Chain Reaction

Websites:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2733190956809705/
Origin: London & Sarnia, Ontario, 🇨🇦
Biography:

Chain Reaction was a Canadian rock group that formed around 1970. Members included guitarists Bill Gauvreau and Warren Barbour, keyboardist Rob McDonald, drummer Kirk Dorrow, bassist Ray Lessard, and singers John Pulkkinen and Darryl Alguire. The group saw the release of one album, Simple Kinda People, and a few singles before breaking up in 1977. With Octavian no more, Barbour and Lessard turned their attention to putting together a new group, Chain Reaction. The lead singer they brought in to join the new team was Phil Naro.

Chain Reaction recorded their one and only album in 1982, X-Rated Dream. The debut was released under the Trillium Records label. As bad luck would have it, Trillium promptly began to fail. The band canceled their deal and pulled the album back. A little good luck and a few good reviews, soon earned the album a spot on the Attic Records label. After that one piece of good fortune, a black cloud seemed to hover over the band. As Chain Reaction tried to tour and promote their album, everything that could go wrong, did, from accidents to mistaken arrests. Almost as if to put an end to their continuous troubles, the bandmembers called it quits before another album could be finished.
-Charlotte Dillon, AllMusic

Band photo: although it says Chain Reaction on the poster, technically this was an Octavian photo session, as Kevin Spencer was never in Chain Reaction. We had been planning the name change for some time. When we moved to Mississauga on July 31, 1979, we used the name Octavian hoping it would get us gigs, and it did. However, those who came out to see Octavian were naturally disappointed, and I'm sure that those who possibly would have liked the new band didn't bother to come out, simply because they thought they were getting the same old Octavian they had seen a hundred times! As such, career-wise, it turned out to be almost a lose-lose decision. But! One cannot ignore the fact that in doing so we were actually getting paid. And this allowed us to keep going.

We were embarking on a western tour in October 1981 to promote our new Trillium Records album release, which was just being pressed, and we decided within the last few weeks to do it as a 4 piece under a new name. Ray would go from 2nd guitar back to bass, and also play keyboards with pedal bass when warranted. We needed a poster fast, so we used what we had. In hindsight, we could have cropped Ray at the elbow, but of course, there was no Photoshop in those days.

Our first stop was the Empire Hotel in Timmins. Then the Landmark in Thunder Bay.

So, Octavian officially died on Sunday, October 23rd, 1981 at 11:59 PM. (R.I.P.). Chain Reaction was immediately born and the van left the parking lot at 8:00 AM the next morning to start the new tour.

However, a change of name was not enough to rid us of the Octavian "can't seem to get a break" jinx! It followed us.

As I say, the record label was Trillium, not Attic, as you might have originally thought. History repeated itself. You will recall in 1975 that we toured all the way to Calgary before our MCA album finally hit the stores. This time around it was worse! In the middle of our tour we learned that Trillium apparently went belly up and that the owners were answering to legal issues! We did the whole tour promoting absolutely nothing. Worse, we knew that we had to shop for another label when we got back. That label of course turned out to be Attic Records.

By the way, the OPL logo in the photo stands for Octavian Productions Limited.
-Warren Barbour

Phil Naro: vocals
Warren Barbour: guitar, vocals
Ray Lessard: bass, synthesizer, vocals
John Livingston: drums, timpani