Big Wreck, a band formed in Boston in 1994 by Canadian vocalist and lead guitarist Ian Thornley, have been announced as the headline act at the Nickel Days social June 23 in Thompson.
The band, which also features original member Brian Doherty on guitar as well as Dave McMillan on bass and Chuck Keeping on drums, was together for eight years in its original incarnation, with Dave Henning as the bassist and Forest Williams as drummer, until it disbanded in 2002.
Thornley and Doherty reunited for a cross-country tour in 2010, performing songs by Big Wreck and Thornley, the self-named band formed by the vocalist following the demise of Big Wreck. The band has released three albums since getting back together, including Grace Street in 2017, Ghosts in 2014 and Albatross in 2012. Their debut album In Loving Memory Of… was released by Atlantic Records and included the singles “The Oaf (My Luck is Wasted),” which reached the top 10 of the Billboard Mainstream Rock Chart in 1995, and “That Song,” which made the top 40 on the same chart. In Canada, the band had four top-40 hits on the Canadian Singles Chart. Their follow-up album The Pleasure and the Greed was released in 2001 but none of its singles made the charts in either the United States or Canada.
Ghosts reached fifth spot on the Top 200 SoundScan chart in Canada and number 25 on the U.S. Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart and earned Big Wreck a 2015 Juno Award nomination for rock album of the year.
Former members of Big Wreck include Brad Park, who played drums from 2010 to 2012, and Paulo Neta, who played guitar from 2010 to 2017.
