is to play a lot of shows.”

To that end, SOPE is touring the eastern United States for much of March. They’ll be back home in early May to perform during Canadian Music Week.

Then they plan to embark on a North American tour this summer.

“This is going to be a big one for us, (we’ll) be really hitting up a lot of spots that we’ve never played before,” Capo said.