Grounders is a band that everyone should see live. In fact, “should” is not the optimal word choice. “Must” is more like it.

To miss their catchy, genre-bending indie pop in action would be to miss one of Canada’s greatest up and coming talents. And even when I ask the guys where to find their music, they tell readers to “get off their asses and come to a show.”

The band has been performing their unique brand of “intelligent pop” for two years now, and after playing festivals like North by Northeast, Canadian Music Week, and Pop Montreal (two years in a row), they’ve garnered significant attention in Toronto’s music scene.

The band members – vocalist/guitarist Andrew Davis, drummer Rob Canali, guitarist Dan Busheikin and bassist Michael Searle, with the addition of guitarist Evan Lewis last summer – had each spent a fair amount of time on stage prior to coming together.

Busheikin and Searle grew up together in Calgary and upon moving to Toronto, formed pop rap duo Sounds like BS. Davis, the brains behind Grounders’ creation, had played in multiple bands including Our History of Cowboys with Canali, and Chambers with Lewis.

The boys knew each other through mutual friends and came together after a candid proposal from Davis at a party in January 2010. “Andrew just sort of came up to me one day and said, ‘I’ve got some bangers that we gotta play,’ ” says Busheikin.

Asking for a distinct definition of those bangers incites a ten-minute discussion, where the words “intelligent,” “engaging,” “orchestral” and “weird” get thrown around. By the end though, it’s clear. Grounders take simple, catchy pop tunes and turn them on their head via structure, sound and timing.

Their songs are as addictive as a classic Beach Boys tune, but with a little more complexity thrown in.

“Ultimately we want it to be somewhat challenging, so the listener is going to play it two times instead of one,” says Davis.

Lewis compares their music to the birth of psychedelic pop. “It’s like in the sixties when bands were coming up with ideas of what pop was.”

And that experimental aspect is part of why they’re different. “We could easily sway and be a straight up or classic indie-pop band but we choose to avoid that,” says Searle.

This winter they’re happily recording a couple of small projects with producers, one of whom is famed Broken Social Scene producer Dave Newfeld. He is featuring Grounders on an upcoming compilation album of bands from Toronto and overseas. “Regardless of where it goes, getting to record with Dave Newfeld is just such an honour,” says Busheikin.

Still waiting for the opportunity to cut a full demo, the band is learning how slowly the industry moves for an unsigned act.

“It would be nice to just find the perfect situation and record all these songs in a couple months and have them all done,” says Searle.

For now, they’re enjoying the journey of working with different producers, and making connections along the way. “You want it to be an experience. If it was too easy, you’d be like ‘Oh forget about it’ ” says Davis. “As much as it’s a struggle to do, it’s pretty memorable.”

They also savour the idea of being a predominantly live band. “It’s very frustrating…but at the same time I think we can all appreciate that mystery of our music only existing in a live setting,” says Busheikin. “You can’t access it whenever you want, you can only access it as it happens.”

And so far it’s been happening in more places than just Toronto. The boys credit their closeness to the out-of-town shows they played this year, in cities like Sarnia and Guelph. “It’s kind of like a vacation,” says Canali. “You take time off, plan it all and get excited about what you’re going to see and do.”

“Yeah, once you throw a bunch of dudes in a hotel room, you learn a lot about each other,” says Busheikin.

On their first night playing with Lewis, the boys actually managed to lose their newest member for a number of hours, in a city completely foreign to them. “We’d probably known Evan for like, a month, and we lost him immediately,” says Busheikin. But, he explains, it’s all part of the bonding experience that is touring.

It takes no more than one shimmy to their energetic live performance to understand why Grounders has great things ahead, but in no way are the five sitting around waiting for those great things to come.

“You have to set goals and deadlines,” says Davis. “One of the things that made this band succeed was having a five month plan to play and get into Pop Montreal, and we did that. And then we were like, ‘Oh, okay, we’ll keep going.’ ”

We’re already excited to see where they go next.