In a small venue just off State Street, audience members waited anxiously for Utah’s newest band, The Wasatch Fault, to shake up the evening. The members of the band are no strangers to providing a top-notch performance for the local music scene in Salt Lake City.
The Wasatch Fault is a four-piece lineup comprised of lead guitarist and vocalist Tyler Gilvarry, drummer Aaron McCuistion, second guitarist Benjamin Finley and bassist Erich Newey. Newey is also involved with another local band, L’Anarchiste. Initially founded by Gilvarry and McCuistion during a hiking trip through Yosemite National Park, the two later added the other members to complete their lineup and add more dimension to their songs.
“I started playing in The Wasatch Fault after Tyler bugged me about it a bunch of times,” Finley said.
The shift to a four-man lineup helped garner the attention of the front man and lead singer of L’Anarchiste, Robert LeCheminant. LeCheminant picked up The Wasatch Fault as a production project and helped in the creation of their recently released self-titled album.
This new album has increased the popularity of the band, and they showcased several of the songs from their new album during their set list, including “Baker’s Chocolate.” Aaron McCuistion mentioned the song had a rather interesting background story surrounding it.
“When Tyler and I started playing music, we had something fall into our laps one day,” McCuistion said.
The popular song was inspired by David Charles Baker, who engaged in a infamous police standoff near their home in Millcreek.
Audience members were definitely in for a treat during their performance when the band began to play some of their earlier tracks. Several of the members were once in a band called The Dangeroos. Despite no longer being together, many long-time fans of The Dangeroos are very familiar with these lost tracks. It was refreshing to see the band incorporating their roots in with their newer, more riff-ridden set list.
Although they are a fairly young band, Gilvarry mentioned they tend to draw inspiration from the math rock scene of the late ‘90s, which allows for a raw and rough sound to dictate the styling of The Wasatch Fault.
“Modest Mouse is definitely a really big one … basically any aggressive indie rock, like loud rock ‘n’ roll kind of stuff, is kind of what I like to pin my influences on,” Gilvarry said.
Their live performances tend to be dominated by aggressive vocals along with powerful guitar riffs, but don’t let the loud music scare away anyone looking to discover Salt Lake’s next great band. The boys of The Wasatch Fault are well known for giving a top-notch performance and are great for anyone looking to discover some hot new local talent.
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