Hostage Life

Toronto's Hostage Life spent 2002 to 2009 proving that a punk band could be loud and funny at the same time, and the song that made their name says it all in the title: "This Song Was Written By A Committee". It was the first single from Walking Papers, their second record for Underground Operations, the Toronto independent that also housed Closet Monster and Protest the Hero, and it caught fire on CFNY, the city's alternative station, while reviewers gave the album a warm welcome. The EP Sing for the Enemy had come first, on the same label.

Colin Lichti did the hollering up front, a singer who had already fronted a band out of Brampton, Ontario, and Hostage Life played fast, shouty, sharp-elbowed punk with a wiseacre streak that carried through "Sons of Hostage Life" and "Securing My Seat". They worked the festival circuit too, turning up at the SCENE Music Festival in St. Catharines and at Toronto's Wakestock 2006 on a bill with Sloan, No Use for a Name, Social Code and Boys Night Out.

The end came at Sneaky Dee's on November 20, 2009, their final show. Scene gossip pinned the split on a reunion of Lichti's old band, but that reunion never happened in 2010.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.