Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Haggith

It's now time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile as, we'll end another year in this long-running series by looking at a randomly selected defunct or inactive local project! Just two months after looking at a later band from two founding members of this group, we're going a few years back for their first major splash on the local scene, so here's what you should know on this band!

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Haggith

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Genre: Hard Rock/Grunge

Lineup: (Members not in their last full lineup are in italics)

Curtis McKenzie (Project 421, Eclipse), vocals/guitar
Caleb Cachagee (The Bridge Heads), guitar/ex-bass
Jordan Leach (Pillory, The Revolution), bass
Mike Haggith (The Din, Between The Ditches), drums/vocals/studio guitar

Kristi-Lee Marshall, backing vocals
Daniel Horton (Spades GT, The Fast Life), guitar/studio bass
James White (Redundant, Handsome Sandwich), bass

Audio/Video: The band Haggith released five studio albums during their run, including three mainline albums (2012's "Dragon Joy Ride", 2013's "Deuce", and 2015's EP "XIV"), plus their concept albums "Apocalypse" & "Apocalypse II" in 2012 and 2015 respectively, which were both made with alternate methods. Regardless, all albums were recorded at their own PaperClip Productions studio. In 2013, the band also released a live album ("Flight 75") and a charity compilation album ("For The Cause"), all of which can be bought and/or streamed free between their Bandcamp page and YouTube channel. The latter is the best repository for proper videos of Haggith in action, but numerous fan shot videos are also online, as are videos I shot for the SMS. Here's a full hour-long set of Haggith's classic lineup live at The Bushplane Museum back in 2012!

Info/Analysis: Evolving from Curt & Dan's prior high school-era bands like 20 Pack Of Marshmallows and Wanko Twist, this group came together with Mike Haggith joined on drums in May 2012, jokingly naming the band after Mike in reference to how bands are never named after the drummer. Solidifying their classic lineup by adding Caleb on bass that fall, they would grow in prominence over the next year+, making numerous headlining and support appearances while also hosting two Bushplane Musical Madness events, and finishing in second place in 2013's Rockstar Bar Battle of the Bands. After a brief breakup for personal reasons from December 2013-April 2014, Haggith reunited, albeit with some bassist instability, before settling on Jordan and proceeding with album sessions. Daniel's departure in the spring of 2015 led to "XIV" being shrunk in scope, and the band only played two more concerts that May before dissolving.

Curt & Dan continued performing together in bands like Project 421, Eclipse, and The Bridge Heads through 2020, while Mike has focused on his solo career & fronting local bands since, and Haggith songs were carried over to some of their later outings. While Haggith's music and career has been outdone in prominence by Mike and Dan's later work out of town, they were always a crowd favourite with their skilled yet accessible brand of grunge-flavoured hard rock, punctuated with Curt's great vocals and a natural songwriting knack. Despite a three year run with frequent lineup questions, they certainly accomplished a lot in studio and on stage, and be sure to follow members' current music to see what they're up to nowadays!

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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! For our first randomly selected profile of 2024, we will stay in Sault Ontario for a look at 2014-2016 hard rock quartet Long Shot, so look for that profile on or around January 10th, and for more news and notes this week! Thanks everyone!