Bleeker Ridge

Bleeker Ridge consists of two sets of brothers: Taylor and Cole Perkins and Dan and Dustin Steinke. They came together in 2003 when all four met at a music shop in Lagoon City, Ontario, when Cole Perkins and Dan Steinke were 12 years old. They first started playing covers of Jimi Hendrix and Joe Walsh songs before releasing two independent CDs: Undertow (2004) and The Rain (2007).The band was scouted by various members of the music industry, but were often considered too young. Joe Kresta, an A&R director, saw the band in 2005 when he was with Universal Music Canada. Kresta said he was "totally amazed at what these 14-year-olds were doing, they had their shirts off, long hair and it was almost odd, these voices and that sound coming out of these little guys. There were guitar licks that you see guys three times their age doing, but I wasn’t in A&R at the time, so I walked away thinking, ‘Hey, that was really something special,’ but they still hadn’t found their own identity. According to Dan Steinke, the name Bleeker Ridge combines the streets where the two sets of brothers lived: the Steinkes lived on Bleeker St. and the Perkins lived on Ridge Avenue. The band later signed with Roadrunner Records. In the Summer of 2010, the band toured Canada with Airbourne as one of two opening acts, along with Social Code.They released the album Small Town Dead, produced by Bob Marlette, on September 21, 2010 in Canada. The first single from the album was the title track "Small Town Dead".The song charted on the Canadian Active Rock Charts, reaching the top 10.