1. With Rockin’ Thunder happening at the Exhibition Lands in your home province of Alberta, what does it mean to you to play such a massive festival on your home turf?

It means a lot to be representing Edmonton on the Rockin’ Thunder stage and getting to play alongside artists of this calibre. We are beyond excited to kick things off for the fest!

2. You are playing the main stage at Rockin’ Thunder alongside bands like Three Days Grace; how are you prepping for this set differently than a smaller club show?

There is definitely a big difference between a smaller club show and a festival slot like this. We’ll be playing mid-day to a larger crowd who are there more so to see the headlining artists. It’s a welcome challenge to try to win over a crowd that might not know who we are, and to bring the energy to fill a stage this size and get people excited for a day packed full of music.

3. You’ve moved from fearing vulnerability to embracing it in your lyrics. Does it ever get difficult to perform your most personal songs night after night?

Great question. It's mostly muscle memory night to night, knowing what the words are and what note to sing. But some nights I subconsciously put myself fully into the song itself and relive the song along with all its emotions. Doing that every night back-to-back is something I personally cannot maintain. The lyrics can be a one-sided therapy session with no follow-up from an actual therapist and if I don't look to my bandmates on stage for some positivity, or match the crowd's energy, it can be a very lonely performance even in a sold-out room. That all being said, the cathartic release of our newer songs allows me to further understand my own emotions and to locate coping skills that may go underutilized.

4. You’ve often said you don’t like to box yourselves into one genre. What is a new sound or influence you are dying to experiment with right now?

In our current demo sessions, we have found a return to form in writing fun, fast-paced pop punk songs while delving further into our hardcore influences. I think we’re just becoming more ourselves with each release. Considering my metis heritage, I have experienced being “too white” for the natives and “too native” around non-indigenous and I have found Captains to be in a similar spot regarding our genre. Often too hardcore for pop punk, or too pop punk for hardcore. But to us, we’re exactly who we want to be.

5. You’ve mentioned that writing as a group leads to some intense debates. How do you know when a song is finally "finished"?

To be honest, a song is never finished - we will forever have ideas for old songs that we wish we had thought of during recording, and we make small changes to them in the live show over time, so they are always evolving. But we are able to capture ourselves and our influences in that exact moment and have them live on forever in the recording.

6. What is the most memorable or "unforgettable" interaction you’ve had with a fan during a live performance?

Oh man, there have been SO many, but during an actual live performance, the one that just came to mind is from one of our past USA tours. We’re hanging out at the venue before the show, and this young kid comes up to talk to us, and after some chit chat he mentions that he learned the solo to one of our songs and asked if he could play it. So we said why not, and told him to watch for the signal to come up, and pulled him up on stage during the song and gave him a guitar and let him rip the solo. He NAILED it. That was pretty f**kin cool.

7. You’ve worked with directors like Dylan Hryciuk on your music videos. How much does the visual side of things influence how you actually write the music?

We’re really appreciative to have had the opportunity to work with Dylan and his company, Versa Films. They've really helped us up our visual game and shown us that it's possible to create incredibly moving scenes to give deeper meaning to our music. He’s provided new depth to our process when it comes to creating a music video. However, at this stage in our career, this process always takes place after the music is written and recorded, so for us it's not really an influence in our writing - the songs come first.

8. Looking at the rest of 2026, what is the next major "bucket list" goal for the band?

It’s been nearly 10 years since we last toured outside of North America. We are itching to get back to the UK and hope to be able to plan something for 2027 overseas. Ideally, a Europe/UK tour is up next on our bucket list!