Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Bad Chug

It's now time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, as we again look at a past local metal, hard rock, or punk band, as randomly selected from our band links! This month's band was actually just covered in our YouTube Channel Profile in March, but I tried to make sure that things were sufficiently unique and different here to warrant a re-feature, especially as this is about the band at large, not just their YouTube presence. With that said, here's what you should know on them!

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Bad Chug

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie/Ottawa, Ontario

Genre: Hard Rock

Lineup:

Aaron Desmoulin, vocals/guitar
Jacob Quarrell (Sainte-Marie), guitar
Kyle Dube (Lycanthro), bass
Matt D'Ettore, drums

Audio/Video: The best place to watch Bad Chug videos is their YouTube channel, featuring a number of live performance videos from the summer of 2016 and some extra bonuses, though it was not used for their early 2020s relaunch in the Soo. A selection of mostly short videos from 2016 can also be seen on their Facebook page, while an original song named "Primal" was once posted to Bandcamp. Two videos of Bad Chug's sole local concert at Soo Blaster in October 2021 were filmed for Christopher Paci's YouTube channel, which you can watch here and below!

Info/Analysis: Bad Chug launched out of their original Ottawa homebase in May 2016, and quickly began working on studio material while also playing a well-filmed private jam room concert the following month. Live dates were minimal in their original run, but they did open for Nessie at Cafe Deckuf in Ottawa that July. After posting their single "Should Never Be" that November, the band quietly fell inactive by early 2017. Three years later, the band resurfaced, albeit after Aaron and Matt moved the band to Sault Ste. Marie, commencing with new teasers for studio material and being added as openers for Buckcherry's headlining concert at Soo Blaster in May 2020. Obviously, the pandemic lockdowns and provincial health mandates had other plans, but Bad Chug clung on as openers until the show finally took place in October 2021, with Kyle back on bass and local folk guitarist Jacob Quarrell joining as well.

Despite finally playing the Buckcherry concert as intended, no public updates of any kind followed for Bad Chug, and they are presumed to have disbanded for good by early 2022. While the audio of their local concert videos can be scratchy, and Aaron's vocals weren't the rangiest out there, Bad Chug had a strong and carefree hard rock sound that would have been easily well received in concert had they stuck around longer in Ottawa or here, and it'd be nice to hear more of what they recorded in studio during their runs! Hopefully everyone is still musically active in some form!

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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! Next month, we'll look at another randomly selected act from Sault Ontario, and for the first time in a year, it'll be of a solo project, namely experimental/death metal project Awokest! Look for that on or around July 10th, and for more news and notes on the site in the coming days! Thanks everyone!