The Trews

Part 1

0:00How you guys doing today? Good man, are you? I'm very good. Yeah, how's your tour with Nickelbackman so far? It's been awesome, man. We just finished nine dates in a row. We went from Thunder Bay in Ontario all the way to Sydney, of Scotia. And then we picked up again at West. We're doing three more in Alberta later on this month. It's been a great experience playing in such big rooms every night and earning some of their fans ourselves. It's been a good time. Yeah, how about three days Grace? They cool guys on our team? They're awesome. We did a tour with three days Grace in September. We opened for them across the country and I think they're a large part of why we ended up on this bill. I think they're like our band and we're very big fans of the band as well. So they're good friends and great band. Cool, the name the trues, where did that come from? We used to be called trouser and then a couple of years ago we had to change because there's another band by the same name and the trues just kind of means the same thing and it sounds

0:47a bit cooler. So the trouser you paid was that was the band name trouser? Yeah. Cool. And is that all gonna be reprinted or is that a print right now? No, it's a print. I don't think it'll be printed. You don't want me to back you. That's all old news. Cool. All right, well we're gonna play a song right away. You have some people listening to your stuff when you guys want to hear what song I've heard. Oh, I should just play the current single not ready to go. All right.

4:03Sean your drummer had near death experience in Newfoundland. That's right. He had blood poisoning. We had a rush from the hospital around five in the morning, me and my girlfriend and yeah we rushed in the cab, bugged in his cab, down to St. Clair's Hospital and yeah they did some work on him until the seven in the morning. Got him all fixed up and then he had to go back for more testing that afternoon and he played the award show with intravenous in his whatever that was. What was exactly? Was it like an IV, like a portable IV or something? Yeah, they just had I think whatever they were pumping them full of. They had a little bit of it attached to his arm and bandaged over. If you look closely at that performance, you can notice just you know behind his sleeve or just in front of his sleeve is a big white sort of Michael Jackson style, white bandaging which is just covering the needle that's in his vein as he performed at the ECMA award show just like two weeks ago, Sunday or three weeks ago, Sunday.

4:51All playing drums that's crazy. All playing drums, yeah. It was a, it put things in perspective you know the fact that we lost both of our awards. It put things in perspective because you know I mean he almost died so we had an interesting experience that we can. Yeah, now what was it like you guys starting to get pretty big now I assume you all had day drums before this started? No? If you count playing covers in a bar in Mississauga as you day drop in. Oh yeah. We never had. We were always musicians you know we just always played and try to make a living play in music you know we play wherever, whenever as much as we could and just try to make enough for this food. You know like a resume. Yeah exactly we didn't want to go out and you know to crappy day jobs we wanted to you know play music all the time. We didn't get into it to like you know work in our day job until we get signed and then whatever we were just more like well it's just being musicians no matter what and you

5:36know just keep it going like that. That's pretty cool. Yes sir we were at high school. Yeah in high school I was in grade 10 and I did my first game with these two guys anyway calling me my brother and Jack being the bass player and a long time friend so like three of us have been together since I was 15 and he was 14 Jack and I was like 17 there. And yeah we just out of high school when that all finished we decided not to do like you said the day job thing decided that it would be more to our benefit or to our liking to keep playing music and just to find ways of playing music and like just living you know just barely enough to get by but you know making ends meet in a way so that's kind of what really led to our move up to Ontario because you can't really find a lot of work in Nova Scotia to play music you kind of have to get a day job and I don't think we wanted to

6:23go that way so we can't try to come to a place where we thought we could get more work and that landed us in Southern Ontario just a couple of years ago so that's sort of why what brings us here. Wine agri falls in Ontario. Cheaper rent. Cheaper rent. Yeah it just sort of happened that way we were looking all over. We saw places in Hamilton we saw places in Toronto which we couldn't afford and this place was just really affordable and it was kind of a cool house and we could jam there and we all lived in the same house total communal sort of vibe you know but um didn't last long week because we sort of because we've been on the road so much now we all live in St. Catharines so that's sort of the sort of behind Niagara Falls. There you go the Golden Horse Show as it's called now. Yeah. Alright what's on do you guys want to hear? Every an ambition. It was the first single after record.

7:20It was on my mind.

10:02Not ready to go has really been making waves and watching music and on the radio. Yeah it's sort of been our surprise hit because I mean it was on the charts for a long long time and it just you know recently started going to the top 20 and then the top 10 you know it's going pretty good and much music's been right behind it so it's really cool. You know it's like a third video and it's nice to get some recognition for it you know so we didn't waste money making it and people actually seeing it. It's cool video too with the is it all animated pretty much? Pretty much yeah. Yeah. I was pretty cool. Was it what was it like to try where you just playing in front of the screen for it? Yeah we just played in front of green screens and we got back. And watched it at over Christmas like the director sent us the copy and we just like we just loved it. You know we had nothing to do with the vision. I mean like he just like we just let him go crazy you know and he did it on the cheap and his name is Steven Scott and he's a great great director and it just came out really cool like those babies and playing in the moment. I still love watching that video.

10:49What was it like was it hard to perform in front of a green screen like to try and get into it? It was long it was a long kind of eight eight hour. It was more like a 13 14 hour day and we just spent so much time sitting around and shooting is kind of boring. Yeah that's the thing that's the only video shoots is bands don't sweat too much. You know the most of their time eating catering and drinking coffee and nap. Hurry up and wait kind of scenario. Napping and dressing them and chatting up the makeup girl you know I mean there's not a lot that goes into we got to do a video in Cuba for every inefficient which we just heard. It was we had a bigger budget to work with and this director came back to us with a treatment that involved us in Cuba and it fit the budget and we went for a week and we spent most of the time just hanging around and making ramen on and most of the bands work is pretty small you know you just get from the camera and pretend to play your song you know maybe

11:38three or four hours out of the day and the rest of you just sort of kick it around. Is it fun? Is it nice relaxing day as opposed to what you guys do? You know it's really relaxing. Yeah it was nice. Yeah it was cool but yeah I don't. It's just you it's not I don't think it's really relaxing it's a lot of running around but then just standing there and waiting for the shoot to commence and stuff. It's you know I mean it's a necessary evil but it's you know it's not the final part is where the lighting is really hot. Yeah. And like the makeup person's always there trying to make it look better like it's just the way I look I can't change it. We had Avril Lavigne's makeup artist doing ours for the last video we're not going to find any common ground here. Leave me alone go away but she was nice but she was driving me crazy. Yeah she put the black eye shut around your eyes. Exactly. Makeup people that I just cause it's so frustrating for you know a bunch of rough looking guys like you know it's just like what's the friggin point.

12:24You know just make us look the way we look people if anybody's going to buy a band like us it ain't going to be because we got a nice haircut you know what I mean it's just going to be because of what we're doing and let them take it or leave it don't try to you know don't try to polish it you know that's sort of what we're about anyway. But people seem to think they have to polish it constantly. Is that what it's like in the studio with Gordy? No he's pretty cool Gordy's like. Oh dust where my number is. Yeah only after after the studio when we get all crazy. No he uh no he's cool like he's got really good taste and music and there's a lot of really cool things happening when we're in the studio with him it's like you know we try to make it sound like you know old black Sabbath recordings or Led Zeppelin and you know that's a lot of fun because we all love that music you know. We do but has a few things but overall it's a pretty cool experience. I mean compared to the producers his bottom line is like making cool sounding rock and roll it's not like you know trying to write for the charts you know he doesn't you know

13:12I don't find he really does that. Well he's from Dick Sugar right so he knows what he's doing. What do you think he's taught you while you're in the studio? He's just showed us where we sound best you know he helped us like find the vocal range where my voice is going to sound rockin as opposed to like held back and he helped us find like certain ways of making a song really impactful in three minutes you know as opposed to four or five minutes you know he showed us how to you know get really really cool guitar tones. Yeah it was a real treat to watch and work with the sounds. Yeah. Because he really kind of shines as a real original um take on guitar sounds. This is kind of what he's most known for I'd say. That's what I enjoyed the most about it. And I'm losing my voice because I haven't pulled. Sure enough. I'm not going through puberty. He sees. Alright big another song. Tired of waiting. This is going to be the next single after record.

18:17Help you or harm your. Downloading? Yeah. Downloading. Don't do it. It's wrong. It's lazy. By CDs. I just think it's a terrible thing to have in the music industry. I think in a way the one good thing that downloading did was like it's kind of pressuring bands to put out 12 great songs with really cool packaging and you know it's kind of eliminating the one hit wonder in the sense that people aren't going to buy CD for one team anymore they're going to go to the computers. But as far as other bands that are putting out great records still I mean I think people should go and buy them. You know it's just like a book like what are you going to you know buying a book. It's a great book. It's like it makes you look better. Having a good book in your shelf. What are you going to just download like 2000 pages of computer sheets and then leave it there. It's like the same thing with music. Like it's reflects on your personality to have a good collection of music. It makes you a higher person I think in a lot of ways. I just think it's such a low stupid thing when we go to a show and people are like I don't want to bother you. You don't want to download it. You know you just want to tell those people to smart not you know and maybe spend a few

19:05less dollars on booze and maybe a bit more on some good CDs you know what I mean. I don't know. Sorry for anybody I'm insulting but it's just I just don't agree with downloading. Well if you're living with it they're taking away from it. Yeah exactly. I kind of wonder you know where all these bands sales would be if it wasn't there but I mean in the only thing I see positive about it is that's putting bands out on the road to make to make up the extra money and I think that is kind of what rock and roll is all about. I agree with what Colin just said I don't think it's the right way to go but bands are forced to come you know more bands are coming to Canada and going and playing many towns in Canada you know because they're just making up the difference you know whereas in the 80s you play like one show a year and sell like 14 million records you know it got maybe a little bit gluttonous. But bands should be on the road they should be live because you can't do it there and you can't do it anywhere. Will you guys rather someone came to see you at a show or about the CD?

19:52Yeah right now yeah for sure for sure I like people to come to the show but it would be nice if we were selling you know a ton more records to be able to take them on soft to go write a really good record like I think that like if you're always forced to be on the road because that's the only way you can make it happen it's hard to write you know killer songs and then dressing room maybe maybe you can but I think it would be nice to be able to go away and write a really great record how people buy that as well so. You guys have a show coming up in the States have you guys played the States before? Yeah we played on the border town quite a bit we like we we play in Lewis and New York Buffalo rock rock not Rochester but like Newport, Tonop, Tonawanda yeah like that area they're really cool like they get a lot of Canadian radio and they're really supportive of Canadian rock bands and like a lot of bands like the Headstones and the 5440 and tragically they always did well in those areas because they got so much Canadian radio and stuff and we do all right there and it's fun. You guys planning on maybe embark a little more south?

20:38We're hoping to for sure. You go with Nickelback? Once we get a record out our record hasn't come out there so as soon as I happen the Demotour and I really look forward to it I look forward to there being maybe two and three hour drive between cities as opposed to 10 and 12 in Canada so I mean I think that would be a real cool thing I look forward to. Alright you're gonna play a song for us on the acoustic? Yeah this one's The Year Sober on the acoustic guitar here live in the studio with Colin McDonald. I love to say you love me but I'm as humble as a bumblebee. I walk if you come with me or I make rhomba for all to see.

21:32I have the weather day by the way. Did you love me girl? The words I'm mumbled as she leave I'll be okay. As long as you want people you don't fumble and you don't grieve. You don't think weather you don't think why.

22:20So sober you poke me at your soul. Make it worthy if you're rebel the bold debris as night fades day begins.

23:05I'm noticing lately that the wind's saying the struggle in the breeze. I have the weather on my side. Oh sober you only broke your soul. So sober you. Oh your soul so.

23:56This is just crazy. Your soul so. That was beautiful. Thanks man. Alright we do a thing called 20 questions. 20 quick questions. You ready? Yeah. Favorite city to play. St. John's New Zealand. Everyone get in charge.

24:41Oh okay. Favorite city to play. Quick you. How was it? Favorite song to play live. How was the more sweet? How quick did you play? Hurry up you idiot. I'm tired of waiting. Oh when you leave. What's in your city play right now? Tragic that music at work. Elvis gusto de la blin chocolate and first black Sabbath record. Hurry up you. The black key. I don't have it yet but it will be tomorrow. Jack. Just draw a streetcore. If you could play on anyone's album who would it be? Play the full record? If you could play on anyone's own. Oh erm. Aerosmith or Bob Dylan for me. Tom Petty or erm just Tom Petty for now. It's only a good thing. The lowest of dudes.

25:26What instrument would you like to learn? The tabla. The mandolin. The liberal. If your band was in call the truth what would it be called? The assholes. Worst case scenario. I came up with two quick. If you were in a musician what would you be doing? I'd be a full time dreamer. I would be a guitar tech. Pawn star. I'd be selling pencils on the beach somewhere. Favorite sport? Hockey. Hurry up. Pat Minton. Favorite album. I'd be a guitar tech. I'd be a porn star. I'd be a porn star. I'd be selling pencils on the beach somewhere. Favorite sport? Sergeant Pepper's only high school band. Never mind by Nirvana. Cell phone by John Angus.

26:13Latin or McCartney? Latin. It's kind of like ying without yang though. I'm going to say Latin but look cartney. I was totally different. One word answer, Britney Spears. Idiot. Hot. That was two. Idiot. Hot. Idiot once. Idiot. That's one word. All right. George W. Bush. Idiot. I don't know. The season. Jack. Jack. All right. Best concert you've ever been to. Arrowsmith. I'd say Arrowsmith or ACD. Tragically hit. Both. You get one answer. Tragically Arrowsmith. Arrow hip. ACD. The songs.

26:5950 Cent or Ja Rule? 50 Cent or Ja Rule? 50 Cent or Ja Rule? You know what? I don't know. I don't know. Well Ja Rule is the poster. Ja Rule is the poster. 50 Cent is the real deal. Right? That's not what being marketed. Ja Rule is the one that goes up with the ass and holes. That's Jay Z. Come on. I respect the guy that goes up with the ass and holes. I don't know what the other guy is. Beyonce Rock. Favorite movie. I'd say what would I just watch? Beautiful Mind. That's a good movie. Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates of the Caribbean. That's right. I just saw that last week. I think it's a good. Favorite food. Italian. Subway. Meat. Meat of any kind. Alcohol or marijuana? Alcohol. I don't even say alcohol. Yeah, I think well good. Best bar in the world. Mark Hee Club. Where's that?

27:44Halifax. I would like to comment or open back the door. The Highland Tap. The Niagara Falls. Yeah. The House. Coolest celebrity you've met. Harrison Ford. Chris. I'm a fan of the house. I'm a fan of the house. I'm a fan of the house. I'm a fan of the house. I'm a fan of the house. Chris. Chris. Rich Robinson. Jack Grueger. He's actually a really cool guy. Was he? Yeah, really cool. The only Nickelback has a cool guy. Awesome. Sean. Oh, he's a drummer. He didn't make it into the control room. He was severely retarded from the blood poisoning. Alright, one word answer. The truth. Awesome. Big headed. The song. The song. The song.

28:29The song. The song. There's one more song to play. I say you can play acoustic, or you can go off the record. Your choice. Hope this is on the air. Hope this is on the air. Celebrating. Childed. Dreaming. Taking in these waterfalls. The former world got so deceiving. Before you thought you knew it all. The beauty of this city. And now you see when you can't expose.

30:12That's all for the backstage past this week.

31:22Thanks for the truth. Stop and buy. We'll see you next week in Graham Colton calls you in live on the backstage pass.

Part 2

2:56You just heard the truth, fire up ahead, debut song on the record, Dennis Thieves, sitting here with John Angus and Jack from The Band. How's it going? Good man, how you doing? Very well. I love how the album starts off with that whole stand by thing. Where do you guys come up with that? And there's kind of a little segway you can do in the first couple of songs too. Jack Douglas, the producer of the record, sort of had a little extra time on his hands in the final mix. So he had a bit of a field day with the interludes. And everything was, I thought, was really creative. The one before fire up ahead, it sounds like a rocket's going to take off. Yeah. So I like that. And everything else is just having a bit of fun with some effects and everything. So we left it all in. That's awesome. Yeah. Dennis Thieves, House of Ill fame, always that little, you know, well, Denon House, you know what I mean? We're building a house.

3:41Yeah. Slowly. You know, the next album's going to be called like, you know, the bathroom of mistrust or something, in the kitchen of ill-concedures. But yeah, what do you think? Jack's idea, to call it Denon Thieves. Was it? Yeah. Well, I was lying in bed with my girlfriend. And she actually said, why didn't you name it after one of the songs? Like, Denon Thieves? Because it was one of the songs that didn't make the record. Yeah, I was going to say. But it is an actually song that we wrote for the record. You ever play live? Yeah. Yeah, we do. Yeah. Hopefully it'll turn out. We recorded it. It might show up as a could be side or out on some compilation record, eventually. But it's a cool song. It's just we had way too many songs.

4:27We had so much material. We had like 22 songs recorded. And they wanted, like, the record company wanted us to get it down to 12, which is like, you know, was next to impossible, considering everybody had their own favorites and everything else. So 15 was what we agreed on and stuff. And there's a bunch of extra recordings kicking around still. Cool. Why do they always cut it down? I mean, there's enough room on CD for 22 songs. Why do they always feel the need to put it down? It's not a money, I think, you know. I'd have released all 22, you know, double record, or whatever like that. But, you know, I think people want to make as much money as they can off as a few songs as they can. Yeah. So, really label. Yeah. It's all right. Let's play another song. What do you want to hear? You want to hear one of the singles or? It's all yearning. We released yearning last week.

5:12Yeah, it was the second single. So I haven't heard it that much. So that one. Cool.

9:08He just started yearning from the truth, new record, Denithy, sitting here with John Angus and Jack from the band. You guys just shot a video for that last week in Toronto. Yeah. You want to tell about it? What's the theme? Stuff like that. If you can picture one of those old Shakespearean theaters where there's people all the way around. Oh, yeah? That's because we have this place was set up. And we had a, it starts off with a big curtain all the way around the circular stage. And then it drops halfway through. You see all these people around. That's awesome. Yeah, it's a nice looking thing. That was our portion of it. And it looked great. Like the set was amazing looking. And the director is now next week going

9:53to shoot a storyline portion of it. We haven't seen yet. Or we don't know what it's going to be like. We know the premise and everything, but it'll be a surprise. Well, it's actually I don't want to give away any stuff. OK. I can spare it off. Yeah. You know, call and request much when it comes out. But yeah, once we see it. Well, a better idea. But he's shooting that this week. Cool. How do you guys feel about much? I mean, at least in my point of view, I guess I'm kind of getting older out of their demo now. But sort of you guys, they turn. I don't know. It's just it's not what it used to be. I used to really enjoy watching much. And I mean, now it's just the scene. I missed the power hour and the power 30. And shows like that. I'm really grateful to much music because I mean, obviously, they've helped us out somewhere. Like having videos that could play it a lot. It's no curse.

10:40You know what I mean? It's like people come, you know? And kids that wouldn't regularly listen to the radio because they're not driving around. They know your music. But the only thing I could complain about is, and it's not just much, it's just the entire music, television format, is just leaning so heavily on reality TV and shows about becoming rock stars and shows about making videos that look like it seems like a big waste of time. I don't know. People watch it, I guess. But I can't get into it, man. But is it reality TV killed the video star? So I don't know. I just don't, I don't dig on that. But yeah, they've been forced into it because it's just the way I think they're. Yeah, I don't blame much.

11:25And they still play some good stuff. Like there's still stuff getting played, you know? So they're doing what they can do, you know? Yeah, I hear you. Let's play another song. What do you guys want to hear? Request Jack. It's how about sweetness? Cool. I like that one. Sounds a bit like so. She's leaving. I noticed a little bit. Yeah. It was going to be the second single. But I think that was the reason that it didn't, because you know when I put out two songs. Just the B, really. Yeah. The chords are all different. The melodies are all different. But it's got a similar B. Cool. I like it, man. Here it is. Sweetness, the truth. 88.3, CJIQ. You just said the truth. Sweetness, brand new track, off Denithys playing Fiddler's Green Tonight and Cambridge. Sitting here with the guys from the band. Jack Douglas produced the album. Who's next? Imagine the last John Lennon albums.

12:10He must have just been, I mean, obviously, you worked with Gordy Johnson on the first record. So you've already had great producer. But what does this guy teach in the studio? He must have just been in awe the entire time. We learned from Jack to sort of relax and let it happen. Like he's been doing it for so long. He's really come to know how to get work done like efficiently without getting too stressed out and too cut up. I mean, we have more time, which was a lot of liberty. So maybe that was part of it. But Jack just has this great sort of Zen master approach to the studio. Because he's been producing records since the early 70s. So he really taught us to just let it happen sort of naturally.

12:58And plus, he's a genius with like arrangements and little percussion ideas here and there. We learned a wealth of things like that. Plus, little tips, you know, how to, you know, teaching us how John Lennon used to record his vocals and all this kind of stuff. Oh, really? Yeah, cool things like that. I'm using the same effects or anything. Yeah, well, you know, he always said that John could mix himself on a microphone because he made all those hits with the Beatles. And then after the Beatles, you know, he never stopped recording. So when you're when you're John's, you know, singing a vocal take, he's actually mixing himself, like backing up when it's time to go loud and getting in close when it's time to get quiet and covering like, you know, covering his mouth when there's like a sharp P and a B. And this hearing those kinds of stories were like, you know, mind blowing for us. Some believe, well, I guess you had to back then. They only had a four-tracker chord.

13:43Exactly, yeah. That's so cool. Yeah, bands got, you know, got it pretty easy these days. I remember you talking about last time you guys were here, Gordy Johnson helping you with the guitar sounds in the way. That's what he did. And he knew his way around the studio and stuff. You guys worked with him again on a couple of songs. What did he bring to the picture this time? Was it more guitar sounds or was it like songwriting kind of stuff? It was songwriting, yeah. Yeah. One more song. We finished touring like House of Vulfame in November of, what was the last 2004, yeah. And we took about two weeks and went to visit Gordy and Austin. It was kind of like a vacation, like a working vacation. Yeah. It was nice to be down there, you know. Beautiful time. It was winter up here. But we ended up writing a bunch of songs and demoing them down there.

14:28And of the seven we did, I think four of them ended up on the record. But it was strictly a songwriting thing. Because he was great with the songs we brought to him were songs that have been kicking around in the song bucket for a couple of years. And we just couldn't really tie them up. It couldn't really tie the loose ends in. So we just brought him to him and he kind of brought them to life in a real good way. So that was where he fit in on this record. Yeah. He was on the show this summer talking about the scene in Austin and how great, like all these bands are there. And no one's ever heard of them. Did he show any bands? Oh, yeah. Any really cool bands that you guys want to maybe plug and tell people to listen to? Yeah, I can't even remember them. So there's one guy named Red Volter.

15:14Yeah. He was a guitar player who they claimed would be the best guitar player he'd ever seen. And we went to see him. And I think there was only about 20 people in the audience. You know, like it was just something that he plays every week. Oh, yeah. Depends on who's in town to come and see the show. But there's constantly something going on. If you talk to somebody in the street, they'd tell you where to go. And that would be completely different from the next person you talk to. They'd say, no, the best place to go is this. And every night of the week could do something different. We were back in Austin for Self-By-Self West. Yeah. Yes, my dad? Yep. OK. The bands we saw, Honky, Sticks Out. They were like good friends at Gordy's. They were like a three-piece modern day's easy top.

16:00Only sounds more like metal. OK. It's fucking great. It's OK. I'm good at it. Sorry. Chili Cold Blood, a three-piece band we saw down there. They were playing a coffee shop. That's the kind of town that Austin is. Like, you go get a coffee, and there's a band playing in the corner of the scene. That's what we made. That's what we made. Amazing, amazing band. As a guitar player, I was really, really intimidated to be down there, you know? Because the guy serving your coffee or whatever is probably a lot better than you are. So I mean, that was kind of cool. It really whipped us into shapes and all those great artists. And then, of course, when we were there for South by Southwest, we saw, you know, not local, but we saw the blind boys in Alabama. Oh, cool. Mavis Staple, Robert Plant did a show. We saw a band from Nashville.

16:46What's that band? Punk Band, open for a really, really great. The Legendary Shack Shakers, that's it. Yeah, so there's the music scene down there. It's just like, its vibraness can be. Yeah, I wish it was like that up here. I mean, you know, there's hot spots and stuff, but I don't think it's a matter of population, do you? Yeah, that's true. What do you guys think of Grady's album? You like it? I love it. Yeah. Cool. Let's play a song that you and Gordy worked on. What do you guys want to hear? Isch film, eh? Cool. I saw it on the record. Why is the last song on the record? Why does it just have to close out with it? Sounds like it's not going to close up, right? Yeah. It definitely got that, like, yeah, better go home. You know, it's got that drinking, you know, final hour, last call kind of vibe to it, so. Cool. Here it is. Do you guys close the show off with that song?

21:31No, heaven doesn't, yes, but depends on the type of show. If we get the right show, then maybe we'll do it. We've done it as an encore, so it's pretty appropriate then. Yeah. It's awesome. Over the summer, you guys mentioned Robert Plant. He also opened for the Stones this summer. After the show or before the show, do you sit down with them and do they kind of teach you stuff? I can't imagine what it would be like to sit down beside Mick J. Agar and just be like, OK, we just play the show with you. The time we spent with the Stones was brief, because they're pretty, you know, I don't know how you describe it, but they're pretty untouchable people. Like they're constantly ushered off to do something really important, even if there's nothing important to do, because it's the Stones. Robert was very different.

22:16He was like one of the boys, you know, he meant to say hi on the second show. He came to our soundtrack to say hi to everybody, and the band was off doing press. So he hung out with the crew for an hour, you know? It was a lot. There were very few legends that would, you know, do that. And, you know, and then we, of course, we had our time with them. And yeah, he had, you know, tips, advice and great stories. You want to hear a share story? It was definitely memory. Yeah, I feel like I'm plagiarizing somebody else's life, so, but he did make some, you know, we were in Calgary, for instance, and we were about to go on and we were playing the saddle dome. And he said to me, like, oh man, I played here when I was 20. I was like, yeah, we were on the row with Fudge, you know, Zeppelin's first time in North America, and we played the Stampede. I was like, no shit man.

23:01We played the Stampede this summer too. It's like, oh, it's still going then, right? Yeah, so. You guys hope to get to that level one day where you're ushered off, like the Stones or everything? We're talking about that, you know, that the Stones have had two careers in the amount of time that we've had life, you know what I mean? It'd be amazing to be doing this at 62 or 63, you know? I mean, like, I'm 24, you know, you're 24, I can't imagine, you know, I mean, I think it'd be great, but a lot of things have to happen, you know, for that to sort of be a reality. So. It would be cool to call your own shots soon. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the Stones don't tour. Nobody tells the Stones it's time to tour. Nobody tells the Stones it's time to record, you know? I hope to be making records in tour for a very long time.

23:49You can just, all you can do is hope for the best. Mm-hmm, definitely. Let's play another song. Let's go something off the old record. There's so many things on the side. Getting here with the truth.

26:49Tonight, Fiddler's Green, Irish Pub and Cambridge, you can check him out. Last time you guys were on the show, we talked about downloading. Colin said F downloading, it's not cool. You need to buy CDs and everything. That was kind of a four-eye-plods came out. So why don't you take on eye-plods and how you think, you know, like there's not gonna be albums anymore. It's kind of sad. I'm like a shuffle junkie. I have one. I have an iPod. And, but I have a rule. And my rule is that I won't put anything on it that I haven't at least purchased once in my lifetime. So I'm not saying I don't have it. I might not have it anymore. Yeah. I mean, I bought out of the road like three times. You know, if I lose it again, I'm just kind of, you know, I'll just get it off somebody else or download it or something. But also, I think, you know, I don't think you should worry about downloading dead artists because somebody else is making that money, not the artist. So it's some, you know, label head down in, you know, L.A. is making all, you know, somebody

27:35else's money. So that's another rule of thumb. I don't download new artists at all, you know, because we know what it's like to be a band trying to get off the ground and like all those things count, man. Like, you know, promoters look at record sales to see if they want to book you. And you know, that's that's income. It's all this stuff. So that's another rule I have. But in general, the iPod, I think, is one of the most brilliant inventions in the last couple years. And you don't need to download to, you know, to use it. I bought all my CDs on it. Yeah. So you can take them over. Yeah. I mean, I have like 6,000 songs and something that's like the size of my fist. It's pretty cool. Yeah, this is songs on your iPod. I'll go ahead. So what you're saying? I was just going to say, like, it would be pretty convenient to, if you were sitting at home and planning on going out to buy a record or something, if you were sitting by

28:22your computer to just download something that you've heard of. You're not sure if you want to buy it, then you download one song, and then maybe you do go out and buy it. Yeah. That's another one. That's another rule. Yeah. You can check it out. But if you like it, go buy it, you know? Definitely. Yeah. I mean, I miss, I think, you know, it's too bad that things like artwork are becoming so disposable, you know, because it's really part of the charm of a record and part of the vibe of a record. You know, hopefully that doesn't become obsolete. You know, I'd hate to have like, you know, just a screen with a picture of the band, you know what I mean? So I think, but I think it'll stick around for a little while longer anyway. I don't think it's on, it's not on its, you know, last leg just yet.

29:07Mm hmm. No, I don't know. Play on their song. My favorite one on the record is making Sunshine's got that Maggie male guitar feel to it. Who's playing, are you playing mandolin on it? Yeah. Oh, no, it's electric guitar, acoustic 12 string, and harmonium that myself and Jack play. Oh, yeah. What's a harmonium? It's a mix with the keyboard. Yeah, it's a Middle Eastern instrument. So I sat at the keyboard and hammered out the notes while Jack pumped the air into it. Oh, go away. It's completely free of cables and everything because that's the way it's powered by the air. That's cool. It reminds me of like the Acme T&P box. So that's the first sound you hear. Like, people have asked me, is that bagged by this? Yeah. No, it's the... I love it. Okay, let's play it. Making Sunshine. Tonight, Fiddler's Green Irish Pub in Cambridge, Sydney with John Angus and Jack.

33:17You put a cover on the record. Yeah. Naked, Tracy Bonham. You don't see too many covers. Well, you do kind of. I mean, David, I should've passed cover a couple years ago. Why did you guys decide to do a cover? I mean, you said you had so many songs written for you. Yeah. That came through Jack Douglas, who got his last rock record that he did was Honk it on Bobo with the Arizona record. And if you look at the credits for that album, Tracy's on two songs. She's a Boston girl as well. Okay. And she brought her in and she's got this wicked, haunting voice. She plays violin. She's got a really great songwriter. And at the end of the session, she's like, oh, I got a bunch of new songs written. She's showed Aerosmith like a bunch of songs and Naked was one of them. And I guess they all freaked and were like, oh my God, you should've showed us these earlier.

34:04So Jack's like, well, I want to show you guys these tunes before we get into the record. And that was a tune that we thought, you know, I thought Colin sang it really well. Yeah. And, you know, we're not so in a retentive that we, you know, so precious about our, you know, people, so most people think that they're artists, you know, and they want like uncompromising integrity and all this kind of stuff. But it's like, really, I mean, the first seven Beatles records are, you know, littered with other people's songs that they just happen to do really well. You know, so why be so precious about it? You know, and I mean, it's just music. It's just a rock record, you know. Whose idea was it to switch lyrics around the problem that you and I. That was Jack's idea. Well, I think in Colin, I think it would've felt a little uncomfortable. Yeah. Just the way it sounded better. Yeah. It was actually up in the air to whether we would put it on until we actually recorded

34:50it and heard the way it sounded. It actually turned out really good. Yeah. I like it. Like it was, it was on the, it was in the pool of the 22 songs and, you know, I think when it comes down to it, you got to go with the ones that, you know, turned out the best in the studio. Even if it's like, you know, one song might be stronger, but really it's about the take and you know, the vibe it has and everything else and where it fits on the record. So it ended up on there. Cool. We just think every week on the show called five questions. We did 20. I think last time you guys were here, but you know, shut up short. I'm sure it did down. You haven't got as much time. Yeah. First one is iPod or CDs. CDs. Letting her McCartney. Actually, you know what though? I'm a letting guy, but I just saw McCartney in Toronto blew my mind.

35:35I can't believe you play please, please me or I'll get you. I know. Oh, freaking out. I'll get you. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I've been going through like my McCartney phase, but on a regular day, I'm a letting guy. That's awesome. Does the label hook you have for tickets for that kind of stuff or do you have to actually do? Normally they do, but I bought a scalper ticket because I was out of town. We got back from tour that day. I got in the shower, walked out of the ACC, bought a ticket for $300 and walked in, but I don't regret a penny. I would even be played for three hours. Oh, it's great. He played a little long in between songs though holding guitar after every single. I kind of liked it though. The stories were great. The stories were great. I mean, I played for no one. I never thought I could outlive in my life. Just all these great songs. I love the new record. Oh, that's okay. Jenny, you couldn't sing Jenny Ren live though. Yours voice cracking on it.

36:21Yeah, I kind of thought that was like I thought he was doing it on a purpose. Oh, hopefully he wasn't. It was a little better. Okay, next one is Alcohol and Marijuana. A bit of both. It's a nice combination. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One in each hand. Song you've written your most proud of. She's pretty proud and not ready to go. Yeah, not ready to go. You want to blow up for you guys? Yeah. You know, I literally like to riff the fire up ahead. But the thing that we write songs is, you know, I wrote fire up ahead riff, Jack Ren already to go riff. It doesn't mean they're band songs at the end of the day. They wouldn't sound the way they are without what everybody else did to them. But yeah, pretty good. Yeah, that was been partial to got myself to blame.

37:08Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. One more one. The truth is one word. Fucked. No. Is rock and roll one word? That's one word. Rock and roll. What is it? Maritime. Maritime. It's awesome. The Novax are stopping by. Oh, man, I almost won one with Novax t-shirts. All right, let's see, you guys are fans and that's cool. They're great. They opened our East Coast tour a couple weeks ago. And they're such a cool band and a new record is like, I think, you know, one of my favorite picks of the year. Yeah, I'm standing here. I love it. Okay, I'll close it up one song, any choice off the record. You got myself to blame. You're talking about it. Cool. Yeah. Thanks so much, guys. Appreciate it. Cheers, man. All right.

Part 3

0:01Well gentlemen welcome to studio. Thanks for joining us in calling the McDonald Brothers. Yes, the McDonald Brothers, the Scottish Slides. Yes, there you go. And a family affair, the band is. Pretty much, yeah. Except for Jack. But he's been... But it's family now. We're thinking he's got a Dop best friend. Yeah, really? As a person. You're big as someone. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, who told you that? You did. Jack and you. Oh shit. He wrote the riff. Can't say that. Yeah, he did write that riff. You have to beep that out. Yeah. There's more piano on this record than before I've noticed. I know Liam from The Stills came out and ended that photo. Yeah, but we hired a guy, a really, really stupid guy named Jeff. No, no, come on. We tried to hire Liam, but he has a good... Yeah, he does. He's got a pretty big band. I'm just saying that because Jeff's the best. Yeah, yeah. Jeff, we hired a guy in the band named Jeff Haysalt.

0:48He's been with you for about a year now. Yeah, we did a tour with him. A couple tours and he's been great. You know, we definitely, for some reason it wasn't ever the intention of the album. But as we started to work on it, we realized that keys worked on a lot of them. And yeah, we just figured the material would translate a lot better live if we had a keyboard player up on stage with us. So I don't get to play keyboard like I used to, which I can't... Yeah, you started on piano. Yeah, I used to play piano a bit more, but that's okay. And Jeff's really great. So he's definitely added an extra musical force to the band. And it's made our live show pretty consistent. I find it like we've always been a pretty good live band. I think better than pretty good. Even more so in the artist. You've opened for the stones. Yeah, that's right.

1:33And plant. So yeah, I think you're up there. Yeah, things used to be really good. Hey, you nominated for the Junos. Yeah, I know. Hopefully a first win this time. Yeah, you know, I think this records our best record for my taste and what the trues do. And you know, we've never been a real critics pick of a band. We've always sort of been like, you know, more than a couple of years ago. You know, more just a fans pick. A fans pick. Yeah, there you go. Which is probably a better thing anyway. And it is a better thing, but it's nice to be like this year we've been nominated for two Junos and four indies. And I think people recognize the quality of the record. I hope that's what I like to think. And it makes me proud of it because we were all proud of the record when we made it. We thought it was a good step in the right direction for the band. For sure. And you know, it remains to be seen and we'll see how time judges it and it's getting time for us to make a new record now.

2:23Yeah, you starting to write some new stuff? Yeah, we've been writing quite a bit. So hopefully trying to get something together for the next year or so. Nice. It was a good running record. I ran to it every day in the spring. Oh, yeah? Yeah, it was a good time to be a really good singer. That makes me sound very gay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She gets on the ever admit to running. She gets on the elliptical and speeds up every time we get to get stuff left. There you go. And she says, it has to be the single because I run faster when it comes on. Or if we can drive faster when it comes on. Or not. Or dangerous. We have red light cameras here and speed cameras here. You got to be careful. Yeah, not fun. We almost got T-boned last night coming in from the airport. Yeah. And our van was going through and missed us by about foot. And at the airport, some other like, Hicks in a pickup truck like pulled up right on to like,

3:13yeah, crazy. At loading baggage. Like, man, I don't know. I don't know if those red light things are working. Yeah, maybe not. And we need some more of them even though I hate them. Well, you're talking about can't stop laughing. It's the single. Maybe we should play for people. Yeah. It's a little bit of a back story. A little bit of a back story. Someone challenged you. It was Ron Hines in St. John's Newfoundland. He's one of the best songwriters in Canada. I was going to say people should listen to his music too. Yeah, it's amazing. And he, I met him downtown St. John's one night. He said, I want you to write me a song called I can't stop laughing and I'm not even happy. So he's gone through a whole phase. Every time we see him where he says he's sick of doing the work. He's like, you know, I love songs but I'm sick of writing them. It's just too much work. So I want to come up with lines and give them to bands. There we go. So he gave us that line and said, you know, go with the grace of God.

3:59And we went and wrote it in our rehearsal space and everybody loves it. Like we all love playing it live. It's kind of like we're really, I think it's, it's kind of in our blood, that Celtic music. And I think it, if there's a certain level of authenticity to it when we do it, I think people can sort of go like, yeah, yeah, of course. You're your hosters. I mean, this makes sense. And we actually drink too much. I mean, yeah, yeah. It's not a bad thing. It's all real. There's no posturing. Bagpipes on the song. Yeah. Different. Yeah. I remember last time the first time you guys came to the studio I asked you if you could learn any instrument, what would it be? Yeah. You said mandolin, you said tabla. Did I? Yeah. Have you even tried to pick them up? I've played mandolin. I've played mandolin. I've played mandolin on our last record a little bit. And I play it on a few acoustic songs. But I never took the tabla up.

4:46I don't know why I said that. I must have been because of within you and without you from Sergeant Pepper. Oh, yeah. Maybe you were being a pepper phase. That's sounding drums like recorded. You know, I don't know if I enjoy those sound on that record. But you're playing bazooking. I bought a bazooking. What is that? It's a bit like a mandolin and a bit like a banjo, but it's like traditional guitar-esque instrument of grease. String, though. I think it's a great big long scale neck with a really deep body. And I use it on... I think I know what they look like. I use it on acoustic set. I use it on Manatee two minds. Actually Manatee two minds on the record is on there as well. Nice. So it's always nice to pick up an instrument.

5:32I think any musician would attest to a new tuning or a new instrument can open up a new world of creativity. Definitely. So it's always nice to challenge yourself there. Who's playing the bagpipes? It's funny. We're from the East Coast where having a bagpipe is part of your birthright. You learn how to play bagpipes right out of the room. And then we go to New York and hire a acidic Jew who plays bagpipes on a record. There's coffin notes. Yeah. It was really cool and he was great and more power to him. And it was just kind of ironic that a bunch of guys of Scottish descent were in Brooklyn, New York, I don't know, Jewish guys. Definitely looking for a record. Yeah, because there's not a lot of bagpipe players in New York City. I mean, there are, but there are. You don't know what to look for them. Yeah. You know, from there. There's everything in New York City. This is true. We found him.

6:17So that's cool. Ask every man that comes in five questions. One word answers. Road or studio? Fuck. I can't say that. Oh, yeah. Right. That's a one word answer though. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, I'm all I'm going to say is sometimes. I don't know. Okay. Road. I'm going to say no either. Okay. Depends on the crappy answer. But whatever. I'm going to say that's better than the F word. I'll take it. Landon or McCartney? Landon. Landon. Landon. It's how I mean, that's the weirdest. I had to expound. You know, last time we talked it was right after McCartney came to Toronto. Right. So you said McCartney. Yeah. I started off with that time. I met a song the last time, but it's so fashionable to say Landon. Because he's dead. Right. I mean, McCartney.

7:02And the cooler one in a way. Yeah. Yeah, the rebellious one. But I mean, McCartney for consistency of the real. You got a lot. You got to love a survivor. You got to mind your job was robbed of his life. But at the same time, the author of the 70s, you know, like John Lennon went dormant for six years and he just kept going and going and going. You know, it's kind of like a. There's a lot of garbage in there too. There's a lot of garbage. But the thing is he's, he is, you know, sometimes you got to go there. He's living on the bright side of life. Which he is. It's kind of rare for artists. Yeah. Good point. One thing that Stone's did in the 70s, which I really admire is they, because everything in the 60s got so heavy and so real and it still lives with us and it still haunts us because the greatest artistic output for popular music was probably the late 60s. But what happened for the bands that I had to survive, they had to kind of lighten it up a bit. I mean, the Stones almost became kind of so funny and parody, just a parody.

7:50But in a good way, you know, some girls is amazing. But you know, that's the only way to survive as a band. You can't always be trying to look for the only good answer because if you do, then you're Kurt Cobain and then you're going to end your life. And like those guys get so out there and so fucked up, but they were so messed up. And one thing that's really cool is when a band can figure out a way to just sort of keep on keeping on. And maybe that means just kind of walking up the mountain as opposed to trying to climb as hard as you can and go crazy and just kind of keep going, set up tent every so often. And this is our album, it's not the Be All End All, but it is an album. It is rock and roll and we will continue. I like it. Deep answer. So one more dance. For Leonard McCartney. I learned that. Of course, that being said, we both said Leonard. Yeah. And who doesn't? Because anybody who gets whispered melodies from God, you have to laugh.

8:39That happened? For John Lennon. Yeah. Anybody who can wake up in the morning and kind of lays around the house and then write a day in the life. Yeah, it's a good point. It's creepy. Alcohol, I remember one on a lighter note. So I'm going to... One answer. Both. Yeah. No. You hear that more often than you'd think. Yeah. So I'm going to be written your most proud of. In one word? Well, it doesn't need to be one word. That one. Funny guy. I like it. Cool. It really connects. The close out to Genethys. Yeah. Yeah, probably Ishmael and Maggie or... Or... You know, I'd like to say something more to do with. I don't know. It's funny. Most people say they're newest songs. And I like how you went back with that. I really like a song. I like Be Love so much.

9:25On the new record. Yeah. And because I love that it's such a synthesis of all these different influences. And I don't know if that flies over people's heads. Yeah. I was thinking the other day when you called from London about how you said Take Be Love and Ocean's End of the Record. I made a playlist on my iPod without those songs. Yeah. And it's a better album without those two songs. There you go. Hey. Wait, into each other? I remember they also... That's Deanethys. Deanethys. Yeah. Oh yeah, it was Deanethys. Deanethys. I had a dream last time. It's Jack Douglas' decision. He's... You know, Jack. On the topic of London. He's such an artist, exactly. But he's such an artist unto himself that he gets bored easily in the studio. So the engineers will be mixing the record. And he's like, I need more cigars. You know? I'm going to go in the other studio and make a bunch of interludes. You know, it's like, okay, Jack, go ahead. Sure. I just want some bird sounds and I want some coscrash.

10:12It was actually really cool. These days I'm really missing Jack Douglas' approach because I just find he's really... It's just a... No. Why? No. Yeah. Just do it. You know, it was none of this neurotic fear that kind of grips every band trying so hard to be cool and trying so hard to be... Oh no, we have to do this. We have to do that. You know, but I like that old school mentality of like, fuck, frig it. You know, like, just record it. Yeah, it's cool. That was fine. Do it. I like that. You know, and none of this kind of like, oh, what are we? Who are we? What's going to happen? No, that's what the world's like. Music should be free and fun. Yeah, exactly. Revolutionary in its own dumb ass way. Well, it's just so many... It's a stressful business now. And more stressful now than it used to be in the 60s. But it's not the man's one. Because you can't make the money used to me.

10:57But that's the man's... Even then... That's the man's job. Right. And he's making money. Right. It was very pure. It was like, we do it because we love it because we like girls screaming because we like this. We like this. It wasn't... We do it because we want to be rich. It's like most people thought they'd have to do something else in 30, in 10 years. When they got to 30, like, they all figured out, yeah, well... Yeah, you see those early interviews with them. Well, how to do something else. You know, like, this is just for fun. It's pure, you know? I mean, like, where everybody's plotting their careers. Like, what do I want to be at 45, you know? And how am I going to be cool? And how am I going to be... Or either... How am I going to be cool? I just think people take it too seriously sometimes.

12:02And maybe that might have happened to us a little bit along the way. But I'm really missing the kind of just fun freedom of... Yeah. You can say that now, though, being in one of the bigger bands of Canada. But for someone starting off, they kind of almost need to plot their career. Yeah. Well, but the only thing is we didn't... We... It was a lot of us plotting that went on in the mind. Yeah, I'm sure there was for you. Well, he was... He was... We were a fucking... We were a freaking... We were really all over the place. We're glorified. We're glorified. We're glorified buskers. I mean, there was... We got rejected at every step of the way. And we... Our first album, we had this huge single. Well, a couple of them. Yeah, a couple of them. And it was great and fun and fun. But it wasn't like... It was kind of... Nothing was planned.

12:47It was all accident. It was an accident. And you're right, though. You have a good point. There are young bands out there like, what am I going to do? But you know what? Go with love. Yeah, my love is very Beatles-head. My advice would be just to keep it pure. Because even back then, you get caught up in making somebody of yourself. And everybody has that in every kind of division of their life. I got to be like a world-class accountant. I got to work on Bay Street. I got to do this. And I think music is best played with none of that concern. Oh, yeah. And all the people that eventually do get to a place where they're a bit comfortable, they realize, God, I just wish it was a simpler all along. And I wish I had that approach all along. And so I think that's like... You know, I see advice I would give. Just keep it pure. Have as much fun and work hard.

13:33But realize that you're there to entertain people. Yeah, it is a fine line. Because you do have to have a certain amount of drive and ambition. Because Bruce Springsteen made Born to Run. And he was working 20 hours a day on the album. It's a great, beautiful, life-affirming album. But it's a fine line. It really is. You've got to work hard at having fun. And it's a lot more complicated, like you said, than even we're making it sound right now. But it's like a real fine line. It's like if you can get out there and just make people kind of go, yeah, I know. Critics don't matter. People matter. And people can feel it, especially live. They can feel when it's a real deal. You know, maybe it might be really hard in the world of Britney Spears and the world of all this stuff. But being out there and just being able to go to your common person and say, you know,

14:21I'm like, this is it. And they can feel it. I've never worked for the truth. You know, like, it didn't really, we didn't break until we got out there and got in front of people in Canada because we were like, oh, this is a laugh. You mentioned the big song. Did it ever happen in the States? Not yet. Oh, yeah. We finally got our record deal in place with some people that are willing to put some money where their mouth is, we haven't done it right yet, right? We haven't also claimed it didn't even come out. Yeah. Donatees came out on red, which was a bit of a joke, and no money. What's the got out there? At least people can buy them on iTunes and one, all right. We got the tour. in the US and we got to a point where we just sold out a thousand C venue in Buffalo and imagine these are border towns. We can do well in Detroit, we can do well in New York, we can do all Chicago, but it's like we never got the national push that I think we're gonna be embarking on in the next six months.

15:08If everything goes well. The plan. You do have a bit of a plan. The best short term plan. The best laid plans of my cement. No, so let's see, yeah, right. There's a blueprint, there's a skeletal blueprint. Yeah. But we'll see if it comes to fruition. And what we want to do is just build that country like we built this country and just bigger and harder to do. So we're just gonna set our sights on there for about six months and then hopefully have a work on record, you know, after that. Yeah. And you're right. There's a plan. We're just trying to take the philosophy towards like, like the plan is to go down to the States and hopefully get something going on so we can keep doing the truths, which is what we've all worked out and love. But at the same time, when you show up, we're gonna be in San Francisco next month and we'll be in Seattle and we'll be in

15:55Denver. Denver. And every one of these places is gonna be small crowds. Like guaranteed. Yeah. But you can go in there and say, this is just one stepping stone towards my ascent to fame. Or you can go in there and say, nope, this could be the last gig that Shrews ever play. And these 20 eccentric people in San Francisco are going to really love it because you got to bring that energy to it. Because a mistake that a lot of bands make in this business is they think of, they're not in the now. They're thinking, this is just a stepping stone to me becoming a famous person. And I don't think that's a good attitude. I think the attitude should be, I'm a musician, I play music, I go out and play for people.

16:40And if there's 10 people there and if there's 10,000 people there and our band has done both. Yeah, I'm sure. You do the same job every time. All shows are go shows. All shows are go shows. No shows and no shows. Nice. Longest answer ever for a favorite song. Yeah, right. One word. You caught me after a cappuccino. We're expounding. Yes, there you go. I'm trying to think I look a little like a Russian poet. A Russian poet, if you will. Yeah, I do. A Russian poet. One word. It's only because of the TV. Sorry. One word, the truth. One word. Sure. Sure. Sure. I've heard like sidewalk, brick before. No, the truth. Sure. All right, I like it. You told me a story about Robert Plant about Calgary.

17:28Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Do you want to tell the audience in Calgary? They've since made up. Oh, what sort did I tell you? What happened, the long and the short of it is, we played our version of Bohemian Rhapsody in Edmonton. On a bet from the radius. On some kind of dare or bet. And we didn't think it would be a big deal, but it really set Robert off. And he didn't want, because he closed with it. And we got a standing ovation. And I don't think that didn't sit too right with him. And in his defense, he's probably right. He's pretty. It's really cheap to go out and play like one of the biggest, most amazing songs ever. And yeah, we weren't thinking. We weren't thinking. That's a business decision. It's cheap. But for the fans, it's fantastic. The fans loved it. Like I said, we were young and just saying like, yeah, let's mess with the legend.

18:14So anyway, in Calgary, Sean and I got a bit of a reprimand from them, which was kind of surreal. I think it started with Sean, though, be more than you. Well, I was there. I was standing next to him. It was addressing Sean, which was all Sean's fault. And I thought that was like, I can't believe I'm being reprimanded by the lead singer, Led Zeppelin. But we made up, we were in that night on stage in Calgary, he actually gave us a huge shout out and said, we're part of the great lineage of Canadian songwriters. And there's really sweet stuff to hear from a guy with a big plant. And I looked what's happened. It's amazing what that guy is doing. One thing he's always been about and one thing we talked about a lot when we were on the road with him, was pushing forward and forging on and being current and relevant. And he was really, that Mighty Wiranger album was really,

18:59he was really going out there and hanging stuff out. Well, and again, too, with a new record with Krause. And then with Krause, all of a sudden, five-time grandi winner. Yeah. Yeah, every Grammy imaginable. And totally current and relevant. And I have nothing but respect for a guy like that who can always forge on and find new creative avenues. And I mean, he could always go back and just tour with Zeppelin and make millions. Yeah, and he's saying no. That's the best part. Exactly, you know? And that's really well the worst part at the same time. But yeah. But you know, I mean, how good could that be? I mean, I would love to see it, but it's like those guys aren't that age anymore. I know. That was a moment in time. What he's doing with the Halcyn Krause is 10 times better than what Zeppelin would be now.

Part 4

0:00Yeah, stop bringing this paper and pay attention to what we're doing. No, okay. So you guys are on an acoustic tour now. You've been on acoustic tour for a while. Yeah, we've been on the Friends and Total Strangers 2.0 tour. 2.Y. 2.0. Because this is just the Bieber released his first record. You've been 2.0, so we're redoing the acoustic tour 2.0. What you guys, you're on the same label as the Beebz, aren't you? Yeah, very so. Similar sense of style? Yes, of course. But I think equally cute, depending on who you ask. Cute. And, no, yeah, we've been rocking this tour again, which has been great fun. The show's been great. Lots of people coming out, which is awesome. We got a great band opening for us named Tim Chason in the Morning Fold, but it's just Tim and his guitar player, Tien. Oh, cool. And he gets up and plays in the second set. Whether he plays Fiddle and Tien plays in the extra guitar and mandolin.

0:48And we got our Jeff Haysault on the accordion. So it's just been a lot of it. It doesn't even feel like work at all. It's just like great time. The second set has turned into this mammoth sing-along. And all we really have to do is start the song. And the audience does the rest. We start the song and reach for the beer. That's all you can ask for, really, is to sit down and chill. These acoustic tours are definitely a labor of love for us. Not that we don't love doing it, period, but it's like it's not not just sounding like old men, but it's easier on your ears. The shows are earlier. You know, we're doing a stage band that I'm a very old man right now. First we talk about Bieber. Yeah. And we start to see the gay and Bieber. One last time you plugged in though, because you're plugging in for the Grey Cup shows. We plugged in all of us. We did 14 shows in 12 days in Australia, is that right? Something like that. And they were all plugged in. So it's not going to be like, oh my god, how do we play this again?

1:35No, no. If anything, it's like playing acoustic guitar is harder than playing electric guitar. I mean, for all the reasons he said, it's a little easier on your, like physically a little easier on you. I don't have to jump around and break my back and my knees and stuff. I mean, acoustic guitar strings are harder to manipulate than electric guitar strings. I always look forward to it. Everyone we've been doing the most, the opposite one. Getting back to the opposite, you know, it's kind of always fun. Something new, speaking of something new. Writing again, because I mean, it's been a long time since we heard that we knew. We got a new record coming out. It's done. Oh, really? We started it late January at the bath house in Kingston, Ontario, which is the tragedy of the studio. Oh, yeah, nice. And it was kind of a record by accident. I mean, we didn't really plan on making an album at the time. We were just demoing for what we were, we were just going to demo there and see what

2:21we're going to do with the material. But the material started to come. It was coming pretty quick. And it was really, I thought really, really good. We all felt it. And before we knew it, I mean, by June, we had a record done. And we're going to release it, I think, March of next year, maybe April. As I looked at the universal rep. And we're hoping to drop a single in January. We've been playing it for friends and fans, just as we've been on tour and everybody's been really digging it. And most importantly, we're digging it. Oh, yeah, of course. What's the name of the album? No, well, if you have that too, yeah. But no, I've been thinking the single. So people, if you guys are playing live, they know which one is going to be. We still have a track six. We know track six. We just have a name. Track six. Well, I think we're leaning towards a song called Hope and Ruin.

3:06But it's not been confirmed 100%. And the songs we've been playing on the road that have been the new songs, just been three or four of them. But that hasn't been a regular one because we're saving it. So that's like a huge surprise. Of course. Now that I let the Canada to the bag. Who produced it? Jan Angus and Gordon Sinclair from The Tragically It. Oh, wow. So big can rock record. Yeah, it's a can rock record. Yeah, Jan Angus. And yeah, you guys just sort of sat me on the console. The two Scorpio's. Really like we've been doing and produced the record. But it's our fourth or fifth record. And you know, if you count the acoustic one. And everybody knows in the band how to make a record now. So the role becomes a little less important. And it's just about who's like willing to sit there the longest and go over the details. You know what I mean, really? And Gord has been a great guy to collaborate with because he's encourages strangeness.

3:55And he's all about the take. And on our last record, we did it the way most rock bands do it. And we all split up and everybody was doing their own tracks and their own time. And it was just like, if you got it wrong, you just go back to the start until you get it right. And on this record, we were literally playing the take as a band like up to 30 times for some songs. And it was Gord's old school approach. Like, you know, he was always quoting Don Smith who died while we were making this record actually. But Don Smith did Tom Petty and all these records. The first couple of hit records. And he's Richard's records. Yeah. So we kind of took his philosophy to heart and really just played, you know, until we got the take. That sounds like, I think you told me Jack Douglas worked that way too. Jack did. Do whatever you guys want. Jack did work that. Yeah, for sure. The last thing at the bathhouse though is that we were coming in with just like, not

4:40even like, even close to finished songs. We were just coming in with little ideas that we had. Everybody brought in something this time around. And we'd work on it in the morning. And we'd usually have the song done before supper. And then we'd take a break and then we'd start recording it that night. And then we'd record from like 7 p.m. until probably like 3 a.m. And then we'd eventually just hit the wall and then wake up the next morning and finish off that recording and then start another song. It was pretty. I mean, I really enjoyed the process. How demanding is he as a producer? He's not, he's really, you know what? He's a hard working guy. He doesn't settle for, he's really laid back and really polite and really awesome and super sensitive. He's not going to, he's not one. He's talking about me and Gordon. I think he's talking about Gordon, but I meant John. Oh, I was talking about Gordon. This guy's up. Terrible guy. Terrible guy.

5:25No, but, no, but overall I thought Gordon was really, but he wouldn't settle for like a sub-par take. He'd let us know as a opinion without being like a jerk about it or anything. He'd be like, no, I don't think we haven't yet. Right. So it was fun and we had a great time. I hope people like it. I'm sure they like all the other ones. What makes you think this will be any different? We really love this record, but you guys don't. Nobody else does. It's all right. Well, as long as you guys like it, that's all that matters. You're the one that has to play it every night. That's true. That's true. Three years or whatever. I do, we're going to play highway heroes right after the remembrance they think tomorrow. Okay. Do you guys just want to talk about it a little bit? It's tough when I talk about it because every time out of my mouth it comes out different. It's like such a touchy subject. Our main concern was that we didn't come off like we were milking tragedy for any great

6:15gain. The song came and the song was good and we knew the song was good and that it had like weight to it and point and see to it and it wasn't shit. I don't know what that I can attribute that to. You maybe said the song came before the topic, but so we decided when we put it out that we would draw in the Canadian Hero Fund and direct all the money that was earned from the single to them. They collect monies to distribute to families of the fallen soldiers so that spouses can get re-educated or the children can go to college and stuff like that. It's the breadwinner is gone. Michael Ball at the Hero Fund does great work and it's been great collaborating with them. It's a tough one. While you hear them I might as well get clips for the other songs that we play.

7:02Just throw them in us like storyteller bits or whatever. Can't stop laughing. This is a song that I have a very good friend in Ron Hines. He's one of the great songwriters this country has ever produced. I think one of the great songwriters of the whole world. He wrote Sunny Stream which is a pretty classic tune and we become friends with him over the last bunch of years. I was downtown in St. John's Newfoundland in 2006 on a campus tour. I was on Duckworth Street at a bar getting a drink and I ran it to him. He told me if I bought him a glass of Jameson he'd give me a line for a chorus. For a $6 glass of Jameson maybe even a bit more than that I got. I can't stop laughing and I'm not even happy. We just took it back to the jam room and made a little story out of it.

7:51Did you get them running credits? Yeah, nice. Absolutely. We're kind of you. Yeah we're not like Led Zeppelin about it. Yep, while I hear you and Plant almost got into a little fight once. We actually did. Me and Shawn and Robert Plant. It wasn't a fight. I mean, he ate Robert Plant just in this town. He was in the Amazon. Was that Rex all place? It wasn't a fight. It's just I think that he is either the second biggest band of all time. Only second to the Beatles. I agree. I've done it. One of them literally. They sold the most amount of records. Oh, yes. Actually, let's go that. Beatles or Zeppelin for either of you? I grew up on Beatles first for me, but Zeppelin really took over in high school and I don't know him now. It'd be too impossible to really call it. I liked them both. Rolling Stones. Stone?

8:36Okay, fair enough. I like the Rolling Stones better than both those bands. So when we were on tour with him, he's really a no BS kind of fella. He really is. He was actually really cool. He was cool with it. Yeah, he used to come to our sound checks and check us out. He was very confident near the band. One night we were at another radio station in town, which will remain nameless. And somebody called in. Somebody called in and said, hey, I heard you guys do Wehemingraps City and really make my night if I could hear it tonight. And we're the kind of band that gets really bored on the road really easily. And I'm really game for taking requests. If it can make somebody's night in for us, it's just great. We were placed not ready to go. I've played that 8 million times. We did it. We closed the show with it. We were opening Ovation at Rex Hall Place. The next thing we knew we got in our dressing room, we were all high-fiving great show, you

9:24know, and the role manager for Robert Plank, he was like, Robert's not happy about this. He wants to talk to you. And we're like, oh. And the next day at the Calgary Saddledale. Getting too into my fucking role. He told our drummer aside, of course. We'll cut it out. Sorry, cool. The next day at the Calgary Saddledale, our drummer Sean, who had nothing to do with the Boheenie and her Habsity request was sitting there reading his book. He did play drums on it. He did play drums. But he sat there in the garden, and Robert took Sean aside to reprimand him. He's like, you know, we don't want to be leaning on the past. We had to push music forward. And this is like, Freddy was a personal friend of mine. You know, I just believe it wasn't that cool. And I remember, I asked Robert Shown, I was like, you know, when I was a wee child in St. John's Newfoundland growing up, I never imagined I'd be at the Calgary Saddledale being told off by Robert Plank to book covering Boheenie and her Habsity. That's insane. That wasn't a bad Robert Plank either, I guess.

10:10But you know, my secret, and Robert, if you're listening, you could confirm this. I sure hope you do so. My secret suspicion is that I don't think he liked having a standing ovation if I was opening a hat. Yeah. I love the guy. I love him, and he was an amazing guy. And that night, because I think he felt bad for, you know, wagon his finger, he actually gave us like the hugest props from the stage. He was like, Canada's always had the greatest, rich tradition of songwriters from Leonard Cohen and the band and Johnny Mitchell and the trues. And I was like, we can like, now are we not belonging that way? I was sitting in the audience. I think it's true. I love it. I love questions, one more answers. Okay. Rode or studio? Rode. Rode. Lennon or McCartney? Lennon. Lennon. Most important thing in the song. Lyrics, melody or rhythm? Ooh.

10:55Uh, melody. Rhythm. Song you've written you're most proud of. Highway heroes, traveling kind. You changed your answer. I have to. Oh shoot. Oh shoot. See? That's how you talk about it. There you go. Uh, that's a tough one. I don't know. Pass. Alright. Um, hard working. Um, that's a good one though. Yeah, that's not a word. That's two words. It's a hyphenate word. It could be. Drunk. Fantastic. Glad you guys came in hammered. Cool. Alright. Awesome. So you guys are going to play us a song. Um, the guitar is here. The Gibson's. Yeah. Uh, man of two minds. Nice slow tune this afternoon. Yeah. Uh, tell me about it. Uh, I wrote it with a girl in Toronto and it was actually a song about a woman of two

11:42minds but I couldn't really sing about being a woman of two minds now. Could I? No. So there you go. Hey this is Colin. This is John Angus. We're from the trues and you're listening to 95-7 The Sound.

Part 5

0:01So what do you have? So yes, you guys are busy. Been busy, man. Do you ever take breaks? Like, you've been touring since I met you like eight years ago. Yeah. Longer than that, really. It's probably been about a decade. I mean, we stop to make records. And we stop when there's reason to stop. You know, there's the odd vacation here and there. But we haven't done anything significant. Like, we haven't taken six months off. Do we ever? Can you? We could. I mean, yeah, we could. The answer is yes. But we get, I think we bore easily. And we were sort of always eager to get back to one or the other, whether it be back on the road or back to writing, back to recording. And recording was really quick this time. You want to from what I read? Well, the EP is kind of a stop gap move, you know.

0:48Like, it's like getting to clearing the slate before we start again with the writing. You know, at least these songs were sort of hanging around for a couple of years. So it was good to get him out. And then now we can concentrate on him and he said the songs. You've been working on new songs? Yeah. Can you write on the road? We're, we don't really write too much on the road, but we've always got stuff we're working on. Like, there's always a couple of days here there when we're either at the jam space. And somebody's got ideas. I find everybody in the band is writing a lot more on the road now. So people are bringing them on. What do you mean by that? Lyrics too? Not so much lyrics. More of this musical ideas. You know, look at these and the riffs. They'll bring those to the table a lot more like Sean and Jack are bringing more to the table. Yeah, so when we get together, I think everybody does their homework

1:36a bit more than we used to. At least all the sort of going in and just try to hammer something out of the spot. But I think that everybody's doing more homework now. So there's always stuff to work on which is, which is good. So it gives us something to start with next year when you go in and make the new album. So that's the plan next year to start. Yeah, I mean really. It's kind of getting into it. It's always just seems like an inevitability. When things slow down, you're like, OK, well, you either stop or you keep going. So it's like, we just started to choose to keep going. Keep seeing if we can write some new material, a better material, and just keep striving for more. And who do you want to work with? Like I was listening to that at the end of the day, just in preparation for this and just the work Jack Douglas does. It's just amazing. Yeah, Jack's good. I mean, I don't know if you have the opportunity to do that again. We do. We do. It's cool. He's very cockily fired, Jack. Oh, never mind that.

2:22Fuck him. No, no, no. It wasn't anything he did. He's a great producer. We just wanted to take it in a different direction. We were getting, it's kind of an odd twist to fate, but we were getting kind of slagged for being too retro and too classic rock. That was the biggest criticism of our band, our first two records. And I mean, that's what we liked, what we listened to. But it was like a big source of brick walls and the stakes, for instance. We signed the band, but they're a little too classic rock, a little too retro, too vintage, all this kind of stuff. We decided that we'd make no time for later a more current sounding record. Yeah, you're the best. It's probably best not to hire a producer over 60 philanthropic current sounding record. So we didn't do it with Jack. And I love Jack dearly and he's great producer

3:07and a very talented man. And a lot of people still think that that he's still a lot better record. So it's Jack's credit, he definitely brought out a good title of the band. And then about two years later, everybody and their dog is playing classic rock and making it current. And they have so good go figure. I guess we were ahead of the curve or way behind it. Which is what's the difference? Do you mean that in terms of the black keys and the sheepdogs coming this thing? Exactly. And so that wasn't really going on when we came out as bearded, long-haired classic rockers. We wrote songs that sounded like Mountain in the James game. And that was never really hit. So until recently. So has that helped you guys? Has that resurgence done something that you've not been playing? Really? Because you've strayed so far from it now.

3:54It's like a new guide. We're moving into something else. I think we're moving into an established phase of the career where we can go out. And bands like that stick around for a long time, like breaking so you're slow. And they eventually move into a phase where they just tour and make money and make records. And it's sort of like they're not riding the Coaches of a Scene anymore. And I think we're moving more into that phase of our career, especially with the acoustic side of things where we can put these shows on sale and people just want to come and see it. And there's no hype driving anymore. Yeah, it's interesting. That's true. And I just think it's a function of the hard work we put in, of touring over and over and over for the last 10 years and building a trust that the fans have that we're going to put on 100%.

4:39We're going to give it 100% every night. So I think that new bands don't have that luxury. They're just constantly fighting and pushing and pushing. That gives them a certain fire. But you can't do that forever. It's a move into like a second or third phase of your career where you're just yourselves and people trust that you're going to do your best and that you have a stamp. You said so much now that I don't want to touch on. I don't know where to take it. You guys told me once no show is a no show. Every show is a go show. What's the quote? Someone throw it in this. I think that's what it was. It was something I heard my guitar tech, Tim Naxay, who was the hips guitar tech. And that was their philosophy. And it was before we worked with him and hit. I always thought that was really inspiring. What's the quote though? I think every show is a go show. Every show is a go show. No shows are a no show. OK. Yeah, that's what they're going to do. Or no stuff is a no show or something like that. And I always was inspired by that band's.

5:25You know, well, first part of the megaphone frigging awesome band from Canada. But also, they just play hard all the time. We always took a page and a good book for that. We like the fact that they played hard. And that's what we do. Always throwing our voices in. Yeah, I've never seen a bad show. And it's funny I've been in like 12 of them now because you guys don't stop. You just seem to constantly lose your agent. Colin? Well, James. OK, Ralph. So are you telling you? All a famer this year. Really? He's going in the CMW Hall of Fame. Oh, nice. Yeah, I'm just kidding. They just keep giving up the same thing. It's the greatest day of Starbucks ever. Oh, we got it. Are you telling him to book you in rooms that you've never played? Because I feel like you guys are just playing every single room across the country. Yeah, it's a function of being like, like internationally, we're still growing.

6:12We're not in a stable place internationally. I think the only place he's going with, right? Australia's going well. And canvas are the only places that we've been established and in money making. I might make some like I'm just being business minded. But I mean, like, it's like the way we make our career. It's gross. We have to like play this next amount of shows and stuff. And it's just a matter of it's a small country. I mean, we love touring it. It's a huge small country. And you have to shake it up. You know, you have to get into some rooms that, you know, aren't this thing you play every time. It's just to give people a different angle on the band. We try to shake up our shows every time we go on tour with it right now on the acoustic tour. We're doing our whole second set as an all request show via Twitter. So fans can tweet in the request. And we play them.

6:58They write our whole second set. So part of changing it up because we've toured the country so many times and I'm sure we've seen this hundreds of times. You know, it's just like changing the band who's changing it, like playing it small with a seat and theater as an early acoustic show versus playing the big sweaty rock club versus opening it. It's a bigger, leaner person than ever band. It's like, we just started it all. There is a cool thing about that because, you know, you're always going to shake it up, adapt to the situation, which is good for keeping things spontaneous and exciting. How are the news songs coming out? I mean, that Lord tune obviously. We're playing the ball. We're playing the ball. On this, in the last week alone, we played the ball. Who's doing the riff on a living? Is that you? Like the thin sounding. The thin riff is with Rob. Oh, OK.

7:44Are you doing a lot of it? I'm doing a lot, yeah. That must be interesting to play on the two stages. It's done with a B-bender guitar. OK. So that's what gives us that sort of like half pedal steel. Kind of sound. Funny Rich told us that he would come up. He said, I would love to come up, but you got to find the B-bender. And I don't even know why he wanted it, but it turned out to work perfectly for that song. It was like a simple twist to fade. It worked out good. Well, Billman French. He didn't even know the song. He just was like, I just want to be a B-bender. I want to play a B-bender. Like, OK, cool. I guess you're playing B-bender. He was fantastic. Where did that come from? How come, why is he on this record? We met Rich back in 2006 when the crows first got back together. You never remember that? Actually, no, I met him before then. We met him when he was doing his solo thing. We didn't do a run, but we met him through Gordy's.

8:29We met him for a long time. Remember he had us over? No, we did just like him right now. Go to John. We went for dinner. That was a stupid question. Yeah, yeah. He was playing bass in Richard's band. We all had dinner. We met him. And I caught a couple of shows in, sort of, statelessly in touch when the crows got back together. He would hook us up with tickets, and we'd hang out, and have some drinks, and always sort of stayed in touch. I'd text him for a play in Atlanta or New York. But musicians are always ships passing in the night, like necessarily in the same place at the same time. But then in ramping up to make this recording, Gordy just thought your solo was going to be like, it's kind of cozy, it's very rich Robinson asking away. That's the piano? Yeah, OK. And he said, well, let's just see if Rich is available. So he called him, and Rich is like, loved to come.

9:15And it was there like two days later, and it just really worked out. A lot of things about this record were like, synchronous stick. I don't even know how to word it. But there was a lot of synchronousity going on. Things were just falling into place very quickly, and I think that's why it was made so. And what about writing for you guys? I know these songs are a couple of years old, but are you constantly writing you guys write together? You were saying, well, people are bringing stuff in. We've had different ways of making albums over the years. We've written a lot of songs, just the four of us in a room. And then there's been songs like these songs that you hear, the four of us at Gordy. And we wrote them in Austin, Texas. So these are co-written with the Germans. So that was also part of the idea of bringing Gordy into them fold against their all songs we worked on with Gordy. They were all done in Austin, Texas, February of 2010,

10:00in March. And we thought they were all pretty strong tunes. And that's kind of where we brought them all together. But this is an example of the kind of songs we worked with. Co-opener is the kind of songs that were used by Justin Ford, which is the four of us together. It's like that's pretty much the dynamic of the band. And it's been that dynamic since we started. Yeah. And what does he bring to the writing? Is he telling you, throw in this, take out this word, condense this, and it's more like a producer kind of thing? It's all lyric writing. It's all lyric. So you guys do the music and he'll switch up words. And you can rewrite the lyrics with them. Like there's no, he's not writing lyrics for them. No, no, and it's like, that's pretty much all of it. One thing he really wants to do, and it's actually to his credit as a producer, he really wants to distill the essence of the group of artists. Like what is it that you add to music? That's uniquely yourself.

10:47That's uniquely the truth. Well, this is the thing he has his theories on it, right? So it's a lofty thing to tackle, but as a good producer, you should. So I think he really wants to bring out a sense of humor. I think he sees this as a bunch of funny guys. He says, most of our time, joke and are out of them. So one of the things he has to do with lyrics is he tries to inject as much humor as he possibly can, which we don't necessarily gravitate to. But it ends up just coming up because when he starts to encourage that, I'll add that just writing a whole bunch more of lyrics. And he just brings it up to them. So it's almost, you know, without something too self-absorbing. It's almost like it's just a concept of the series. It's like this certain way. And for some people, that just does the trick. It's like that's what they want from the truth.

11:33Other people are like, they like it more like venturing out and trying different things and stuff. I find there's a certain perception of the truth that comes out when you work with Gordy. And I'm happy with it. It's fun-loving. It's rock and roll. It sounds good with a beer and a hand. You know, you don't have to think about it too much. But there's other sides of me that want to be, do different things and not be the truth. And try to write songs that aren't the truth. Because that's kind of a part of being an event. You don't want to just keep writing your band. You want to write the future of your band. You want to keep evolving. And I think there's a whole interesting thing about that as well. So it's what the next record is. That'll be the next record. If we're allowed to keep- Concept record. It's like we're allowed to keep consulting ourselves like this. But it's like, I mean, I appreciate the fans for Lovin'. And we love them.

12:19But yeah, that's kind of what happens when you work for it. In a nutshell. Yeah, that's the question. No, but that's fine. Those jokey songs. Like Hermaphrodite, I guess. I don't know if that's a real story or not that happened to you. Or you were just writing and you were like, this ain't fun to write about. You wrote most of that. I wrote that song. But that was all because I was so encouraged by the vibe that we just created with Gordy. And we had this really nice song. It was actually a really nice song. The melody and the chords are pretty. It was like a 50s show. I love it. It was like a 50s thing. And then Gordy, we just started laughing about this one. And so it happened to her keyboard player in San Francisco. And nothing serious happened. But he was like, I don't know if I should be hearing this. I can cut it off. He was prepositioned by a transvestite example.

13:04So it really didn't happen? So we were just laughing at it. And nothing happened. It was one of those funny things that happened on the road. Sure. We were just talking about Jeff turn them down. Turned them down. And him, her, her. And then we... No, she's a guy. That's what you said. So I was like a guy. And then we were just talking about that. And then I started singing it. And she was a guy. And it's like the stupidest thing in the world. Half the eagle out here are like a campbell. I can't believe you guys were going to play with us. And then they're like, this is hilarious. Yeah, it works. Yeah. It's one of those tunes. It's really fun. It turned out really fun. It's definitely not on the fence. Yeah. But it's also definitely not revolutionary. It's just one of those weird tunes that just, you know... How long's Jeff in turn with you guys? Since no time for later? We did that record with Liam from the stills. Right. He played most of the keys on it. Because he was friends with the producer. And when we got back to the rehearsal, he was still on the stills Liam.

13:51So him joining the band wasn't an option. So we started auditioning guys. And Jeff just head over heels better than everybody else we tried. And he's one of the best... Just one of those great players in this country. And we used to love them before. And we miss them, you know. Because we'll do a UK tour and we'll just pair everything down. You know, and go back as a four-piece. We'll do an Aussie tour like that. Or maybe a Yankee tour. Anything where we have to scale. Can't keep trying until you get a skull. I like that. Anything where we have to scale things back a little bit. But we always so refreshing to get them back and fold. How does it change the dynamic for a band live when you have that extra... He adds so much color to the music. Let's us be more sparing guitar players. Because pianos pretty takes up a lot of room. So it can organ too. And he plays it all. He's a pretty brilliantly creative guy too.

14:37You can throw anything at him and figure out how to do it. For all the guitar players. I went a little overboard on Hopenro with guitar over dubs. Every song has more over dubs like a possibly play. Hopenro has been one of the guitar players producing a record. But all I did was basically tell Jeff to just figure out a way to recreate it. And he'll actually have the tones from the record on key samples. He's just really creative guy. It's great to have in the band. I love that. I don't know what else I want to ask you. You wrote a thing about Springsteen online. What were your thoughts on that? I started to keep you out of this. But it's all out there online. I have no idea. I mean, it's awesome. It was an awesome, awesome... One since lifetime invitation to get invited up on stage with one of the giants of music.

15:25And that band is... The E Street band is so good. It's like standing in front of a 747 and they play. The whole thing was just a great experience. It went by and it was great. Does it still hit you? I mean, you've talked with so many of the League acts. I mean, I interviewed a lot of bands too. It doesn't really... It's not like a thing anymore. Does it still hit you? It's like, holy shit, this is what we're doing. Well, that hit us that time. That's one of the three weeks before that gig we didn't even know about that gig. We got a call. And we were like, I mean, Shinayungas can't look at the idea. He said Springsteen's playing in Moncton and he got our manager to say, hey, man, it's the one. Well, he said he doesn't hire opening acts. I'm like, I figured out. Shinayungas kind of just said, but just do it. And he went and did it. And then we were meeting him and then he invited us on stage to sing with him.

16:16So it was a three total dream come true moment. We were all elated. It was really a high point for us. I mean, who gets to sit on stage at the Eastern? And then we were all like, I mean, we were all like, we were all like, we were all like, we were like, okay, we were all like really high point here. I mean, who gets to sit on stage at the Eastern? Except they're Karne Cocks. Honestly, Karne Cocks. I love Karne Cocks. I finally have a relationship of somebody from Friends. If I only share something for a period. Yeah, exactly. Here are so good and I was in the audience watching the show. Somebody had seen him about 20 times and he played so incredibly well in Moncton. And I think it all boiled down to a question.

17:01He asked the audience, I talked about the third song. He asked the audio how many people had seen me. I'd never seen the E Street band and this huge roar came up and look back at the band and say I guess we got to work it out for his boys. It's like you never know, sometimes you're playing for people for the first time and it just doesn't feel that way. We might have played Vancouver 35 times in our career or whatever. But that doesn't mean that the 35th time you're not playing for 50% people who have never seen you before. And I think that you can't take that for granted. You have to be putting your best before all the time. And even at 62, this guy who's been touring the world for 40 years, was playing for 10,000 people who've never seen them. Never seen them. I was one of them. I'd never seen them with you men. And it was an incredible show. A lot of people could learn a lot from Bruce Springsteen. A lot of 20-year-olds could learn about how much energy that man puts into his show at 60 tier.

17:50Is that what you guys took out of it? It's the energy. Well, we already have energy. We already have energy. We already have energy. But watching a band like that, you know, it must inspire you to do, you know, more with the live show if you can. I like how much of a juggernaut the show was, how it just sort of kept going and going and going. Every song seemed to bowl over into the next. I liked that aspect of it. I thought it was really, really cool. And then there were some really brilliant dynamic moments when Bruce was playing a song by himself on the piano. Sure, you're always learning and always stealing stuff from other artists. That was fun. And now you're right though, when you see a great family that definitely energizes you all over again. You know, you do it for so long and you go through moments where you're not as inspired to do it. So other times, then after that was a major.

18:35I mean, the next bunch of shows we did together, we were like, great. Bring out the DVD cams for those ones. Yeah, exactly. I heard you become best friends with Act 4O's. I became better than Act 4O's. You guys are partying together and stuff. We did once. But once. I met him once. But I mean, where did you read that? I don't know. That's kind of a real. I do my research at Amazon. How old is that? Maybe. I was just four. Six or seven. How old are they? Never mind. It's like Robert's Land Star. Yeah, I mean, yeah, for the record, he was one of the great men's of all time. And I was definitely, it was awesome to meet him. Yeah, forget that. Never mind. So your Twitter says you've done like 900 shows. Over 900 shows. Probably one spot.

19:20Do you know if you've been saying that? No. We've been saying that after for like two years. Definitely. It was a special thing for the thousand. But like, it's not. You know what? I'm going to check that out actually. Now that you mentioned it. I wonder what's going on. That's been what? Ten years? Ten years of doing shows. Yeah. But I'm a leader. And our agent knows exactly how many shows. I'll figure it out. Our first national tour was in opening for big trading in 2002. Yeah. So they actually, the game's already ten years. Do you feel like ten years? It feels like more. Some mornings. Some days it feels like ten days. Let's go through some of the songs. I don't want to talk about doing something wrong. Done some writing. I like that line. Yeah.

20:05Done some writing. And some writing. So that there's this saying that you've got to do some wronging before you can do some writing. You're going to have something to write about. Yeah. That's what I come to. So you've done a lot of wronging. He's got ten years. Reference from Aphrodite. I don't know. Yeah, I guess we have. It's the age old question of, you know, do you imitate it yourself or do you just write about it through hard work? Like some people have been write and create a whole story for themselves. That's just based on their own hard work and knack for melody and vigilances writers. And there's a lot of people that just go out and fall apart and come back and write a couple of great songs in a few minutes. And it's like that age old struggle between them. They're working hard working writers and the total fuck-ups that manage to get together

20:54symbolized the game. So we try to fall somewhere in between. You're thinking that song, I don't even know myself a lot too. Were you feeling wrong? Or was this just words that happened to fit into the song? Those lyrics. They're probably a combination. I think those lyrics came with the melody that were lately kind of there. I think that was like adult and was it unconsciously saying? Oh, okay. Am I surprised? Because Sean brought that melody. Oh, okay. And he was kind of sub-caught. He was singing, like what Sean will do when he does write songs. He's saying a melody and then he'll say something that just sounds like that. Like he's like, they need it. I don't even know about singing. Oh, they need it.

21:39I don't even know myself. He's not saying that. I'm sure he's saying maybe someone's inside. I'm sure all of us probably do. But it's a song about redemption. So it's like a good fit. A line like that fits. I guess we can talk about the cover. Why that tune? Why Paul Kelly? Why? What struck you about that tune? Well, it's a great song. And we fell pretty hard on our second tour of Australia. It was like on in the band all the time. We wanted to do something for the Aussie market. Because we were sort of like off album cycle as happens a lot with a lot of bands in international territories. Our first release there was a compilation. And it came out around the same time as the acoustic record did here.

22:25Oh, really? Yeah. So a compilation of just everything from the song. Yeah, like our greatest hit. It's a single song. And then our next record was hoping really. And then we wanted the end date. We had quite a lot of success with the single hoping really. And so we wanted to follow something. We wanted to follow up with something sort of specific for Aussie. So we decided we'd cover leaps and bounds. And then we decided to stick it on the EP. Because it's a great song. And why shouldn't it be on there? Was it recorded at the same time as the rest of it? Yeah. Yeah, for the session. We were going to do a couple of covers. The original idea was to do two songs acoustic, two songs electric and then two covers. And then once we got writing, once we got excited, we're like, we'll do one cover.

23:10And then we didn't even make it to a one acoustic song. So yeah. Anyway. Yeah. No, I thought there were two. No, there's one cover. Well, there's the other bow. But it's not like we were. Yeah, no, you're right. We are the truth. Any bands come back and you'll be like, how come we weren't mentioned? For young, Stanfield. Yeah, those guys. So you've had a few. You've had a few. Where are we? Yeah. For young things. We should have fit them in instead of honeymoon suite. Yeah. The poor young things are upset? I don't know if they're upset. That's funny. Yeah, they mentioned it. You know those guys? Yeah, I know Conrad. They're great guys. They did our whole tour, our headlines were across the country, their hoping room. They supported it. They were opening up. Great fan. Did I see them in Edmonton? Yeah, it was at Red's or the old ads.

23:55Yeah, Panchon. Wasn't it the point? Yeah, it was Panchon. Oh, we did that. It was the underplate. That was the underplate. That was like the secret or pride show. It was kind of vibe. We came back and we did the record. The event center, whatever. Yeah. The ads are reds or whatever it's called. And they were on that show. Cool. Okay. That's all I got. Yeah, we had the truth. We had the truth. The truth was Panchon. Yeah, there's a couple. We missed. Five questions. Like always. But we haven't done a four MSN yet, so we're going to do an end. Okay. Road or studio? Is this a one word answer kind of vibe? Yeah. You've done this like ten times. Road. Let it in a record. Actually, you had to answer that. Landon. Well, Road or studio? Yeah. Road or studio? Yeah. I got both. And both.

24:40And both. And both. And I got both. I know. I know. I like that. You said Landon? Landon. When you hear a song that usually hits you first, lyrics, melody or rhythm? I think I'm lyrics. It depends on what, like, some songs that. Yeah, it just depends on the song because some songs can just really move me. Because of rhythm. And other songs can be because melody and other songs can be because of the lyrics. It just depends on the tune. I don't listen to Led Zeppelin for the lyrics. But I listen to Led Zeppelin for the riffs. You know the Kennedy Honors thing of the night? Yeah. Jack Black said, I don't know if it's a black. Yeah. I don't know if it's a black letter right now. And then it's a blacking time. I don't listen to Dylan. I don't listen to Bob Dylan for the riffs. No. And I don't listen to Led Zeppelin for the riffs. That's all my answers for.

25:25That's interesting. But I can't get past that lyrics. It can actually be in an otherwise perfect song. So I definitely get hung up. I'm a guitar player so it's kind of a paradox but I do get hung up. I can love the groove, I can love the riff, I can love the melody. But for lyrics really suck, I can't see fast. I like that song you've written your most pro. I wasn't used to it as a convert. I like the label. I mean I didn't write it solely. Probably highway heroes to be a part of it. But yeah, as a true song. As a cool writer. That or ish Melamagi. I think that's what you said last time. Yeah, I think we're in a smoking room. I know the truth. One and two. One and two. And in one word, the truth. This is the hardest one you've done this year before.

26:14Yeah. Is this going to be written? Yeah. So I can think about this forever. You can think of it. Yeah, you can. Well, not forever. I've got to go finish adding a video. One word, the truth. What are you doing? I'm going to go in the zag road. Your name is Melamagi. And my sister's in court too. That's funny. I'll get you a sharpie. You can add your name in there. Yeah. I'll take a picture. I'll take a picture. One word, the truth. Family. Oh, it's good. And I don't have any kind of like, dance. It's pretty good. I just like, create something like five minutes. You go in with family or stuff like that? I'll take his answer. Take family too. You don't actually get Howard in there. I know.

26:59Hell just Howard County. Hell is Howard. Unnecessary. Oh, that's, no, no, hang on. My stroke. Oh. I want to get that in there too. I can feel that one. We did a show in Toronto a couple years ago. And he was on the bill. And we all went and had this epic after party in which we jammed together. And he's just like, did you remember him? No. He's just this like, incredible fountain of energy and passion. Like the guy is just so, like, ant about live, music and his career. He's a really inspiring guy to hang out with. And we decided that we would like, we'd try to do something together. And he came over to my apartment shortly after that. And we just, he was making a record.

27:45So he was just basically showing us all his jams. Like just, and just all his lyrics singing them to us right in my living room, you know. And we were trying to find a way we wrote a song together that didn't really fly. But then he showed us this one song with a chorus that, you know, Colin could obviously kill. And he needed somebody to kill it, you know, in the chorus. And it was a rock-ish kind of song. So we went in the studio shortly after and cut it with him. And he wanted to make it a single so we did a video. And that was all like over a year ago. It took a while for him to get it out, but it's out now. And I think it's a pretty cool jam. Yeah, the first foray to hip hop for you guys. Yeah, something before. Okay. I think so. No, we've never, people have remixed some of our stuff before, but we've never been involved in it.

28:32Really? Like what? There's somebody did a really great job of holding your arms. It's on YouTube somewhere. Into like a hip hop thing? Yeah, or into like a loopy loopy kind of thing, you know. But we'd never, and there's some stuff like Hopeless on the first record that was created that way. But it was mostly done by the producer, you know, like you, we just looped everything and then put the track together. Okay. Which is all kind of hip hop-ish, but we never collaborated with another artist. And he's wicked. I hope all the best for that record is. And the guy's like a, he's a steamroller, you know, he's really a passionate guy, you know. Cool. Awesome. That's everything. Wicked man. Yeah. Anything else you guys want to add? No?

29:17I don't think I've ever had anyone say anything else. This is still up. Hopefully next week. Okay. Well, there's a few on tour. I'll let you want to post a link to whatever shows were left. It's like sweet, we're doing the lengths in Hamilton. Yeah, this will probably win. When are those? Next week. Okay. If it's in town. Well, yeah, it'll talk about, we talked enough about the road that. I think that's where it'll focus. Yeah.

Part 6

0:29We'll start with the Twitter question. Because I put it out there talking to you guys. And Sharon, our Godis, is our Godis, is her name? Sharon Vernon. At what point during the cycle did you decide on the Pledge of Music thing? Was it before choosing the producer and the studio? And I thought that would be a good place to start? I was long before. Yeah. It happened, I guess, halfway through the writing process. It was probably April. Probably about this time last year, we decided we had a meeting with Benji, who's the head of Pledge of Music. And he kind of sold us on the idea of doing this ultimate fan club idea. And we thought it was great. Where did the ideas come from? I wrote some of them down, like Tech for a Day, Hockey on Tour. They're different. They're cool ideas. We had a meeting with the four band guys and our inner circle management and stuff. And we just started spitballing. And the longer it went, the funner it got.

1:16So Jack is a doodler. And he's always making artwork on his iPad or on his spare time. And so we thought, well, there's something we can auction off. And his hat. Jack's never seen it out of his pork pie hat. So that became a thing. And the more we went, we're terrible at ball hockey. But we were passionate. Hey, speak for yourself. We were passionate. So we thought, hey, that'd be a fun thing. So it just got fun. And then we started bringing the music part and people to come visit us in the studio and sing along with us in the studio. Just throw it on it from there. Singing, the harmonies on this record, I don't know if I just didn't pay attention on the last ones or whatever, because there's so much going on in the song. But this record feels like you took the harmonies to a different level. I think a lot of it had to do with we enlisted Gavin Brown to produce this record. And he's really smart. He's really musical.

2:01Probably one of the more talented people we've ever worked with. And he kind of brought out all the best elements of the band on the record. Like I find he's got the harmony. He really brought out the harmonies well, brought out my vocal well, brought out the bass lines really well. And I just found he kind of made the, I think it's kind of like the ultimate choose record. Is that why it's so tight? It's all the choose. Because I heard it was going to be called Rise in the Wake. It was. But we actually had the cover. Well, for one, we couldn't decide on the title, which is the story of everywhere. And then we had the cover. We did these one-off shots. It wasn't a photo shoot. It was just the guy who filmed our Pledge Pitch video just headshots at the very end. And we thought he'd do such a great job. We're like, oh, god, we should use that as the album cover. So we had the album cover, but we didn't have a title. And since we were going to be on it, we thought, I'll just call it the trues.

2:47We have never done the self-titled thing. It's interesting spot to do it. Seven records in or whatever it is. We wanted to call it Led Zeppelin 4. Of course. We didn't use that yet. It is an unused album, by the way. That's the white album for that matter, if you think about it. Yeah, we want to use that too. And the artwork is kind of white. Yeah. Yeah. So Rise in the Wake, it's like, if that holds me in your arm, so she's leaving that heavy, true sound. Yeah. Yeah, we like to kick off every record with a barn burner. Yeah. I kind of wanted to go when we were recording, I told Gavin, make it sound somewhere between ACDC, Highway to Hell, and you two Octane Baby. So I said, if we could just make something sound kind of like something in between there. And I think he kind of has this kind of space-aged, really heavy guitar lick with all kinds of cool effects.

3:32Yeah, what are you playing? Is it Gibson through Marshall? That's what it sounds like. Honestly, we did so much guitar on this record. I must have tracked that song on about seven different guitars. This was, again, like a Gavin thing. He's got this full on onslaught approach to production, and you sort of take things away later. So I probably did about 20 guitar tracks on that song. And then in the mixing process, they sort of take things away. But I mean, I'm the last Paul guy for the next part, through Marshall. And that's probably what I ended up there. What was it like giving away the control of that to Gavin? You produced last one, then you? I didn't. You kind of took it away. Oh, OK. He ended up muslin as well. No, it was actually a great working relationship, because I think I've made records with my band and without my band. And now for people who want to pledge? Yeah, and I think that that's right.

4:18I think that with Gavin, he trusted me enough to leave me at the helm of a few decisions here and there. So it was a good working relationship. There was no ego involved. We just both there to serve the songs. Right. Talking about serving the songs and your voice, dude, on that Serena Randerton. It doesn't sound like you. No, it wasn't me. Because he's no longer scared. Because I honestly thought it might be him singing first. Now it's me. It's a register that I actually started singing in, and kind of stopped singing after our first record, because Gordy Johnson produced our first album, kind of thought I sounded better in a higher range. And it ended up working out really well for me. But yeah, it was nice to sing down there. And I'm glad we have a song on the record that's strong with a low vocal, because then when

5:05you go and have to play songs in the morning, and it's a song called In the Morning, it'll be easier to sing. And people talk about it, because Serena's on it. It's a good way to. Yeah, and she did an amazing job. She came in and she did that in two takes. And we're super grateful. She's having a crazy, great year. And we had just mentioned through a mutual guitar tech that we really liked her last album. And he went over and said, oh, the truth is like your new record. And she's like, oh, tell those guys I'll sing with them. Sometimes we kind of called her up and said, how about now? It'll work. And she did a great job. It's a good do that. And the cello starts that tune. And then ends a song like three songs later with a little fade kind of thing. What's the cello stand born? Yeah, really cool. Really like a friend of Gavin's. And she's incredibly talented and incredibly sensitive artist type. And she came into the studio and listened to songs

5:51and sort of felt them out. And then we gave her like multiple passes. And in the case of in the morning, she just multi-tracked layers and layers of this like a thierry old cello that created this intense mood and atmosphere for the song. It was really, really nice. Yeah, it's cool. It's like it starts this like three song segue almost over the cello starts. You get three tunes and ends. And there's like an on-court tune almost. I haven't looked at it like that. That's cool. That's what I'm here for. Awesome. Under the sun, it's like, I don't know. Run's me making sunshine. It's got that like just happy frigging vibe. And they're like helicopter toms or whatever Sean's doing over there sounds like a spinning. I agree. When we made this record, I had this idea where we'd make a video for every song. We ended up not doing that. But one of the ideas I had for that song was just like, I just visualized this in like some open field

6:38and like Prince Edward County or something playing it and having people just dance around. So kind of that was the vibe I see. I saw when we played that song. I keep going through songs but I want to know how you're going to pull these off live. So far I have to drop songs out of the setlist that people love. So far, so good. In terms of just being able to play them live, they were all built forward tough. I mean, they're road ready for sure. Because we arranged all the drums and bass parts and all the guitar parts to be really big sounding on stage. That is a problem though. Because when we did the set out in Winnipeg, we played the kickoff party for the Junos. I mean, we actually didn't play a couple of singles from that. It's just a problem to have. It's a good problem to have. But how do you decide that's good? We had to quit, we got too good. You can't, at the end of the day you can't please everybody.

7:24And I still get people like, you know, not hating on me, but like always at me. Like you haven't played that song in like forever. I write the setlist. It falls on me to figure out what we're going to play. But you always have to walk the tightrope of the people who are seeing you for the first time and those who have seen you a hundred times. We have both in our audience on a nightly basis. So try to throw in one or two things that are. And especially with the new record, you're really stoked about the new stuff. You want to play mostly new stuff. So it's just like a fine line. You know, you can't please everybody. Have you figured out which song segue is in two older songs? Yeah, like which song sit beside the older stuff in the set? Kind of, we're sorting it out in still early days. I know, I'm just curious. So far all we know is that rise in the wake is for sure the opening something. Yeah, I think it needs to be. That's, yeah. It's gonna come flying in on the rafters thing and that like.

8:10That's something new to a true show. Yeah. Well, that's amazing. The sentimentalist, I hear it's one of your favorite songs of the record. Yeah. It's one of my favorite songs. I do my research. I have a, I think, three of you. It's a good job. I love this cat. I love anything that's sort of beadily, you know. They're a pretty good band. Pretty good. You know, I enjoy that kind of music. And I like that it has a time signature change in the middle of the song. You know, I've done that before. So yeah, lots of, it's a great live song. We've been playing that one live. Almost for a year. Yeah, we started playing it over the summer. Duturing the acoustic, like, did that change the way you approach songs? We're getting better at, I think, writing more timeless songs. I mean, maybe someone might crucify me for saying that. But, you know, we're getting better at knowing when it's a great song.

8:56Because we can just sit down with the acoustic guitar and play it. And, you know, we're not relying on licks and stuff to make it work. It's like it just works on the acoustic guitar. Even a song like Rising the Wake, which is the heaviest song on the record. It works really well on the acoustic guitar. Because the melodies are really solid. The lyrics are all right. It's like it's good. You know, and we're getting better at that. And maybe that's because of all the acoustic touring. You know, when you strip it all the way and you don't have that many effects and that much noise to hide behind, you kind of have to get to the point pretty quick. And I think that's kind of made its way into every one of the songs we write. Do you want to hear the song like the heavier songs starting acoustic? Or is that too hard to do? Mmm. Well, kind of. Because, like the melody, like Rising the Wake, for example, that was three different songs, three different melodies from three different jams. And they all started as just melodic ideas.

9:43And then we just kind of muscled it up. So the verse was like a finger picking acoustic riff that I came with and that Sean reacted to with the melody that we knew was good. And then the, what ended up being the bridge and under the sun was the old chorus for that song. We're getting really technical. No, I find that interesting how songs they end up being. But so it was a very, very broken down intimate finger picking song that we had melodies for. And I guess we felt would never float on its own. So we just sort of poached the best bits and spread them around into different jams. So yeah, something's going on acoustic. And end up heading itself. Yeah. We always do five questions. You guys have done a million times. So I thought we'd do something a little different because the record started this weekend. Okay. Give me one record to recommend to people each. Not one of your own.

10:28But if you were going to a record store, what would you want people to pick out? What's one of those front to back, timeless vinyls? Blood and chocolate. That was Costello. Yeah. Rocks. Aerosmith Rocks. Cool. Thanks, Chris. I'll let you know. I want to say as well just because I rediscovered it recently is the Ace Fraley solo record. The Kiss, Ace Fraley. Like the one that was released under Kiss. Weirdly enough, I know what you're talking about. Rip it out. You know that one? Is that New York crew? Is that instrumental on that? Yeah, it was own. Oh, no, no, no. It was not got to there. Yeah, he does an instrument. I'm spacing on the name. But it's space. He actually did a tour with Ace in 2009, which was incredibly fun. It was through the States, mostly House of News, those kind of venues. But I recently read as bio and I regret it and I'm rediscovering all those old great records.

11:14So yeah. I think that's a hard question to do that. When you do go through those old records, did it inspire you to write music? Yes, absolutely. What records inspired this record? Well you were going through a bit of a land walk kick. I remember that with the A&B. Yeah, I really mean, sounds like I was really influenced by this rare band. And maybe you too. It might have heard that you did it from everywhere. Yeah, it just changes. Like I mean, there was an album, like everybody always says, like, why do you always write break up songs? And I didn't write that many on this record, but it's because of blood and chocolate. Like I got so obsessed with that record. I just thought that unless a song was about some awful breakup, then it wouldn't work. So it was mostly just because of blood and chocolate. And I got obsessed with that song, that album, because Gordy Johnson got me obsessed with that record. Almost like haunted my life for six or seven years.

12:01But I mean, also on this record, like other influences. Was that song? Was it a bad company song that you got to kind of stop? Yeah, there was a Paul Rogers, he actually sat in with the sheepdogs and they did this wicked rendition of the stealer or something like that. Anyway, it was a wicked song. It's like a creeper. How do you name moms? And I was like, wow, that's amazing. And that inspired a song on the record. I think it inspired us in the way, or one of the melodies there. It all comes from music and it doesn't just come out of thin air. I think it comes from all your influences. And then hopefully it sounds like a hodgepodge of those and it becomes your own. Thanks guys. Great to see you. Yeah, you too.