The duo behind Rosebud took a rather casual approach to forming the two-person band, and that’s how they continue to operate.

Zach Rempel says it’s common for musicians to start off by performing and then come out with an album, but he and Nathaniel De Avila have done things the other way around. Although they’ve been playing together since early 2016, until recently, they didn’t even have a Facebook page.

“A lot of songs weren’t finished until we recorded them. I think that had something to do with it,” Rempel says.

They started writing songs and playing together rather informally in early 2016 and then decided to become a band.

“We spent the year recording, producing music for an album,” Rempel says. They recorded the album in houses and a Mennonite church basement.

Since then, they’ve performed only once. Despite going public when they played a house concert in May, De Avila and Rempel remained quite elusive online.

Rosebud could be found on SoundCloud with one song, “Starcrossed” and no information about the band itself.

However, that’s expected to change before The Uniter Fiver when Rempel says their first album, Night, will be ready for release.

“It’s going to be online. Hopefully we’ll have some CDs for the show, but I’m not sure about that,” Rempel says.

With Night available for listeners, he says they’ll get started on their social media presence and expects they’ll have “the Facebook thing going” by the time of The Uniter Fiver.

On the album, Rempel plays cello and guitar with loop pedal and does the vocals, while De Avila does all the drumming, harmony and other instrumentation.

“It was just a small project at first, and it worked out just fine just to record and everything with two people,” Rempel says.

For live shows, Rempel says they plan to bring friends along to help play all the instruments.

He says they write songs about their experiences, how they live, their friends and their favourite bands.

“A lot of youth and growing up kind of stuff, being lonely and getting your shit together,” Rempel says.

Rempel hasn’t been a part of a band like this before, although he played cello in youth orchestra when he was younger and has played cello for other bands. He also says he’s been writing songs for a while.

“This would be my first project going out alone, with Nate,” Rempel says.

After graduating from the University of Manitoba where he studied linguistics, Rempel says he liked the idea of having a project to work on outside of his respite job.

“Making music sounded like a good fit,” Rempel says.

De Avila, on the other hand, has been in bands before and has a degree in music.

“So, he knows what’s up pretty good,” Rempel says.

Rosebud will be coming to Facebook soon. Or not. Potential fans can ask them about it at The Uniter Fiver.

Published in Volume 71, Number 16 of The Uniter (January 19, 2017)