Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Halfway Loaded

It's now time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, again letting us spotlight a randomly selected local metal, hard rock, or punk band from the past and all of their publically known accomplishments therein! This month's band didn't get too far off the ground despite a lot of promising videos, but their existence did portend bigger things for their singer and lead guitarist, so here's what you should know on them!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Halfway Loaded

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Genre: Hard Rock

Lineup:

Justin Grayson (Fort Creek, Tattoos & Scars), vocals
Shane Biron (Fort Creek, Tattoos & Scars), guitar
Ryan Mazzapica, guitar
Jesse Gottwald, bass
Dylan Newman (Mustang Sally), drums

Audio/Video: While Halfway Loaded never played a true public concert, they had a surprising amount of rehearsal and jam session videos online. Their Facebook page has over a dozen performance videos, including some acoustic videos of Justin & Shane foreshadowing their later work in Tattoos & Scars, while a handful of acoustic covers with them and Ryan also made their way to Shane's YouTube channel (later re-appropriated for Tattoos & Scars). Bands like Thriving Ivory, Slipknot, Oasis, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Saving Abel, Pop Evil, and Seven Mary Three were covered on video, but here's the full band covering The Stone Temple Pilots' "Plush"!

Info/Analysis: Publically launching in November 2016 under the name Too Far Gone, Halfway Loaded were seen at a handful of open mic nights at Coch's Corner in late 2016 but otherwise made their brief presence known from their aforementioned rehearsal and jam videos, not helped by their members largely being unfamiliar from past local bands at the time. After playing a private event in June 2017, their announced a planned name change to The Twin City Saints in August, but that never visibly went through. The band continued posting cover videos and photos of their gear through January 2018, but updates largely ceased afterwards, with the band citing life & work commitments for their lack of posts that October, and further postings were only made to promote Justin & Shane's new acoustic side project Tattoos & Scars and their brand new southern hard rock group Fort Creek in mid-2019.

While the pandemic delayed Fort Creek's debut as a public act until 2021, they have superceded Halfway Loaded in every way, and it's great to see that Justin & Shane finally got a live band off the ground! Halfway Loaded were certainly less southern rock-based than Fort Creek, but the similarities are obviously there, and while Justin & Shane now have more recognizable bandmates, Ryan, Jesse, and Dylan were talented components of the earlier group, who had a good and melodic handle on modern hard rock, and would have been an asset on local stages in the late 2010s! Follow Fort Creek and the recently relaunched Tattoos & Scars to see what Justin & Shane are up to nowadays!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! This series will return on or around October 10th, and we have quite a big band to be randomly selected for next time, namely local acid jam/power pop/hard rock trio The Din! Look for that next month, and stay tuned for more news and notes on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!