Wisconsin Valley Fair headliner Thousand Foot Krutch is a rock band for the ages.

With over 20 years of music-making experience, eight studio albums to their name, and thousands of shows under their belt, there’s very little the Toronto-bred band says they haven’t done.

“This band has never been afraid to explore musical inspiration,” said Trevor McNevan, lead singer and songwriter. “Although we’ve been a rock band first and foremost, there’s a thirst to do what’s inspiring to us. All of us are just musical fans of so many different genres. A lot of those influences will bleed into the songs we’re inspired to create. We’ve never been afraid to embrace that.”

Most recently the band embraced a slightly harder sound with their June 17 release of “Exhale,” the follow-up to their 2014 album “Oxygen: Inhale.” McNevan also took on the challenge of lending his vocal and writing talents to the theme song for “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows,” which, too, saw a June release.

Now, the latest adventure for a band that has literally grown with their fans is headlining the stages of the annual Wisconsin Valley Fair.

On the line-up with names like Cheap Trick and Martina McBride, the accomplished rock veterans are honored and excited to get the crowd going on Wednesday, Aug. 3 at 7:30 p.m. says McNevan. Performing for attendees both familiar and unfamiliar with their sound, the frontman teased that concert-goers can expect to hear a slew of songs, including five from the new record, like radio singles “Push” and “Running With Giants,” as well as some old favorites.

According to McNevan, the performance itself has been as carefully crafted as the setlist after the band tried out and tweaked a few things early on in the tour. It’s a concert that will showcase the rock trio’s various sides and serve as a continuation of the independently-produced artists’ decades-long approach to an enveloping music experience — whether recorded or live.

That approach was of particular importance on the band’s last two albums, which musically work in tandem to show the band’s creative range.

“There’s always been quieter and aggressive moments to this band’s music,” McNevan said. “Those have always been a part of who we are, back to the very first album. Knowing that, we thought, ‘How can we explore this even further?’ It became this idea of ‘Inhale’ letting us dive a little deeper into the lighter side of this band, the quieter moments without any guilt. ‘Exhale’ would be part two, the same thing where we just drop the gloves and head the other way into the more aggressive side of the band.”

The full article first appeared in the Wausau Daily Herald on Aug. 2, 2016.