A group of musicians too young to drive is winning over Rush fans around the world for mastering one of the band’s most technically demanding songs during a recent concert outside an Oakville nail salon.
A video of the pint-sized Toronto rock band Twisted Fate tearing through “The Spirit of Radio” was shared thousands of times on social media, including by Rush, which reposted their performance on Instagram ahead of their four sold-out Toronto shows this month.
Many viewers wanted to know where the young musicians came from, and many praised their ability to authentically capture the sound of the prog-rock legends.
“It was very, very cool,” said 11-year-old drummer Kai Rivers of the positive online reaction.
Rivers earned praise for his Neil Peart-inspired drumming, while others were quick to highlight vocalist Kalia Stapleton, 10, for her Geddy Lee-like vocals.
Guitarist Luca Navarretta, 13, and bassist Alban Halladay, 14, were credited by one viewer for capturing the “vibe, the rhythm, the quintessential sound” of Rush.
Turns out Rivers has been a Rush fan since he was four years old. He introduced “The Spirit of Radio” to Stapleton, who became obsessed with singing the song while on a recent trip to Asia with her family. When she returned, they decided to learn every beat — a task he admits was far from easy.
“It’s so mentally challenging with all the time switches, speed ups and slowdowns … you have to play exactly how Neil played,” he said.
“It’s such a fast song — one mess-up and it’s hard to recover.”
According to Kai’s father, Neil Rivers, “The Spirit of Radio” was one of six rock songs Twisted Fate learned when the band formed earlier this year.
The four-piece came together after Kai and Stapleton enrolled in Kids Rock For Kids, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit organization that connects aspiring young musicians. Soon after, they began practising together, starting with a batch of songs that included the Rush classic.
“We parents truly thought that it would take them maybe three months to get (it),” Neil Rivers said.
“To our absolute shock, in the first rehearsal they had their parts down within, basically, the sixth attempt. We could not believe what we were witnessing because it’s an incredibly hard song for adults to do.”
Twisted Fate started playing at open mics, including a show at the Rivoli, and an early video of their Rush rendition was widely shared, leading to more bookings at other Ontario venues, he said.
One late July evening, the band decided to play the Rush song during a mini-concert outside the Ten Spot, an Oakville nail salon that sponsors Stapleton’s solo music career. A passerby captured the performance and shared it on a Rush fan group on Facebook, leading thousands of people to comment and repost the clip.
“The outpouring that we’ve been receiving, not just from Rush fans but music fans from all over the world, has been such a joy,” the elder Rivers said.
“These these kids are very ambitious, and they really like taking on difficult challenges. They aren’t the type to ever put on any limits to themselves.”
The next stop is Nashville, where Twisted Fate plans to travel later this month to perform on stages in Music City and hold preliminary meetings with professional writers who will help them develop their own song ideas.
“We really want to give them the best chance we can to take that next step,” Rivers said.
“The first phase was to get that chemistry, and cover incredible songs. The next phase is to start writing their own.”
