Old Wives are Edmonton's pop-punk lifers. The group has been packing rooms since 2008 with fast, catchy songs built on harmonies, hooks and key changes. Their songs are about growing up, or refusing to, with titles like "The Grown Up, The Fuck Up," "Sucks To Grow Up" and "30 Something."
Their early records, the full-length See You In Hell, the Backed In A Corner EP and 2013's Here We Go Again, made them staples of the Alberta punk scene. That work caught the attention of UK label Little Rocket Records, which signed the band in 2016 and reissued the back catalogue. Their third album, Three, followed on Little Rocket in May 2017. The band promised "an album with a lot of things to say," and backed it with a cross-Canada run, a set at Montreal's Pouzza Fest alongside PUP, The Flatliners and Iron Chic, and a three-week tour of Europe.
The band kept moving. Drummer Darren also took over the drum seat in Teenage Bottlerocket, and Old Wives returned to Europe for Hamburg's Booze Cruise Festival and Belgium's Brakrock. Their fourth album, Mega Low Maniac, came out on Rad Girlfriend Records at the end of 2022.
Nearly two decades in, they're still on big bills: Rock The Rails in Fort McMurray with Good Riddance and Ignite, and fall 2026 dates in Calgary and Edmonton with Dave Hause & The Mermaid. They've also shared stages with Chixdiggit, The Flatliners, Iron Chic and Teenage Bottlerocket.
As their label puts it, they're "always ready to pack a house, have a beer, and blast the audience with energy."