Risky Business became a band almost as joke because Mike Scarth, Ian Hart, Dave Prime and JD Gaudet wanted a band so their friends could sing along. Hart, the bass player, is as surprised as anyone. “If someone had told me that we would tour Europe twice in one year...I would have punched them in the face.” Joined by former PEI resident, Mike Trainor, in 2005, Risky Business got a lot of mileage out of a “joke.”
Named after a Murs single featuring Humpty Hump (“It’s risky business, man what is this?”), it’s hard to believe that a shared laugh could go from a simple idea to a band that completed three American, two European and a handful of Canadian tours, along with a couple of seven-inches. Occasionally that joke comes back to haunt them in the form of the band’s eponymous song—requested almost as often as they play—which isn’t necessarily a favourite of lead singer Mike Scarth, so be sure to yell for it at their last show on December 29 at The Pavilion.
Hart has spent almost two decades playing in local punk hardcore bands like No Offense, The Chitz, The Boners and Equation of State, and has seen the scene go from a “push bro mosh”-style of dancing to a hardcore version of “River Dance,” which Hart claims “looks ridiculous, but I like it better.” And while local messageboards and social networking groups are mourning the demise of Risky Business—one of the biggest local all-age draws this city’s scene has produced—Hart thinks other bands like C.I. will definitely fill the void.
It’s hard to find anyone with as much enthusiasm for hardcore as Risky Business, and that, more than sing-alongs, more than pile-ons and finger points, more than anything else is why they’ll be missed.
