Photo courtesy of Jotam Michael

My journey into music began in the later years of high school, where I took my first tentative steps into performing. However, it wasn’t until my second year of university that music truly became something more meaningful. During a deeply introspective experience - shared with close friends and enhanced by the kind of spontaneous self-discovery university years often bring - I came to a powerful realization: I wanted music to be a permanent part of my life. Singing became an outlet for me; it was the one thing that consistently helped ease my anxiety and bring me peace.

Not long after that, I met Kirk and Vanessa, who were starting a music club at Brock University called GoLive. That club quickly became a major part of my life. It gave me a sense of community and introduced me to others in the local music scene. Over time, I became more involved - eventually performing in and around the St. Catharines and Niagara music circuit.

After graduating and moving to Toronto for full-time work, I found myself missing the creative outlet that music provided. I joined a band that didn’t end up working out, but it led me to our current drummer, Luis. From there, everything began to fall into place. We connected with Vincent and Alex, and that's when Eleven Minutes Late was officially born.

Performing live - especially in packed bars with crowds singing the lyrics back to us - has been one of the most rewarding experiences. Even more meaningful is seeing people connect with our original music. That excitement fueled our desire to keep writing, which eventually led to the creation of our self-titled EP.

This EP is eclectic by design. Each track explores different sounds, energies and moods. It’s been a creative exploration for all of us, and we’re proud of how it turned out. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it - and we’re excited to share more music with you soon.

- Wasim, vocalist/rhythm guitarist

For as long as I can remember, music has been a huge part of my life. As a kid, my parents kept a CD case in the back seat with many of the albums that would define my childhood and early teenage years. The first time I ever saw someone play the guitar and really sound good I knew that I wanted to learn how to do it too. I didn’t pick one up and seriously try to learn until I was about 12 though, on an old Squier Stratocaster my dad had but hadn’t touched in years. I put new strings on it and began to find YouTube videos to play songs I thought sounded easy. The Ramones, Green Day and Nirvana taught me all about power chords and made it feel easy to get encouraged and play along.

In middle and high school I became very involved in school band where I played clarinet for a few years before switching to drums and percussion. In my final two years of high school, I also played in the pit band for the school musical (The Wiz and The Sound of Music, if you’re curious). When I was 15 I joined my first band outside of school with some friends from band class. I came on as a bass player and we played at some very small venues in Toronto like The Cavern or Cinecycle. The fondest memory I have from a show with that band was playing at the supermarket one night to an admittedly lacklustre crowd. I was 17 or 18 at the time and had never played somewhere that nice without the school band.

Around 2018 I was no longer in that band, and didn’t play much music for a few years afterwards. It wasn’t until 2022, when things began to start feeling normal again after the craziness of 2020 and all that followed. I began to look for other people to play with, this time as a guitarist, since I really missed the feeling of playing live. I met with a lot of great musicians but putting together a functioning band that’s driven towards the same goal is no easy task.

When I first auditioned for the band that would eventually become Eleven Minutes Late, I was asked to learn a handful of cover songs and meet at a rehearsal studio in the city. After two rehearsals they asked me to join the band that had yet to be named. We found a bassist, voted on a name and gigged as much as we could with the covers we’d learned. After about a year we started writing, then hit the studio to record our first EP. Since then we’ve written much more and are incredibly excited to see what the future holds as we progress as a band and as musicians.

- Vincent, lead guitarist

I was about 9 or 10 when my parents signed me up for music school. It wasn’t my idea - my cousin was going and they figured I should tag along. At first, I wasn’t thrilled. The endless repetition of scales and exercises felt more like homework than fun.

Then came the moment that changed everything. One day, I managed to piece together my own beat. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine. The sound came alive under my hands, and I felt a rush - like I was on top of the world. That feeling has been hard to recreate ever since, but it planted a seed. Music wasn’t just an activity anymore; it was something I wanted to chase.

Fast-forward about a decade. I moved to Canada, carrying that spark with me. I joined a few bands, hoping to take music more seriously. At first, it was exciting - new people, new songs, new energy. But the same thing kept happening: after a few months, the bands would dissolve.

That’s when I realized I couldn’t just wait to find the “perfect” band - I had to build it myself. After plenty of trial and error, I found the right people: Wasim, Vincent and our former bassist, Alex. We clicked instantly, and Eleven Minutes Late was born.

We started with covers to build our chemistry, but soon moved to writing our own songs. That creative process brought back the same thrill I felt making that first beat - only now, it was amplified by the shared vision of a committed group.

Now we’re working on our upcoming EP, and every song feels like another step toward the dream that started in that small music school room years ago. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: the right people and the right passion can turn a single spark into something that lasts a lifetime.

- Luis, drummer

I suppose my journey of music began with kindergarten, being shown “Yellow Submarine” at an early age. It was pretty crazy stuff to show a 4-year-old. But whether I knew it or not, that would instill in me the first love of my life, and to my eternal debt, I had always been around good music as a kid. My parents played The Who and Led Zeppelin, and I would only come to love this music as I got older. Unfortunately, from when I was born to about 17, absolutely nothing significant happened in my life. I went to school, did my homework, played video games and occasionally did some troublemaking on the weekends. I don't often look back at this time either, as the significant stuff would all come later.

My parents, for many years, tried to get me to play some sort of music. I did the piano lessons as a kid, which was undoubtedly the impetus for most kids to never play another musical note again. Then, I did school band on the saxophone, which I absolutely hated. Looking back, I’m not sure why… Maybe because it wasn’t cool enough. In high school is where it really reached a tipping point. My dad had gotten me a little audio interface, to which my immediate reaction was, “What am I supposed to do with this?”, followed by my high school graduation gift of an electric guitar, which warranted the same reaction. Then COVID hit, and being locked in a room for a year is a great way of learning a new skill.

I had started playing the guitar and piano a little while before going to university. I started seeing a girl who had a class where she had to record a four-track song. She seemed stressed by this, so I thought I’d volunteer to record it for her. I had brought this audio interface with me, which I had never used before, but it couldn't be that hard to use, right? As soon as I set it up and was about to hit record, she called me and told me she didn’t want to see me anymore. Bummer, but I had already set this thing up, and maybe it was being alone in a dorm room during COVID, maybe it was the hatred of my new program, maybe it was the intake of the Beatles in my early life, but something changed in me that first day I hit record.