The Rural Alberta Advantage
The Rural Alberta Advantage is a folk-rock trio based in Toronto and made up of band members Nils Edenloff (guitar, keyboard, vocals), Amy Cole (keyboardist/bass/vocals) and Sanjeet Paul Banwatt (drums). The band has released five full length albums worldwide with Saddle Creek Records (USA/World) and Paper Bag Records (Canada/World).
The Rural Alberta Advantage (The RAA) built their name and devoted fanbase through percussive folk songs about hometowns and heartbreak, and a tireless touring schedule. The band’s origins trace back to 2002, when singer-songwriter Nils Edenloff began writing a series of homesick odes to his hometown province after moving to Toronto. With the 2006 completion of what would become their debut album Hometowns, the trio of Paul Banwatt and Amy Cole was solidified and touring North America. Word about The Rural Alberta Advantage spread organically across Canada and into the US, and the band caught their first high profile break when eMusic chose the band as one of the site’s Selects artists. With exposure to 500,000 music fans and subscribers worldwide, Hometowns became the highest-selling Selects act to date. Hometowns saw a wide release via Indie powerhouse Saddle Creek Records in mid-2009, receiving glowing write ups from the press including Pitchfork (“…songs this good deserve to be heard by audiences as large as their sonic scope”), SPIN (“The emotion-drenched songs are graced with sparse, percussive arrangements, full of lustrous boy-girl harmonies and anthemic hooks”), and a smashing showcase at that year’s SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas.
The band’s follow up album, Departing, was long listed for the Polaris Music Prize, won CBC Music’s Best Indie Band of the year and received two JUNO Award nominations in 2012 including Best New Group. The album featured the band’s first hit at Alternative radio with the song “Stamp” that was also featured in a national advertising campaign for Molson Canadian. That song earned a fan in Canadian rock icon Gord Downie, who would champion the band as an opening act for upcoming tours with The Tragically Hip. The success of Departing allowed the band to continue their worldwide touring efforts including a first tour of Europe, and the relentless touring schedule led to increasing audience sizes and prestigious bookings like Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (Palm Springs, CA), Osheaga (Montreal, QC) and Primavera (Spain).
The foundation built by The RAA placed great emphasis on meaningful fan experiences and this has contributed to the band’s steadily increasing sales/streams on each new album with monthly Spotify listeners consistently at 200k and continued radio charting records in North America. The two singles off their 2017 album The Wild (“White Lights” and “Brother”) were The RAA’s highest debuting singles at Canadian radio with the most adds at US college radio to date; lead single from the record, “Brother” continues to earn new playlisting and stands at almost 11 million streams on Spotify. The RAA released The Rise EP of new music in 2022 as a part of an unconventional campaign designed to adapt to the uncertainties of the pandemic and instead release a series of music in real time to focus on connecting with fans. The creative approach created 2 successful radio hits for the band, with lead single “CANDU” spending 8 months in the top 30 of Canadian Alt Radio charts.
The band took the series of singles released over the pandemic into a full length album release in the fall of 2023, The Rise and The Fall. This most recent campaign saw notable achievements like the band’s highest debuting singles at US/Canadian radio, placement on Spotify’s New Releases Billboard in Toronto’s Dundas Square and their first major televised live performance at the NHL’s annual Heritage Classic hockey game in front of 65,000 hockey fans in Edmonton. The album was recognized by the The Independent UK as one of “The 30 Best Albums of 2023”. Continuing their tradition of touring, the band completed a coast to coast Canadian tour with sold out shows in their largest venues yet (1000+) including their largest Toronto show to date, a 2500 capacity sell out.
The Rural Alberta Advantage continue to write, record and produce their own music as experts in the unique sound of frantic energy, haunting melodies and emotional lyrics that they have created over the years. The band is currently on tour in Canada and recording their next album.
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
