New Day Rising was huge. And I think that there are still a bunch of people getting into them these days. Even if the band has been broken up for over a decade, a bunch of blogs still talk about them and Eulogy Recordings still manage to profit off their releases.
New Day Rising formed in August 1994 with members that somewhat all knew each other. Dave Buschemeyer had been in Face Down and Sun Still Burns with Tim Dywelska, and met Oliver Nacinovic from school and Jamie Webster from around Mississauga. Chris Gray was recruited because of his skills shown off in Solace. The band played their first show on December 26th of 1994, at the Erin Mills United Church in Mississauga. The show was booked by their High School friend Neil Rodman.
This five piece recorded a five song demo in February 1995 at Mainway Studios. Jamie was then replaced by Jo-Anne Sanders and Tim by Mike Charette (who had played in Unheard with Dave) but would go on to be replaced about six months later in autumn 1995 by Adam Brylowski, who had also been in Solace. Moo Cow Records got a hold of their demo and contacted the band to do a split 7″ with Atlas Shrugged (after Lash Out backed out of the b-side, and left room for NDR). Meanwhile, Dave formed Acrid with New Day Rising live backup vocalist, Neil Rodman.
New Day Rising were then approached by a couple of local record labels to each release eps. Upheaval Records was the only one of both to fully go through with the deal, so he took over the other labels ep and released a double 7″ ep. Over 2000 copies were made (and some are still available from Dan). Moo Cow once again contacted them to do a split 7″ with Despair (after Crud is a Cult bailed out). This split was released at the Cleavland Hardcore Festival in March 1996, at which the band played at, and sold the records until the notorious riot broke out. Both of the Moo Cow split 7″s were compiled into a limited (200) tour ep when New Day Rising went on tour that year. A few member changes occurred as Jo-Anne Sanders left officially to focus on a more melodic project, with most current guys of NDR, called Montgomery 21. Trevor Dykstra, from Bree, became the permanent bassist, but couldn’t go on the first half of the tour because of family vacations. Joe Orlando from Hourglass filled in for him, until Trev would join up halfway through the tour in South Carolina. Their tour took them south-west to Minneapolis, then down the the southern states, and east to Virginia Beach, before coming back up with an east coast tour with a broken van.
Upon returning from tour they got working on new material. Another proposition with Moo Cow was proposed as a split with Hourglass and to be co-released with Gorilla Warfare Records (a friend of Hourglass who had been a roadie on tour with both bands). Well the second label backed out right before payments were due, and Moo Cow was left to pay for it on their own. To delay the process further, New Day Rising would break up in autumn 1996 however still obligated to send in artwork for the release. After all these delays, the CD version came out in late 1996, and the LP version was delayed to 1997. During this time, Dave Buschemeyer also put together a compilation for the Animal Defense League, which never got released. The compilation was to feature New Day Rising’s song “Naked”.
At the same time as the Hourglass deal, Gorilla Warfare Records had also promised to release a live LP of one of the band’s 1996 show from after they had gotten back from tour. The cash down was made and the vinyls were pressed, but for whatever reason the label just didn’t follow through with the rest of the payment and the records were sitting there waiting to be picked up. This was possibly caused by the break up of the band and the label feeling like they would lose money due to a lack of promotion from the band. Dave told the story to Jim at Moo Cow and he figured this would be his way of returning the favour for having bailed him out of the two split 7″s back in the day. So Moo Cow payed the left over and got some blank black sleeves and pasted some live pictures on them and that was it.
In 1997 New Day Rising reformed with Chris Gray still on vocals, Adam Brylowski still on guitar and Ollie Nacinovic still on drums. However Dave and Trev were doing Karenza full time by then (which was soon to evolve into Spread the Disease). Andrew Ledger was recruited as the second guitarist and Mike Jones came in on bass. The new members were then composing more atmospheric influenced music and Chris Gray’s obsession with brit-pop was showing through more and more, eventually exploding into The China White, and would be the leading factor in Andrew’s departure. Dave would come back in and by the time about 80% of the album had been composed and partly recorded and Mike Jones would leave the band to join Idioalla (who were soon to also recruit Adam Brylowski). Trev would come back to record the remaining two songs. During a Morning Again and Bird of Ill Omen concert in Ontario, Dave and John Wylie discussed releasing material on his new record label, Eulogy Recordings. Their only full length “Memoirs of Cynicism” was released in December 1997.
The band continued to play shows but did not tour. Eulogy wanted to make the earlier material more accessible, so they put together everything released by the band (excluding the full length, the live LP and the song from the Atlas Shrugged split, “T.V. Diners”, as the DAT tape was lost for it). The whole works was released as “We Cannot Tell You How Much Blood It Costs” in April 1998. They would break up for a second in the fall of 1998.
Chris Gray had a habit of reforming bands, regardless of lineups. After Dave Buschemeyer had joined him in The China White, they quickly started making big plans. In early 2000 they decided to reform New Day Rising with Adam Brylowski returning on second guitar. The main song writers were still intact and original. But to fill in the rest, Chris called up Paul Filippelli to play drums and Gray Rugala to play bass, much to the opposition of previous drummers and bassists. This line-up jammed for two to three months, composing brand new songs and making plans to go back to Signal 2 Noise to record them with Rob Sanzo. The new songs were to be released on a split EP with The China White, who had already recorded their share of songs. Chris was also getting offers to play shows in Europe as well as Hellfest 2000 and started making plans to get both bands out there, but things quickly fell through and not a single show was played. The third breakup would be the last.
