Default Happy to Be Done With Groundhog Day

For well over a year, it was almost like Groundhog Day for the members of Canadian rock act Default, awaking each day thinking their new album, 'Comes and Goes,' would get a release date. Their label, TVT, had gone bankrupt, was bought by digital distribution company the Orchard last summer, and their career had to get sorted.

"We knew it was going to take a while for the bankruptcy proceedings to go through," says frontman Dallas Smith. "But that only really took about five or six months until we changed hands to the Orchard. But then we were like, 'What the hell?' We thought a label was going to buy it, and we'd just get transferred to that label and we'd be able to get it out that year, which would have been a year ago."

When they heard the Orchard bought TVT, they asked their manager, "What's that?" "And he was like, 'I'm trying to figure that out myself,'" laughs Smith.

"We had to wait and see if they wanted to hire radio staff to work the record, and then things really started to slow down. It was another company dragging their heels and trying to figure out their end and they had just bought it, so they were trying to figure out what to do with Lil Jon and Pitbull."

That's when Default's business team started talking with Canadian labels, and figured out a way to license the album to EMI Music Canada. Almost four years to the date of the band's last album, 2005's 'One Thing Remains,' 'Comes And Goes' was finally released on Sept. 29. The album had been in the can since December of 2007.

So how did Smith, guitarist Jeremy Hora, bassist Dave Benedict and drummer Danny Craig stay in tact as a band through all the uncertainty and delays?

"We were talking about this the other day; we figured it out. It's a couple of things," says Smith. "It's either a complete lack of option," he laughs. "Or me, personally, I think this situation would probably break up most bands, and I think if we wrote a mediocre record, we probably would have gone off in different directions. But we all believe in this record, and we want to see it through and make sure we're given it a chance."

Default has a great foundation in the U.S., having sold more than a million albums. 'Comes and Goes' can be ordered online and shipped anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, EMI is shopping the album to its affiliates.

"They have a certain block of time to pick up the record, to set a release date and set everything in motion, or we're able to walk and write up a new deal with somebody else," explains Smith.

There are no U.S. dates on the horizon, but the band will be supporting Three Days Grace in Canada on a full-scale arena tour, Nov. 16 to Dec. 21.