Royal Tusk's 'Striking Oil' debuts as Edmonton Oilers goal song

Royal Tusk has struck gold with the Edmonton Oilers. The local rock band wrote Striking Oil, the team's new goal celebration song, which debuted after Evan Bouchard's first goal of the season opener on September 29.

The Oilers Entertainment Group approached Royal Tusk after the band had supplied two songs for in-game period prompts—Aftermath and Head Up—since 2023. Lead singer Daniel Carriere said the band was ready for the challenge: "It wasn't too hard because they kind of know how the band sounds from working with us."

Striking Oil moves away from Fluxland, the arena-rock anthem by XL that had served as the goal song. Carriere praised the previous track—"it's a dope song, I love it"—while defending the shift. "They wanted to move forward with something of their own. There's nothing wrong with change. I welcome the criticism and the pushback. If people can't have opinions, then what are we doing?"

Social media reaction has been mixed. Many Oiler fans have embraced the work by a local band, while some traditionalists resisted. Carriere remained philosophical about the inevitable pushback: "We expected that and I think the organization expected that too."

Beyond the goal song, Carriere sees the collaboration as a statement. "Staying connected with the community and especially the music scene is a real cool move on their part," he said. "It'd be very easy for them to just stick with something easy and likely there'd be no pushback from Oiler fans at all. It's good as a reminder to people that we have an arts scene here, and when you go see local music or go to an art show you get something that you can't get at home. It's important to plug people in that way."

Royal Tusk released its album Altruistic in 2024. The band plays the Double Dragon on November 20, followed by a short tour with Protest the Hero running from Thunder Bay through Victoria. Tickets remain available for the Edmonton show.