Sloan (Chris Murphy & Jay Ferguson)

Part 1

0:0088.3 CJIQ big show tonight. This is the backstage pass. My name is Matt Schichter. Huge show. Get to speak with my favorite Canadian bands tonight. Patrick from Sloan's here. How's it going? It's going very well. Start to show off with my favorite tune from your band losing California. Oh, okay. I'm moving up to California in a couple of weeks. Oh really? A couple of months. Yep. And to do radio there. Where you gonna go? Indy 103 and LA. We were there. Yeah, how'd you get a job there? Just an internship actually. You can't get pages yet, but I'm excited. I'm excited. Did they play you guys? I'm pretty sure. Ah, they play everything like it. But it's a pretty hot station out there. So cool. It's a big deal. I'm excited. Yeah, it should be fun. We'll talk about you guys breaking into the US all stuff in a bit. The one plays in California first because it's my favorite song and what you wrote. Yes, that's right. Thanks. 88.3 CJIQ. You just started losing California from Sloan's in here with Patrick.

3:22One of the singers. That's right. You guys all sing in the band. That's right. You guys all right? Yep. Um, even Andrew writes too? Yeah, he's got a guitar or a piano. Yeah, or piano. Okay. Do you guys ever tour with a piano? We do. We have not a real like a Rhodes piano, a Venter Rhodes or something like that or sometimes a digital thing, but we haven't in the last little while because it ended up that the sets we were doing, we'd only really do one song and the piano took up space and they had to get set up and we just decided to opt out of it for a while. Are you playing try to make it then? Cause it's got, is that a piano riff at the beginning or is it done on my guitar? On what song? Try to make it. Try to make it. Oh, right. Oh, yeah, that's a synth. Yeah. Yeah. We do that song, but we don't have that synth line. Yeah. Oh, okay. Does someone try to get on guitar? Is it just a synth line kind of? It

4:08just doubles up a guitar part. So he plays it on the guitar. It doesn't really sound the same. I've actually experimented with trying to get my guitar to like to play that part of my guitar to make a sound more synthy, but I just never end up doing it. Fair enough. Cool. How would you compare your songwriting to say Chris's or the other ones? Well, I think that I tend to be more into what's the word like I like to try to keep things as simple as possible, at least to start with. I'm not so worried about lots of chords and lots of chord changes and things like that. I'm more interested in creating a feel for the overall song as opposed to like I usually have an idea of what I want the song to sound like

4:56before I've recorded it, whereas some guys in the band, they write on acoustic guitar or something and they would have like the chords in the melody line, but they wouldn't really know how they want it to sound till they start to record it. Yeah. So that means that my songs are, they're not so much riff based, but they tend to be more power chord based. But I mean, you know, it just depends on the song because I tend to write, you know, rock songs, but then there's like the more acoustic songs and they will have a different feel behind how they're written. And then there's usually the more mid tempo ones and they can vary as well. And that's in terms of music in terms of lyrics. I think that everybody's got specific, you know, things that they like to write about. And so the lyrics will obviously be different. But we'll let you write about legally. I tend to write about people that I know in hard

5:43times that they're going through or good times or whatever. It's hard, you know, when you've written a lot of songs and you've made you've recorded a lot of records, you don't always have a lot to say all the time. And also like, we're not a very political band. So we tend to write about relationships more than anything else or ourselves a little bit. And kind of like observers more than, you know, having a political thing or having a trying to be a little bit more, you know, it's the word already here something. I'm not as big to me the lyrics are usually a personal thing and they're not they're not usually trying to get a big message across to people necessarily. Cool. You say you don't very political. Do you guys, what are your feelings towards politics? You're in general. I mean, I'm sure you can't

6:28say the other guys. I think we're happy with where we're going in this country. I've just found out that they're going to vote a non-confident. I don't follow Canadian politics that much. But, you know, I think that I definitely follow American politics more because this is a lot more entertaining. It's way more because it's ridiculous right now. I think all of us are basically left thinking people. We're not so conservative, but it makes sense being in music. I guess so, although I know people who don't feel that way, but, you know, I'm into, you know, like I tried it. We, my house, we eat organic food and we don't trust anything and we don't trust the government or not so much the government about big business and so much. But, you know, I think that for me, I'm very into that sort of like, it's easy

7:24now with the internet to investigate companies and like, you know, Del Monte or something like that or whatever and find out what they're doing in Africa or something. And you're just sort of like, you know, and then you're like, well, I'm not going to buy their product. And then you find out that all of the stuff you like, you know, pay or something is owned by Del Monte, I think, something like that. And you can't drink that anymore, you know, I mean, so, but I'm not like that. I will drink it. It's just, I'll feel a little guilty. It's a good, I want you to think about that, the big business thing, hold that thought. But let's play a song for now either one of the new ones, I'll use it up or try to make it. Okay. Well, I'll use that in mind. Oh, we mentioned try to make it. Let's do try to make it. Okay, cool. And imagine us not playing the since line and then tell me if you think it's cooler because it's a simple line with my idea. 88.3 C.J. I can you just

11:45share one of the new tracks from Sloan's new greatest hit CD, A Sides Wind? It's a singles collection singles collections. What's the new one singles? Why not great as it? Is it not your greatest hit? They were not there's not a lot of great hits. But they're all just the singles. They're all singles. They're not like a lot of people we call our best of or something like that. And that that's not what this is. This is just more of like songs that have videos because they were released the same. But I mean, if you were to ask us as a band, what we think are best songs aren't they aren't all necessarily on the record. That makes sense definitely. But they're the ones that got picked for singles. You mentioned big business before and I'm thinking Sony and BMG just merged together. You're on Sony and BMG now you're on Sony. Yeah. But you also have murder records. You guys very kept with your indie roots very well with that whole thing. Yeah. How are you distributing

12:30states and around the world? Sony BMG? No, it's in America. It is through a label called COTCH. Okay. Yeah. And who's that? Ringo. Oh, really? Yeah. And who else I just saw somebody else anyway, whatever. Yeah. And we don't have a lot of distribution elsewhere. Japan, our record is coming out and I don't know the name of the label and Australia is the same thing and in Spain it's love to art. And aside from that, because we tended not, we try to get records released where we tour and we haven't always been able to get to Europe. By the time we end up finishing touring North America, we usually just want to make another record. That makes sense. So, but this record, we're going to Spain in January and I think there's talk about going to Australia and potentially Japan. Oh, wow. That's well. So pretty cool. Well, we kind of skipped

13:21two, like we did Navy Blues and Between the Bridges and we did a lot of touring for those records and we went overseas a lot. And then for our record pretty together, we toured a lot more in America because we'd spent the two records before touring a lot of everyone else. And then with action pact, we just did America and then two of us had kids. So then we kind of cut it out for a while and then we just finished up North America again. And then so we didn't have a chance to get over to Europe or to Japan or Australia. So yeah, we will too. Yeah, we will. Yeah. How did you guys break into the States? How did that whole thing? Like are you guys, I know you're huge up here, but how big are you in the States? Do you even care what that kind of stuff? We definitely care. But I don't know, like we we're in a weird situation in Canada where we're huge in terms of like we're known by people by all your singles get charted and your stuff gets played on the radio. You put it out of song and it goes on the radio no matter what. Right. This last

14:10single all used up has played the most of anything that's exactly that's good. But in terms of like, I think for most acts, unless they're really, really being hyped, it's really hard to get people to come out to shows. We've been around for 15 years, 14 years. So you know, in one way, we have like a loyal fan base and people will come out on the other way. Like we can play one town in Ontario and we'll play to a thousand people. And the next night we'll go and play to 200 people. And it's not because we lost popularity in one day. It's just that that town like something. And it's a weird thing. But in America, you know, the major cities, we play to the same size audience. It's really cool. But we don't play to like thousands of people in Canada. You know, like we play, we probably played to like 800 people in Boston and we probably played a

15:00you know, a thousand people in Ottawa. So it's similar, you know. You played CBGB in New York. We have a few times, but years ago, yeah. It's closing down. Yeah. What are you feelings on that? Does it matter to you really? I know for a lot of New York fans, it's a huge thing. I think it's a shame that that that they weren't able to keep. I mean, the thing with that is that like it is a historic building. But the building, I mean, if you've been there, like they change half of it is a big store now. And then, you know, it changed a lot. Like when we were down there in the early 90s playing, we only played there twice, but they were in the process of sort of changing it. And I think it's a it's gross. Like it was a horrible. Well, it's a punk club. Yeah. But I mean, they really, they really can kind of maintain that. I mean, it's a club, but it's almost like a Disneyland sort of thing. It's like they make it so horrible or they just don't do any thing to make it halfway

15:50presentable because of its roots. And I think it's a shame that they weren't able to keep it in that building. But of course, they could always just open up another place called CBGB. Yeah, that's true. And it's not like the police said you're never allowed to open up a club. So, I mean, you know, times change and things move on. And most of those bands didn't stay playing CBGB. They went on and playing bigger places. And it seems to be almost like, why can't that club move and become a bigger club? Yeah, that's true. Well, let's play another song. Well, one of years, one of Chris is underwhelmed or everything you've done wrong. We'll play underwhelmed for Chris. That's nice. C8.3, CJIQ. You just heard underwhelmed from Sloan. You guys clearly, you know,

21:04big Halifax band back in the day, obviously you're living in Toronto. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, but I mean, now you got Matt Mays, the No Backs, the True's, Buck 65, this huge Halifax scene, and out east scene, I guess most bands are from Halifax. Well, they're from the east coast. Yeah. How do you feel like you basically got everyone out there? You broke that scene. Well, that scene, maybe there's roots for us there, but that what we were. Well, flashing Matt Murphy or whatever. Yeah. Well, we were involved with the Super Friends, which became sort of became flashing lights and Ben Thresh Hermit and Eric Shipp from out there and became elevator. And, you know, there's that. I think that our success, quote unquote, that we had drew attention to that area. But I think that it was just that the press in the early 90s wanted to find another

21:51Seattle and they picked Halifax because it was small. And the complete obstacle. Full town. Yeah. And I don't. But, you know, all those bands broke up or they're not, I mean, Joel Plaskets still playing from Thresh Hermit. And, um, Did I just talk to them? Yeah, I do so. And then, but then nothing happened for a little while. And now all these other bands have come along and they're not really related to us. Like they've kind of got their start like the truth and Novax and Matt Mays. There's different management people down there. There's different labels down there. And we do have similar, like a lot of the people that are working at these record labels or management companies are friends of ours and maybe had worked with us or worked with bands. But we're not really related to those. Like I don't. I don't. You try and help them out at all. Well,

22:38we would. I mean, we wanted we did an East Coast tour and we wanted the Novax to play with us and ended up being a man called the Stills from Montreal who we are also friends with. Oh, yeah. Good band, too. Yeah. And so we were fine with that. But we I just saw the Novax like a week ago or something. The greater. And we played with the truth. Yeah. And then we played with the truth last weekend or weekend before, I guess. But that was that was not our doing. And I like those guys as well. And there's so yeah, of course we we would. But you know, we also. Have never really I mean, in the early, early days, we would take out some bands to open for us from the East Coast because they're friends of ours and we wanted to help them. But nowadays, I don't I think we're we have a lot of friends and bands from all over North America. So if it was like, Oh, well, will you take the truth out on tour in the States? Well, we might, but we also

23:25might take our friends from this other band that we do. Yeah, well, I don't know if we take them to open for us. But but you know what I mean? Like, so we're into supporting people. But sometimes what we found was we were kind of getting cornering ourselves a bit. It's like, well, we got half to take this band out because they're from Halifax. They have a new record up. But we really wanted to go out with these guys from Vancouver, friends, ours too. So we just stopped taking these codes. And it's not so much that I mean, we do shows we've done lots of shows with Joel. We've done lots of we've done some as I said with the truth. But but and Matt Murphy, obviously, what's he doing now? Matt just had a movie coming out. Oh, yeah, it's right. I heard about that. Yeah. And he has a bankle city field city field. Okay, well, grab their CDs people. They have a CD. Yeah. Cool. That's what other song was getting the other man, but you didn't write that one. Well, we all kind of

24:13wrote that way. Oh, really? Because I love the point of view that song because you don't hear a song written from that point of view to the lyrics. Yeah. Okay. And then the music was kind of two or three of us writing that. 88.3 C.J. I Q you just heard the other man from Sloan sitting here with Patrick.

28:03You guys played a song at sound check. And I heard Chris stated you record that. Was that a new tune? I've never played that before. Yeah, that was never even heard before. That was Jay. That's one of Jay's sound cool. Yeah, I thought it was cool too. What are the odds that ending up on the record? Are you guys writing a new record? We are. Yeah. We're yes, we're demoing stuff now. Cool. When I hadn't I haven't heard any of Jay's demos. Sounds like a waste. It was pretty cool. Oh, really? Not not bad. We're not that I want to compare you to another banks. I hate comparing bands, but it was cool. Well, it was kind of a yeah. Well, if it does end up on the record, then if Jay likes it and it says it'll probably end up on the record because Jay often he doesn't necessarily get that much on records. And if he likes a song. Well, basically the rule of thumb is if somebody in the band is really into this specific song they wrote, it'll probably end up on the record. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So most of your songs end up as singles though. Right.

28:51Why is it? Well, it does happen. Yeah. Well, all the ones at least I was going through it today because I didn't know who wrote every song. I figured it was a basically a four part process, which most songs I'm sure are. But your songs all end up as the big popular songs. Yeah. Kind of. They kind of do. I mean, I'm in California. Well, no, sure. There's singles and there's. A favorite I suppose to. Yeah, definitely. And we just did this, this singles record. Yeah. And there's a bunch of them that I wrote. And you know, on the one hand, I'm very happy with that and that I'm happy that we get singles or songs that are picked. And I'm glad that I put work into. Like I tend to write at least some songs with that in mind, whereas other people in the band don't mess with the care for themselves. They're just writing what they're considered to be good music or what I consider as well to be good music. But so I'm doing that on

29:41purpose. Like it feels good to do it or something is written specific or when he's written with parts and specifically to attract people and also to get people into like, you know, you have a bit in the song where it breaks down, there's clapping on the record. People know that they're going to clap. Yeah, when that comes up because you did it on the record, there's a lot of here's a word supposed to clap. So you do that kind of an event song is what I call it. So I mean, but it's a but we don't pick the singles these days so much. We let the radio people at whatever label because they have to work the song. And if we say, no, don't go with the one that's got the good chorus go with the, you know, the, the one with the 10 minute guitar solo. Okay, but they'd also yeah, they'd be like, well, whatever, I guess. So we just sort of were like, you know, what's on your thing is cool. And they usually bring it down to like two or three and then we'll say, oh, yeah,

30:29well, that's cool. I mean, we put the songs on the record so they can have any songs of single way. Well, I was just thinking, because you know how Lenin was, or pissed off the revolution was a single and hejude was, is there a bit of resentment in the band for that kind of stuff at all? I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, we split the publishing money equally. Well, that's cool. So it doesn't matter who wrote it. Everybody gets the same amount of money. So awesome. Well, I was playing another song. Why don't you choose one of our catalog out of any song you want to hear from any Sloan record, maybe not something off the demo tapes. I don't have that one. No. Well, let's play one by Jay then let's play. Hate my generation off twice removed. 88.3 CJIQ, you should have Sloan hate my generation sitting here with Patrick from the band.

33:29I want to talk about downloading and how you feel about it. Well, the illegal download on iTunes, because obviously that's helping the industry. But do you think downloading is going to, well, A, do you think it's helped your home? Do you think it's helped your home? I think that it has probably equaled out like, we don't, you know, nobody sells as many records as they used to. But at the same time, more people can be exposed to you, you know, because it's like, I do it. I, you know, I'll read about a band and I'll be, oh, I wonder what they're like and I'll go. So I'll usually go to their website first and if there's stuff to listen to it. If I can't find that, then I'll go and download it offline. Why or something? That's what I use. Yeah. And I mean, it's that's a good it's a promotional tool. But the problem with all of it is that it's perfectly,

34:15everybody is capable of doing it. So, you know, there's a moral like, I don't agree with people who say that rock stars have enough money or something like that. Like that's, it doesn't matter. Like, they own publishing to that. They wrote it. And so, you know, it doesn't matter if they're multi-billionaires. Like, it's theirs. It's not the public. But I do think that if it can be done, it can be stolen. Like, you know, if it was perfectly, if everybody that worked at a record store had to wear a blindfold and there were no security tags on anything and people just walked in and picked up CDs and walked out, well, it's their fault. Like, take the point full off, you know? And it's the same with record companies. It's like, this is not new technology. I had friends who were trading music online in like 1990. So, it's not new technology. They

35:04just ignored it and just hoped that it would go away or something or put warnings or said, we're going to sue you or whatever. And it didn't work. And they should have, you know, what you do is you go to the people who are doing like making a line wire or an master or something and say, how can we, and you go to them first and you say, you know, how can we get around this like, you know, or whatever and or bring the price of CDs. And I think iTunes is going to help in terms of, you know, it kind of destroys the idea of an album. That's what I was going to ask you. Yeah. But you can download songs and they're a dollar. Well, I mean, I've been doing, I just got an iTunes account and, and especially if they offer like exclusive things and things like, like, line wire and that stuff, it's fine, but you can't find everything. You know what I mean? You can just find mainly what the popular songs are.

35:50And so it's good to, I just think that record companies just have to offer more. They just have to work harder. And it's not, I mean, you know, I like the people, there's a lot of good people that all the labels that we've been with, but it is a pretty corrupt business. Like the way that record company or the way that record contractors are put together and everything. It's like, you know, I explain that, because I'm sure most people don't know. I mean, a lot of people know, Aussie got nothing from the black side of there. A lot of those, like, nothing, which is ridiculous. Things are, there's different ways of doing it, but like publishing, which is basically, if you write a song and you own it, you own the publishing for that song. So this is different, the record contract. But basically, that's one way where you can make money. And what happens is, like, oftentimes there'll be somebody like Aussie Osborne who potentially, I think he probably did

36:37make money outside, but who potentially didn't write any of the songs or didn't own any of the publishing. So whoever wrote the song would make the money off of the publishing of that song. So the singer might not have written it and he might be known as singing it, but he doesn't make any money in that song. And record deals are different in that. What happens is a record company wants a certain quality of recording. And that costs money to me because they want a producer and they want to be done this. And you know, so they go to a band and say, Hey, we like you, we'll sign you and then they go into the studio, make a record. And they're like, the band's like, well, we're broke. And they're like, okay, well, we'll lend you the money to record the record. But you have to spend X amount and you have to do it the way that we would like you to do it. And in a way, that's reasonable. But what we're going to do is we're going to sell your CD for $10. But we're only going

37:26to give you're only going to make because we're investing all this money, we have to make more money back. So you're only going to make $2 on the $10. Right. So then they put out your record, and this is an oversimplified way of putting it, but they put out your record and you sell 100,000 records, right? Yeah. They make $8 a record, so I said, yeah, so they would make $800,000 plus and then you make $200,000. But you out of that $200,000, you have to pay back all the money that they spent on making the record and the probably about $200,000. Yeah, let's say it's 200,000. So you sell 100,000 records, you make $0 and they make they make $800,000 because they're always, from record one soul, they make their share of the money no matter what. And they don't put their

38:12share into what how much it costs to make that record. They just put it in their pocket. You pay back all the costs and then you start to make money. So a lot of times, and that's just for making the record. Also in America, like if you want to, if you want to have a hit single in America, it's very easy to do. You spend a million dollars in promotion, radio pro, and which is Payola, but they call it consulting. They're getting trouble for right now. And and but that's all it takes. But really, it does because there's some really crappy songs out there that are. I'm sure there's a whole bunch of people out there going, this is really good. They're just like, Oh, that sounds popular. I keep hearing it. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. And so you spend a million dollars and you pay a million dollars back out of your share of them. So they spend a million dollars of essentially your money to sell

38:58a million records. And they make all of their, you know, 80% share of that extra million, whatever, in their pocket. And you have to pay back all that million out of your pocket. So they keep walking away with like eight or four, I guess, four times what you're what you would make or more because you never see the more money that they spend to sell records. You pay you have to pay it all you're getting is gold platinum records on your wall. But all the money that's being made is going is is going into their pockets. And the money that it takes to sell a millet, get that platinum record far outweighs the value of the platinum record for you because you never see a dime. I mean, you know, I'm oversimplifying you will see a dime at some point because you'll pay back that million dollars and you'll start to make a bit of problem. Yeah. But at the end, they'll make 800 million

39:45dollars and you might make four million dollars. So I think that's going to change a bit now with home studios and all the technology we have. Well, yeah, I mean, that's the other thing too. It's like you don't have to go to the major label. You don't have to take a big advance. You don't have to spend as much money recording records. The record industry is like any industry. There's people don't, you know, I would say that technology takes major leaves maybe every five years. But people people don't record company people don't like die off or retire every five years like that. You know, you'll have somebody who started when they were 20 and they're 65 and they're still running a record label. And so they're sort of oftentimes like living a few years in the past. And I just think that it takes time for major labels to catch up to what's going on, whereas smaller labels who can be equally as corrupt. Like I'm not a big fan of independent labels as much as

40:34anymore. So then the major labels, but major labels or indie labels tend to have less money to invest in you. Therefore, they'll, you know, people are sort of like, well, if you sign up an indie, you get all the control. I mean, I read this online, I read like some forums like all that were open stuff. Yeah, sign to an indie and then you've got all the control because you're on an indie and that's a definition of an indie was not and you don't have all the control because they still pay you money or you pay for the record out of your own pocket and then they'll distribute it. And they might give you a much more fair deal. But the way that what we saw what you saw in the 90s was labels like sub pop who would sign a band, maybe fund one record, which usually sounded like crap. And then they would and then that record would do okay. And then they would sell the contract for that band to a major label. And the band would make nothing but sub pop, like that's

41:19what they would, they would nirvana that's what they would sound like and stuff like they would, they would like sub pop got money for every nirvana record sold just because they signed them initially. So they made millions of dollars off nirvana and they weren't nirvana weren't even on their label. And all the all the real build up and push was paid for by Geffen and not by myself. You guys want Geffen for a while too, right? We were on DGC, which is Geffen. Yeah. Cool. Well, let's play another song. Good in everyone or rest of my life. Well, let's play good in everyone because it's short and we just were basically sitting on the music business. So let's, there's good in everyone. I got you. There you go. 88.3 cji q

43:56you're good in everyone from Sloan Sydney with Patrick. That's a very short song. Why do I say short song? That's just supposed to be a short punky song. Yeah. Cool. You're curious. Five questions. We just think every week on the show called Five Questions, five quick questions. One more answer. iPod or C's? I just bought an iPod in September. Oh, really? Yeah. I wouldn't get one for a long time because I just thought they were way too expensive and I heard all sorts of bad things about them. But then I started to realize that they were not going to come down in price and all the other ones are not as good and they still cost the same or more. So I like the iPod because I didn't, I wasn't the type of person to walk around listening to music a lot. I just didn't wasn't interested in them. When I got the iPod, I started doing that and I find I'm listening to a lot more music and a lot of different music because you can just load in all these. Exactly. What are you listening to? Name a couple of guys that are on there. Well, I just there's a guy called Adam Franklin who used to be in a bank called Swerve Driver

44:45out of the UK and cool and he has a new thing project called Toshak Highway. He's got a couple workers and a friend of mine is on that record and he just gave me the pre-mastered, pre-release version and it's good. The perks are being in the van. A little bit. And I just down the iTunes. I just paid for the Death Cab for Cutie single which I like and who we sort of know those guys but I didn't know their songs and Check out the whole album. It's really good. Yeah. Yeah. Next question. Leonard McCartney. I think that while most of the songs I thought when I was younger that I thought you know Beatles and I would always picture John Lennon singing it was Paul McCartney but I like John Lennon as a person a little better just because I think he was a bit more of a prick. And I spoke his mind a bit more and you know I always thought of Paul McCartney as a little bit

45:37of a crybaby but yeah so Lennon I guess but I'm not the biggest Beatles listener. Like I know tons of songs but I don't know their names and things like that. Okay cool. Alcohol and marijuana. For me it's alcohol because I find with marijuana I just I don't mind it but I have to be basically sitting in front of the television with nothing to do because I can't function. Whereas with beer and I just I tend to just drink beer or maybe a gin and tonic or something. Maybe a little tequila but um but I find with that like you know you can drink like eight beers or something and you're still you're not paralyzed or at least I'm not. Yeah. So it's a little bit more controllable. Same with Hard Licker I don't drink a lot of Hard Licker anymore because you know you have about four shots and you're on the floor all of a sudden it just hits you really fast. Yeah cool. Um what was that? Songs you read most of all? But I'll tell you something. I prefer my son

46:28probably to smoke pot and to drink. So. Interesting. How old is your son? He's two. I don't want him to smoke in pot. Yeah. But you know what I mean? Like I just think as long as it didn't lead anything else and alcohol can lead to stuff too but I just think it probably does less damage to your body in the long run. Cool. Well we're on the top of it. You think it'll be decriminalizing Canada eventually? I think it should be. I don't see it's ridiculous that it's not I mean you could tax the hell out of it. Yeah exactly. And then put that into funding for other to help other drug problems. I mean you know heroin is a huge problem. Speed whatever like there's so much stuff going on. I mean if you ever go out to Vancouver and hang around it's just and Toronto's bad. You know I think that and it's not so much even people being hooked on drugs or the toll that that takes on families and the country inevitably but it's just a criminal

47:15element that it funds. Yeah there's a huge violence problem in Toronto right now and and that's why Fitti's not allowed to come there. Well I mean but it's just like you know it's because there's drugs and it like it's all funded by drugs. I mean most quote-unquote terrorist activity outside of say the Middle East or something like like in Northern Ireland or something IRA which I'm around from. There's so much drugs involved with that as well that they don't talk about on TV necessarily but you know that's how the people are making money and if you legalize I wouldn't legalize everything because I think some drugs are very very dangerous but but you legalize something as harmless as that and then you control it and you don't don't taxes was not like basically. Taxolate cigarettes. Or alcohol or something yeah and make it work for itself but now we pay for the damage that it causes out of other funding you know that could

48:01go towards you know education or something. Yeah almost people whatever. Yeah I think it's cool. Song you've written you're most proud of. I have to go through the wall I don't know. Well the song that I actually that song all used up was actually written it's an odd thing it was written for our last record action pact and it wasn't picked nobody liked it like not in the band but like at the record label and the producer we had hired and then and I liked it and then we had to do this best of thing and they were sorry singles record and they were and they were looking for songs so I brought that demo in again and all and the president of the company was there and we hit up it was a weirdest thing like we we never had to do this before but we had the submits songs going and sit in the studio and all the top brass came in and they all sat and listened to songs and some of them they listened to like you know half of our so like okay

48:48we can move on and it's just like what that's so brutal they didn't do that in mind luckily but but they picked all used up they were okay well that's obviously a good one and I was just like you turned that's cool but they turned it down a few years ago although it wasn't I'm sure the president didn't turn it down well it would be three words it would be rock and roll. So we hit good answer Patrick thank you so much really appreciate it. Okay once I'm close to say anything you want well you just said I'll use that when we play on one. Okay unless you want something else. No that's good. Okay thanks so much. Okay thank you.

Part 2

0:00Why did you choose to do the choice move to her and re-release everything? Well a lot of bands been doing the sort of play in a whole their classic record or a couple of their great records through that's been going on for as it ten years now I feel like it's been a while. I feel like the first thing I saw was when Brian Wilson did Pet Sounds like in the late 90s or 2000 and then it sort of ramped up since then basically.

0:47We wanted to do that and the other thing that's been going on the same time is that Jay and I have been archiving everything that we've ever done so how can we bring those two things together? Well we can take our collections and put them into an amazing 32 page book that goes with the crazy repackaging and then we can as it's an excuse to tour and we put out a record a new record last year and this would sort of in our schedule be sort of an off year. And it wasn't really an anniversary for twice removed it was more just like Chris said this we had this year open and which is the best album to put forward or if we're going to continue doing these sort of reissues which is the best one to do and I think it's one we had the most photos and demo recordings for and stuff like that so it made sense to do it first even though it's the 18th anniversary doesn't really make much sense.

1:36Is that going to happen? Are there more out now let's go with that are there more album tours? I think so but I think that we want to want to temper it with new stuff so that we're not just a greatest hits group. This tour I think went well enough the toys removed like the box set that we made sold well enough they're almost gone and the tour did well enough I think that it boats well for yeah doing more in the future. Where do you go next which one which one are you going to next? One chord one chord to another problem. Well but then do you go back to Smeared for the third one because that's the first one. We may do that. That'll be two and three and you go back to one or do you keep going because Smeared is kind of outside of our over in a way. You not play the songs often? Yeah we only ever play one or two songs from that record. I actually think it would be I think we should do that one third.

2:24Yeah I think it's I think it's got a I can't believe they're going to play these songs kind of vibe. But I think there's definitely a high nostalgia factor for that record as well too. When people even when we do 500.4 like not even including underwhelmed but even 500.4 on the cancer the crowd often goes. Until they seem to really like it. And it's the most it's the record that's the most I would say of the time. It's the most early 90s sounding record and from our second record twice from move on we never really sounded really of the time. I would say. What about the tunes off twice removed has it has it influenced like I mean I'm sure you playing them night and night out that hasn't happened in twenty odd years. So what's it what's it been like are you are you sick of them now this almost done are

3:10you are you more in love with them than ever before. I definitely I'm definitely not sick of them. Well to me it's kind of funny that there are some songs that we were forced to play by doing it this way. There are certain songs on the record that I think we would have never played otherwise. So it was fun to have the excuse or the reason to play them. It's really fun to play everything in order. There's like a certain context we play coax me we've been playing coax me for 18 years. But it's fun to hear it between people of the sky and bells on. Maybe that means nothing to you or to someone at home but to someone who knows the record inside out. I hate to it's hard to talk about myself but I don't want to talk about something as being powerful or like meaningful. But you know I think it's possible that it was powerful or meaningful to those people.

3:57And I disagree. I just know as a fan like if I heard other records in order like what it means like oh I know what comes next and it's fun to hear them in that context. And I think that people really responded. But it's a weird the weirdest thing about it is that twice removed is such a kind of sensitive record that the response is less like yeah I'm going to go crazy and just like you know people might not be screaming to hear a song like bells on. But then afterward you know someone might come up to me and say how much it meant to them or whatever. Like connect emotionally to something. And it's something that's sort of embarrassing for me to talk about. But I think it's something that goes on and something that I'm happy about. What about you Jay? I mean the life of the song I mean you write it you record it you perform it.

4:44Now it's been 18 years since the record you're playing these songs again. The arrangements changing is there anything you guys are doing now to the songs that you're like we should have done that on the record. No I mean for me like trying to be like a purist like I almost wanted to keep them exactly or as close to the album as possible. I even used the guitar that I used when I recorded the album you know. I think I'd be disappointed. My favorite reference is seeing Paul Simon doing my song do Kodakrome once and he did an array game version I was like what the hell are you doing. It was just up to the exact same. It was me booing from the back of the arena like the back of the bowl. The only one that seems a little bit different loosens is maybe just a little bit faster and has a little bit of guitar in it which is it's a predominantly slow piano song and it was sped up just a little bit because it's quite long and I think I don't know if

5:30Patrick it's a Patrick song and I don't know if he was super looking forward to playing it every night but giving it a little bit more just making it a little bit faster and putting some guitars and I think made it more comfortable for him but it's still not that far off and I kind of thought the majority of the rest of the songs were pretty accurate to the record so I kind of like I kind of prefer that because I think I think fans would rather hear the record as it was intended as opposed to like yeah we put an extended solo on this part and changed you know what I mean I think it's better to keep it pure. So you're writing on the road as you're playing twice removed every night does playing those songs influence the way you write? Nope. Not at all. So you're able to remove? You're able to remove yourself from the rest of the song? I don't think so although for me almost any song that I've written since twice removed

6:18could have gone on any of our records. To me I don't I'd like to think or sometimes I wish that we had certain like we'll get together and say let's make this kind of record. I think we've only really done that once. Which one? Action packed from 2003 we kind of said let's make a streamline sort of rock record without a lot of the eclecticism that our other records have and I think we accomplished that but I think we also what one person would call streamline another might call uni dimensional. What about writing for other people does that happen? You mentioned one of the songs before is Patrick's song. Do you write with other people's voices in mind? Does that ever happen? You mean all within the context of the band? Yeah. Like say I've got a song for Jay or I've got a song for Chris. No I've talked about trying to do that kind of thing as an experiment like what if I write

7:07instead of a song for myself I write a song for each of the other guys we'll see if that ever happens but but but Jay Jay and I seem to work pretty well together and I know I feel that Jay's he's right here but I feel that he I could just talk about him. He's open to collaboration and he would say and then there's a middle part and then the next part is this and I was like well I have a sort of a bunch of middle parts I could barf one into your song here and he's like sure but we've done that before where I'll sing the middle part of Jay's song. I kind of like that I like I mean I think that's a nice thing of being in a band is having someone else sing apart on one of your songs whether it's duet style or like Chris said singing

7:53a middle eight but sometimes I'm stuck for like I don't have a middle eight and Chris is like I got this little bit of a song it's just kicking around and he lets me steal it and put it in the song and I think it makes the song better and I think it makes for a nice when you play it live like two people singing and and I've had I feel like feedback from fans to seem to like that kind of those kind of songs where two of us may sing on one track or something. Many who are fans of bands I think like when they when there's interaction like that you know sometimes for expediency's sake someone will sing the lead and then sing their own backups sort of because it's quicker but I always prefer when you can tell it's the different guys in the band singing it's more romantic and I also really romanticize the songs that do have collaboration and I know I kind of know over our history which ones are the most

8:42collaborative and what are some of those I'm curious about. Well I thought that Money City maniacs was quite collaborative like Patrick it's I think of it as Patrick's song but he had the main riff and the and the first verse but I helped him write the chorus I wrote the second verse and I would say that I even wrote the middle part so I think of it as a pretty much 50-50 and he lets me sing the second verse and so like he and I wrote that even though I wouldn't have written it without him but like feels could do it as well I guess feels good yeah that's mostly him but he gave me the third verse because it was a lot like a song of ours that went in the garbage like from like our first year of being together I was like that's a lot like this song and he just let me throw on a verse of that song essentially so I love it when that happens even though the

9:28songs might not even not be any better or might not be historically thought of as any better than the others but to me there's a romantic nature of that kind of collaboration which I enjoy in bands so we do something called five questions five quick questions one more answers sorry do you want us to do them at the same time whatever you guys want if something pops in your head before his that works okay so it's whatever get goes whatever's what here we'll go first yes whoever's would here will go first here we go road or studio purgatory I don't know I like uh I can't do it one word no no I don't like the same road just so we can have something to talk about no I would disagree like I like this was probably my most fun I've had on tour the twice removed tour I mean actually in general I like touring especially

10:18for spoiled and they have a bus and everything and it's it's pretty easy going and and and it's uh it's kind of like groundhog day every day you know it's just you have a routine and everything but uh but I like I like record I guess if you talk live show versus recording or LPs like I kind of prefer LPs because to me that's immortal or that lasts forever you know what I mean so I kind of think that's more important Landon or McCarranay yeah you can't do that you can't do it McCarranay just because whatever that's like saying um food clothing or shelter like it would make any sense yeah I think I choose food though the best thing about them is the combination of the two um when you hear a song what usually if you first lyrics melody or rhythm well are you talking like a public enemy song?

11:08the melody uh I'm not I got that again I can't partake but I did have someone come at me one time saying like saying sort of like um you know in aggressive ways like you guys rely on melody are you still relying on melody that's music was it letter konas at that age no but it's just like like that person went on to talk about some painter who relied on colors and color on paint it's just yeah I think they're all equally important well I think a melody can draw you in but I think I think everything has to be good I mean I'm sure there's songs ever and where the lyrics are amazing although I've always tried my best at lyrics but sometimes it's last minute like oh that'll do the songs of yours that you dislike the most are the ones where you didn't put enough

11:55thought into the lyrics that's right yeah I think so I think lyrics are I love songs with excellent lyrics I hate it when there's a great melody and a good beat and the lyrics are throw away I think that I find out the most upsetting thing about music I have nothing to add but I will say um but you will that uh I have lots of music in the can and I hate writing lyrics because because it's the hardest part because if you do a crappy job and the whole thing sucks and uh you're very good lyrics but I take my time to like I put a lot of time into it and try to do my best too I've stuck it up a few times so I don't know but going on the lyrics thing like the other man is a ballsy song to write yeah that's a good one but that's an interesting angle to come from the point of view of that person but uh I don't know I don't have very many big ones like that is there

12:43anyone in the band that finds lyric writing usually I mean you're both saying it's kind of hard does anyone have a Andrew seems to sort of like easily not easily but just will write lots of lyrics like he'll jam a ton of lyrics kind of Bob Dylan style into a like a simple chord progression kind of thing and it's something that I I think that I could benefit from writing songs lyrics first which I think which I never do because I'm always trying to catch up to the music that I have but a song of ours like our first single underwhelmed is super simple the lyrics were written first I would have never written that music in a finished form if I hadn't had lyrics anyway I think it's good to write lyrics first but I never do it

13:31song you've written you're most proud of can we pick each others sure is that fun actually the one I really like so it was kind of hanging around for a long time okay now forget that question I was going to say of this song actually specifically would be uh it's on Never Hear the End of It which we put out in 2006 it's called Fading Into Obscurity One That Chris wrote and it's just it's the kind of song that I was uh hoping that our band would play or work on it's it's uh it's very I don't know what you would say like Happiness is a Warm Gun by the Beatles or like Abbey Road style where it's kind of three or four mini songs in one long five or six minute song and I love things like that or the Who Sellout like they had a song called a uh a quick one where it was just all little mini songs and then it's almost like a little sweet or something like that and those

14:20are my favorite kind of songs so I would say I really like that of his and my own there's a couple of really short songs that I wrote over the last couple of records that I really like there's one on the last one called Green Gardens, Cold Montreal which is really dense but very short and I kind of I like trying to trying to write those kind of songs I don't know if it's successful or not but that's kind of like it's not a good that's all right I've trained Jay over the years to write the kind of song that I that I want to hear and he's doing it really well and Midnight Mass from the MP is really cool I like that song Jay's yeah Jay's really has not blown it Jay has slow start yeah it's true yeah no it's true but I used to write when we have to smear our first time we're like oh god do we have to I can't wait

15:08in one word oh god slow well you just said it's slow what else is it I would say McCartney or is this it it was a one it's long I don't know I mean you could say democratic or something yeah yeah it's basically is the same thing boring yeah I don't think so Sapioka no it's nice to know that 20 years in it's 21 years in it's still it's still democratic everyone's still friend and it's still like you're saying fun on tour yeah I think that's amazing for mutual fund do you guys like my mutual I like I've always liked mutual fund yeah that's what I'd say you know if one person's stock is down the other people carry it so that

15:58it keeps gaining value so we're the ultimate long term because everybody contributes and that's right that's good thanks so much guys yeah you got it okay we're sexy sexy mutual fund