Born Ruffians

0:00Well, we're at the Biltmore Caparet of Vancouver, BC, with a band from Toronto, who has joined us from across the country on their way up the coast. Born Raffy, and thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you. Things are going well. We were just talking with the tour. Yep. Did you do the drive on the coaster? Do you decide to go the one on one? We did the one on one. No, the one on one. Yeah, we did the one. I was the one's the coast. Whoa! We did the one on one. That's not the coast. Oh, there's the one on one on one on the five, I guess, right? I don't. Yeah. The five's the interstate. We did the like Redwood tree drive. Nice. Is that the first time doing that? Because that must really add to the whole. Because tour is like, van hotel, van hotel. Exactly. That's why we decided to do it. We have done it once before. Four years ago though. Right. It's been a while. It helps to break free from the monotony of driving.

0:45I mean, I'm in here. So you can pass the scene. Yeah, the stops are always more interesting than that's good too. I would think some. You saw the weird little convenience stores instead of just like shell. It's hard to eat healthy on the road. I don't know a lot of bands struggle with that. It's already healthy. It's quite hard. We were just talking about that before we started rolling here. Rufians, ruffians, a lot of people are calling you the born ruffians. Are they? Yeah. We've got that for a long time. I mean, I'd say it's like, you know, it's very small pretend. It's pretty funny when someone does call us born ruffians. Especially when they're big fans. Someone's come up and is like, dude, I'm like your biggest fan. I'm always telling my friends about born ruffians. I love born ruffians. And I just, I didn't have the heart to tell them to like correct. I was like, you've been saying our name wrong this whole time.

1:32Yeah, your friends. Well, it must be hard though. When you, I guess it's not a common word. We were saying it's a very old word. It is not a word. It's not a word. The first word ever uttered by man. I was supposed to be in the truth. Rufes pronounced ruffians. It was pronounced. Yeah. And back then it went to Rufians. Someone wrote the whole word. I think it just meant everything. Oh, it's got to have a tone. It's so great to say one. Well, isn't the song what to say about language? On that whole topic? Isn't there kind of like? Yeah, it is. It's a little bit. You wrote that? Yeah. Yeah, it's about communication and language. How does the writing process work for you guys? I write the lyrics and the melody and stuff. Like, I guess we write what we're in charge of basically. Yeah.

2:18Okay. I'll write my guitar and melodies. And a lot of the times that just happens to be where the song starts. So it sort of dictates in a way. But a lot of songs, like a few songs on this record have started with bass lines and chas and... Never drums though. No. Well, that's fine. I can't do it. I'll just play as we loop a section or something. It's just the way things have worked in the past. Yes, Steve won't come in with like, I've got this chord progression. It's just like, I'm the one who does that. Right. I don't even really know. No, just thinking like, you know, you come, you're all hanging on the studio kick a beat and then people start playing over and it progresses through songs. It seems like it's just one of them is four. I can't think of any songs on the new record that went that way. Yeah, it could be like the way that a chorus is worked out or something. Yeah. Yeah. I read somewhere that you want to write more. Or is it that you want to try to, maybe for the next record?

3:05Yeah, like... Well, this record was pretty much right as a group. The songs would not... Like I could have had that idea in that chord progression and worked on it at home. It would have gone like, off here where with the band it goes here. Like, it just would have been a totally different record. Because like, when we write, when we work together, it's those ideas that the three of us have that and playing with each other as it's such a good tool to like work a song. Like, no, Volee was sort of written or sort of around the drum beat. Basically my... Yeah, because I had this guitar part. My bizarre and steep ability to comprehend my guitar parts occasionally. Or it's just like his different perspective on it. He'll just play it different. But a lot of times I'll be like, whoa, that's a mistake, but it sounds cooler than what I had in mind. Your mistake should be this on.

3:50And that's what's great about working with other people on music, basically. The weird times that you turn it was born out of just... Like, you're not just hearing it, not realizing it was a weird time to check. You thought it was normal. Yeah, yeah. Taking competency for errors, that's fun though. That's quite alright. I do understand times and changes, but... You understand the support. I didn't realize what I was doing. On the topic of songs on the record, there's less album titles. I mean, there's... Or album titles. Animal titles, this time around. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's still... Is it retard canard? I don't want to say it that way anyway, just more fun. Yeah, you can say that way. A retard canard retard canard canard canard canard canard. Oh, great. We got to ask the better. We got to ask the better. That one a lot. Pretty much every interview I did, okay.

4:35You probably shouldn't say the one. That's a lot. Well, I'm sorry. When I was saying in France, I got to ask the better than every interview I did because they read it and they assume, well, that's poor. That's incorrect French, but it must be French. Yeah. They see it looked out now and they think I'm... I don't think it's about a late-duck. It makes no sense. It makes no sense, but yeah. I'm the less animal titles. Less animals. But still, including the word retard in a title. It's kind of balls. It's either balls or you're stupid. I don't know which one. Yeah, we don't try to do that. Yeah, sure. That debate happened at the rate until the record came at it. Yeah, we were just like, yeah, sure. Let's do it. But then I think maybe you would be like, should we... I just think of what... You know, like, for some reason, I was like, just thinking of our teachers and our families. Yeah, but I've never thought that. It's not an offensive title.

5:21I've not... No, I know. It's not trying to get a reaction. It's not like doing that. We did that. We just put that on that record. That's the name of it. We're going to use that word. Yeah, people to be like, oh my God, chalk off. It's crazy. Yeah, it's not like that. Yeah, it's not there enough to be like that. Yeah, just mentioning you've coached a member from Cara. We did. How did that go about? Andy Jonathan Palmer Lloyd. Oh, it's a pretty... Yeah, that's a good name. Yeah, he played... Well, he's been in a lot of bands, but most recently of Caribou fame, he played bass. And we... They played with him, with him and another drummer, when I took a hiatus from the band. You were your last weekend? My last weekend. Yeah, you and John were near.

6:08Yeah, exactly. He and J.L. had a last weekend, and they played with Andy, and then I came back into the fold, and we wanted Andy to stick around because... Yeah, we had a lot of parts on the new record that we wanted to play live, and he brought some new parts to old songs that kind of freshen them up for the tour. Cool. He can hit some of the harmonies that mean it's failed to hit. He kind of just holds it all together really. We've become a more technically proficient band. He can play with fours, both of those things. Yeah, playing with four, we like traveling with fours, just better. Cool. And you're on the Cara Burekord. That's right. I guess from the tour, getting to the track. Yeah, just from touring and getting friends and Dan, I guess, when he was working on that song, had me in mind.

6:54I was like, I don't want to be really good for us. He'd meet that at the dollars. Yeah, he just emailed me out of the blue and said, hey, what do you mean? I was just doing this, and I was like, heck yes, I would. And then emailed him back. Like, let's win. Can we do this? I don't know. It's just sort of... Yeah. It just came about naturally, I guess. Awesome. Great song. Yeah, it's cool. The whole record school, as is your new record. Thanks. It's now for like a week now. Yep. So you're finally going to play for people? It feels longer. Well, it's been out for a long time. And it came out a week previous to the actual release date digitally. So like, even before it was technically released, there were some people in the crowd singing these songs. Well, I'm sure. Yeah, exactly. On that topic, I was talking about Terry McBride on the show yesterday, and we were talking

7:42about the future of music and how things are going. How do you guys feel about your records? Not really, you know, how are you going to make money in the future of being a band? It's difficult to try. We don't make money from, well, I don't want to sound, but we don't make money from record sales really either. That's not our main, if it was a pie chart, that's not our main slice. So I really have no qualms about people, that only music for free. I mean, for us, it's the touring and it's the live and it's just... You can't fight it. You're stupid to fight it. Like, you can't. Yeah, exactly. Also, we were kind of talking about this how funny it is. Napster is like 14 years old now, the 12 years old. That's crazy. You know, it's like, why did it come in? I do. Well, anyways, I've been downloading music though since I was like 11 and over half of my life, so it's such a weird thing to do. For us to get up on it.

8:27You're like, yeah, well, I mean, it's just part of the play. Like, I steal records all the time and I'll go on record saying that, like, I'll hear something, I'll all download it and then like... I think sometimes I'll buy some time I'll steal it. If I look at it, this might be like a really naive or sort of just a jabroni way to say it. But that was the word you're hunting for. Like, it's just making music that I want to do and yeah, obviously you want to be successful at it. But like, you just keep making music and it doesn't... You can't really dwell on whether or not it's going to sell too much. And things change. There's just other ways for a band to make money and for a label to make money. First of all, there's always a record buying public. There's always the collector, the niche market of the people who want a physical copy.

9:13And there's other people who don't have the technical savvy to go find an illegal way to get it. So they go through iTunes, it's convenience, 99 cents, you can do it on your phone. There's always a market, it's almost like blowing at a proportion. I think not that I sit in on like meetings with the record labels and like your figures. No, well, and like you're saying, like, they're still making money. They're still making money for you. Maybe they're making less money than they did at the boom. But they're still making money. It's not like, like, rapping like Drake Million Dollar Advance. Exactly. There's still many of me made. There's licensing which is bigger now than it's ever been. I would imagine. You guys don't think that's selling out? I mean, you can't anymore. No, we don't because we've sold our song. If I said that, it would be the biggest fucking hypocrite. Yeah. Yeah, sellouts, sellouts out there. Have you seen the orange sell from that? Yeah, also.

9:58Hello? Oh, it's just my orange sell from that. Yeah. No, I'll call you back. No, but I, there's just, I don't know. You can't fight it because I find it somewhat frustrating that some labels will fight the fact that they're losing record sales by maybe creating these deals where they take, they start taking live fees or merch money from bands, something that traditionally they never really touched and it's like, oh, well, we're just losing money on our record sales. So instead of figuring out how to stay ahead of the curve and like, you know, evolve with it, we'll just take money from what you, like, originally make money from it. And that's kind of like a cop out on their part. So, and our label doesn't do that because warp is a fantastic label. And they're UK label too. Yeah.

10:43Like, are you, do you even have a label here or do they, they just help in your own? Oh, right. That's right. I'm coming in on paper. It's licensed to payer bag for Canada, warped as the US. They have a US office and a UK office. So, so we're represented everywhere. They do the rest of the world as well.