Marianas Trench is bringing a whole new world to the Enmax Centre, Oct. 28 with Down With Webster.
The Vancouver pop/ rock band created a fairy tale world on their latest CD “Ever After,” a new orchestral pop influenced sound, an accompanying story and will be bringing it to life on stage.

“ It’s a fairy tale, but more of the Tim Burton dark and twisted then a kid’s fairy tale,” said bassist Mike Ayley from the Montreal airport waiting for a flight to Toronto.

He noted they are playing most of the new CD, but not all the way through as they are interspersing their previous hits throughout the show.
“ At some point, We’d like to play it front to back one day, but for now we’re playing a lot of the album and the hits from the past three,” he continued.
“  The concept is we go into an alternate world and try to save toys whose hearts have been stolen by and evil queen and once we’ve done that  we have to find our way back,” he summarized, adding the band worked on the concept  for the album for nine months, then spent another three or for months working on the show to go with it.

“We had a whole list of what we wanted to do and thought we might have to make some sacrifices, but we got most of what we wanted and decided to just go for it,” he enthused.

Playing arenas has been a change from the smaller clubs and theatres they are used to playing, but it has also allowed their imaginations to run wild.

“At first I was concerned we would lose the intimacy with the audience in an arena.  But that is  definitely not the case. We still feel that connection with the audience,” said Ayley. The tour has gone well. He noted they spent a few days in an arena in Mississauga rehearsing with the technical crew, and a couple shows.

“We had all of the kinks ironed out two paying shows in,” he observed.

“It’s been absolutely amazing. In Montreal we sold out  the Metropolitan Arena of 2,300 people a month in advance. And they were the loudest crowd we’ve ever played to,” he said.

It was  a pleasant surprise as they’ve never done a tour to this extent.

“We’ve never had the opportunity to do something like this before. We have a wall of video screens and we got a guy who does design work for Cirque Du Soleil to help us design the fairy tale world of the album,” he said.
They’ve come a long way since they played Lethbridge at the Fire and Ice back in 2006.

“We thought it was an all ages show, but it wasn’t, so they had about 50 people in a roped off area, ” he recalled.

Their sound has also evolved into more of a pop/ R and B sound.

“Our first album was basically a hard rock album, but we still had the vocal harmonies. But we realized that’s what we like — melodies. They carry the song. So we decided to do that and it’s allowed us to build a career,” he said.
“But the lot singles are very experimental. The closer on the album is a seven minute Bohemian Rhapsody. The opener is big and expressive. So we’ve definitely experimented,” he said.

He noted Josh Ramsay writes most of the band’s songs.
“He’ll come up with something and it will sit in his head for a few days, then he’ll bring it to us and we’ll build on it. We may change a verse or a chorus, but he has a pretty high musical IQ, so it will usually come out pretty amazing,” he said.

 The band is focussing on the CD. While they probably won’t bring the stage show they have for their Canadian dates for their American and overseas dates, they  are going to fit in a lot of concerts in  the U.S. and overseas.
 We’re going to fit in as much as we can into our schedule,” he said.
“We’re already deciding what to do next,” he enthused.

 Marianas Trench and Down With Webster play the Enmax Centre, Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $50 and $60.

— By Richard Amery, L.A Beat Editor