Recent Camosun grad and Polynice guitarist Trevor McMorran says that the band has an eclectic array of musical influences, and it checks out: the members soak it up from The Strokes, The Beach Boys, Tame Impala, and psychedelic rock, while one of their largest inspirations is even more left field.
“[I] remember asking Julian [Baisa, guitarist] at one point and he said J.S. Bach. And I, at the time, didn’t know what to make of it; but having gone through school and having learned about Bach’s writing, I would actually say that that was a very warranted comparison,” says McMorran. “Julian loves Bach and I can hear that his writing now.”
Finding a name that encapsulates who a band is can be difficult. For Polynice, the name was suggested to McMorran—who took Camosun’s Music Performance diploma program—by Baisa while having drinks. It wasn’t until afterwards that the meaning of the name was explained.
“There’s a bunch of reasons,” says McMorran. “There was a basketball player from the Seattle Supersonics, Olden Polynice. There is a Greek tragedy [Seven Against Thebes]… the idea is that [Polynices] fell into ruin because he ultimately went to war with his brothers,” he says. “So, we felt that it was this idea of this ties us together as brothers and we have to pull together to make anything of this. And then there’s also the idea of polyphony, which is multiple sounds at once, so, Polynice musically ties as well to that.”
Formed out of a web of friendships, the band started with McMorran, Baisa, and drummer Tyler Kruchak jamming at McMorran’s house 14 years ago. Bassist Aiden Bowen is best friends with Baisa, and keyboardist Shane Adamson is good friends with the others. Vocalist Richard Mcallister became friends with McMorran when he moved to Vancouver from England and needed a place to stay, and they instantly connected. In 2019, the friends formed Polynice.
“We were friends first and then we found the music as a secondary thing,” says McMorran.
The band’s journey from the beginning to their first album release has been a long road of twists and turns. During COVID, Polynice began recording, working around social distancing restrictions that limited the number of people that could record at one time, and also working around uncertainty of employment. The challenges of recording during the pandemic left them with a partially finished album.
“Everything was at a standstill, and we used it to start to record these songs. And then they sat there, unfinished, some finished partially, there was probably five more songs that we have that are partially recorded,” he says. “We decided it was best just to release the songs that were completely done, and we would assess where to go from there, and that took us until last year to do so.”
After releasing their first single in 2020, burnout sunk in, and the band decided to take a step back; they wanted it to be fun again. It was at this point McMorran went to Camosun. Being in the program also rejuvenated McMorran’s commitment to Polynice: in 2023 they released their album Vacation, and had an album release party in November of that year.
“We sold this venue out and we had this amazing light setup for the night. Everything sounded great,” he says. “So yeah, for one night, we got to basically live the dream and it was something that I definitely won’t forget. And it came about because I was at school doing music.”