by Kenneth Morton - photo credit: Neil Favila

Sparks The Rescue is a band from Portland, Maine who has just released their new CD entitled Eyes To The Sun on Fearless Records. The band recently toured Europe supporting the All American Rejects, and now find themselves on the road here in the States with Every Avenue. On the first day of their current tour, we had the chance to chat with guitarist Toby McAllister…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Sparks The Rescue, and how long the band has been together.
My name is Toby McAllister, I play guitar in Sparks The Rescue, and we’ve been a group for almost five years now.

What is the music scene like up in Portland, Maine, and how easy or difficult was it to find musicians to form a band up there?
It was pretty easy, because when we were all in high school, we were all in different local bands that competed in Battle Of The Bands together and played shows together. After different bands dispersed, we just sort of formed one band together. Not a lot of huge acts come up to Portland, so the music scene in Maine is like a big local music scene. It’s been real nice to us, because they all come out to local shows and see local bands – because a lot of the bigger acts just go as far as Boston.

Where did you guys get the unusual name of Sparks The Rescue?
It a strange name and I wish there was a cooler story. But the story is there’s an author by the name of Nicholas Sparks who wrote favorites such as The Notebook and A Walk To Remember. He wrote a book called The Rescue, so we sort of tacked on his last name and came up with Sparks The Rescue. We’re fans of cheesy romance novels…

How did you guys wind up getting signed to Fearless Records?
We were on an independent label called Double Blind Music out of New York City. They helped build us up and helped us with our CD. It took us a couple years to write our CD. So we recorded it and we started doing some showcases down there. We were in talks with a bunch of different labels, but Fearless was the one that felt like the best – and felt like people actually cared. It’s been nothing but a great experience working with them. They all really care about us, so that helps.

How close are you guys to writing and recording all new material, since Eyes To The Sun is basically a re-release?
Yeah, it is. It’s weird, because we finished recording it last April and it finally just came out. Double Blind put it out on Itunes and that’s about it. So our record really had never been out until Fearless put it out on May 5th. So it’s sort of like it’s hard, but we have to treat it like it just came out and work it. We’re probably going to start writing soon, but we probably won’t be in the studio for a while again. We’re just going to tour as much as we can off this.

Is there any story behind the title Eyes To The Sun?
It’s actually a line from the song I Swear That She’s The One, which is on the record. With that title, we took a picture of us on the beach when the sun was coming up, and I think we thought it was really cool imagery. I’d like to think it’s like a summertime album you could jam out with the windows down blasting.

Why do Saco Boys Have No Class?
Alex our singer is from Saco, and the title really has nothing to do with what the songs about. We just thought it was funny because he’s a Saco boy. It’s probably only funny to us, but no one else

You guys just got back from Europe doing a tour with All American Rejects. How did it go, and what were some of the highlights?
Oh, it was so insane! We got to play a bunch of sold out shows to all these kids we would have never been able to play for – but since we were with the Rejects we got to play for them and sell records. The response was really overwhelmingly awesome! We came back feeling really good and we can’t wait to go back – hopefully soon.

Were The All American Rejects cool to hang out with?
Yeah! They blew my mind. They were awesome to hang out with. We kicked back some brews with them. By the end of the tour, it was sort of sad to be over. We all took a group photo and stuff. They were really awesome.

What were some of the cities in Europe you were excited about seeing and what did you think of them?
They were all really awesome. It was our first time over there. I really enjoyed London and Paris a lot – and Germany was great – Austria was great. We didn’t have time to do much sightseeing, but it was really cool to be able to just drive around and play in cities across the world.

Is there any particular place in the world where you haven’t played that you would like to?
I think most of us are really pumped to hopefully see Australia and Japan one day. I know bands who tour those countries a lot, and I hope we get the opportunity to do that as well some day.

To you, what is the best and worst part about touring and being on the road?
The best definitely for me is to see different cities and to meeting new people everyday. That part is awesome. The part that is not so awesome for us is that we have really bad luck with vans. Like every other week we broke down! But we finally just got a brand new van and this is our first trip in it right now – because today is the first day of the Every Avenue tour. So we’re pumped, and hopefully – knock on wood – we won’t have any van problems.

For those who haven’t seen you yet, what could one expect from a live Sparks The Rescue show?
When we play, we try to do the same show every time with the same amount of energy, no matter how many people are in the crowd watching. We definitely just try to bring it live and rock out as hard as we possibly can every night – but still be able to produce the sound that comes off the CD. So we work hard at doing that.

Do you have any messages for your fans out here in the Los Angeles area?
Basically, we can’t wait to come back. We got to spend four days in LA and we had dinner with every one at Fearless. We got to see Hollywood and all that stuff, and it was really amazing! We just can’t wait to come out and play there again.

SPARKS THE RESCUE links

Sparks The Rescue on Myspace: The Official Myspace Page for Sparks The Rescue!
The Highwire Daze Home Page: Return to the Main Page!

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