(Cord Magazine's questions are in blue. Artist responses are in grey.)


Now, we have this little featurelet section, with ten unrelated questions that we're asking every band that we do an interview with, so let's just roll with it. What do you guys do on your downtime between recording and touring? How do you like to sort of unwind?

BRAD CONRAD (KEYS) : I don't hahah. I play all the time. I don't have downtime.

MATT MAYS : Brad plays in a million bands in Halifax.

Oh yeah?

M : He never has a minute off, ever.

All right, anybody else?

M : I'm into surfing. I go surfing when I can. That's about the only thing I really like to do besides music.

TIM BAKER (DRUMS): I'm pretty busy when I get home usually but I've been going to the gym lately on my free time.

(For some reason everyone at the table finds this notion extremely hilarious and the whole table bursts out laughing.)

ANDY PATIL (BASS): I try to take pictures. But not as good as yours. [keeps saying something about photography]

(Here the conversation descends into everyone talking at once, the words "Mexican restaurant" are uttered….)

M : [mocking Tim] Been goin' to the gym lately a lot.

Still on that… appropriate timing, vice of choice!

B : Vice of choice!

Vice of choice.

B : I wanna say ladies, but I'm doomed if I do. Um. I'm a heavy alcoholic. I drink a lot of beer.

M : Pretty even across the board actually, vice-wise, I like a bit of everything.

Quiet…

A : I don't wanna say, I can't.

Um what's your favourite venue or city to play in?

M : The Commodore… the Commodore's pretty good…

Suck-up!

M : We really like Ottawa too. Ottawa's our best crowd. It's like home you know. We get a lot of really really great crowds at really great big clubs and everybody's really into it. They buy a lot of records. So Ottawa's sort of our…

A : Home away from home.

M : …home away from home as far as crowds go.

A : Ottawa always turns into huge party… I don't know what it is. They party like…

M : Punishing hangovers.

A : Ottawa's the home …

M : The home of us getting completely... doing stupid things.

A : Yeah, stupid.

M : Stupid things.

B : It's in the air there. Capitol city air.

What issues and aspects of the world most concern you these days? There's obviously a ton going on.

A : Definitely terrorism. But I think there's a lot more that's gonna hurt us in the long run than terrorism.

M : Definitely war, I'd have to say war. I never saw the purpose in it. The eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth mentality, it's not my thing.

B : Fundamentalism causes a lot of problems, any kind of fundamentalism. Anything, you know. Right-wing fundamentalists, whatever. I think people who cant even listen to anyone else. That's a broad [topic], but yeah, fundamentalism. And all the aspects of it. Everything you know. Across the board.

A : Across the board. Not even politically, but just, globally.

What's an interview question you could care less to ever hear again? Hopefully I didn't ask it…

A : You already asked it. No I'm just joking. No… um, definitely a Matt question.

M : Oh, "Do you find that you sound like the Jaybirds?" Well… yeah, that's gotta be it.

What was your favourite Saturday morning cartoon?

M : Oh.

A : Wow.

B : That's a tough one. Loony Toons, Bugs Bunny. I grew up on it.

T : GI Joe. GI Joe.

A : The old Spiderman cartoons. The oldschool Spiderman cartoons.

T : GI Joe for sure.

M : Let's say Loony Toons or He-Man. Battlecat.

A : Ohhh yeah.

T : I was pretty into the Transformers. [agreements around the table] Loony Toons lasted longer.

What did you guys wanna be when you were growing up, besides musician? Any other aspirations?

M : I wanted to be an inventor. Pretty good job. I thought it was.

A : You kind of are in a way.

Inventing songs, yeah.

T : In college I wanted to be a racecar driver. Just from being on go-carts and stuff.

A : Come on Matt…

M : NFL quarterback.

What?

M : NFL quarterback. I wanted to be one of those since I was like 18. And then I stopped. I knew I could never be.

A : Racecar driver was one when I was pretty young. Fighter pilot for me. F-16 Strike Eagle. Fighter pilot.

M : Yeah F-16's!

That'd be pretty rad.

(lots of simultaneous talk about fighter pilots.)

M : I'm so about the F-16's.

A : I wanted to become an American, join the US Air Force.

M : Yeah that's a good one.

B : I always thought it would be cool to be an astronomer. But there's so much math. Way too much math.

If you could trade places with anyone for a day, who would it be and what would you hope to accomplish?

M : That's a really good question.

B : I'd like to accomplish Jennifer Connelly.

(laughter)

M : [mocking] I'd like to be Jennifer Connelly! And I won't go through the rest. No I'm just joking.

B : Stand in front of the mirror for a little while.

M : Stand in front of the mirror hahah. No. That was off the record!

T : Super Dave Osbourne! Super Dave Osbourne! And as a matter of fact, we saw Super Dave last night. After Bill Cosby.

M : Oh we did!

A : We what?

M : That was weird.

T : Yeah Super Dave.

M : I don't know who I'd wanna be, man. Brad's Jennifer Connelly, you're Super Dave Osbourne…

T : Super Dave, but not Super Dave… performing Super Dave. Super Dave behind the scenes.

B : I don't want to be Jennifer Connelly, I just want to accomplish her.

M : You can accomplish and be her. Uh, Andy?

A : I don't know. Uh…I think I'd like to be… I think uh, a washed-up boxer. Would be pretty cool. To be sort of an old weapon. Be in like a boxing ring, heavyweight. Or, or somebody that can change the world and help everybody. It would be insane to want to be a washed-up boxer. But I wanna say washed-up boxer. I'm not gonna… oh sorry go ahead.

M : Uh yeah, fucking, an astronaut for sure. Any astronaut.

B : Yeah yeah. Definitely.

M : Any astronaut, over anybody. Get up there and…

Everyone changes their answer…

M : We'd probably want to be five astronauts.

B : Five astronauts.

Four now.

T : I wouldn't go up to space if I was Super Dave, man.

All right the next one's a bit of a doozy. Listen closely. A shark and a bear fight. Here are the rules. There's just enough water for the shark to exist, swim around, keep him alive. There's a small rock in the middle of the water for the bear to stand on. Neither one's been trained, neither's been fed for a few days. It's the baddest of grizzly bears against the baddest of great white sharks. Who wins?

A : Is this a riddle, or is this…

There's no no…

A : Who and why?

M : I would say… how many feet of water is there?

Enough for the shark to exist. 'Cause they have to move to stay alive.

M : It's a great white shark?

Yeah and a grizzly bear.

M : A great white shark would destroy the grizzly bear.

B : Yeah yeah.

M : Yeah. It would absolutely fuckin'… the grizzly's got no chance.

A : How big is the rock, too?

Just big enough for the grizzly to stand on.

A : Oh the grizzly's clumsy. They're very clumsy.

T : So, it'll fall in and the shark's gonna be toast.

M : Well think of how big a great white's jaws are. Over a leg, he could bite his leg off. And then it would fall over and then it would just feast. The pool would be blood red.

T : The shark would only be able to handle a certain amount of the grizzly before he pulled out, man, that's a lot of grizzly to eat man.

M : Yeah but he'd still kill the guy…

T : I dunno man, I'm kinda going for the grizzly.

M : A grizzly's mouth is like, well probably pretty big, probably like that [indicates size], but...

T : Yeah but the grizzly's got stomping power, he'd just go [bangs loudly on table] and knock the hell outta the shark.

M : The shark's just like… he'd slide off, he's all mushy, you could probably mush the shark pretty good before he'd die…

T : Grizzly's got bigass claws too.

M : A shark can take like bullets and shit, he's got big thick fuckin' skin. And then like… jaws like this [indicates], you know? With like huge, razor sharp… [indicates again] like that. They thrash around…

T : But if he gets like a bit of the grizzly in there… I mean he's gonna be chewing on that for quite a while. And the grizzly would just go…

M : Not really man, he can bite dolphins right in half!

B : Yeah the great white shark, his strategy is to fight and then it takes off, and it waits for you to bleed…

T : It cant take off.

B : Well, it's in a pool, right?

But only enough for it to fit in.

M : If jaws got his mouth on the grizzly's legs and whipped him around as usual, it would just rip his leg off and the bear would be so freaked out. It would be like, fuck. It would be like on it's back.

A : But bears are enormously strong.

(lots of talking…)

T : It's a good question. I'd put a thousand dollars on the bear though.

A : I think the shark would win.

T : I'm going for the bear.

M : Well we gotta find out. Let's make it happen.

B : Let's make it happen!

M : There's only one way to find out, we gotta make it happen at the Commodore.

Okay final question. If you could ask me one question, what would it be?

M : I want it to be good, not an easy one. What's your vice of choice?

My vice of choice. Jägermeister shots.

B : How come you're not eating dinner?

Just frustrated right now.

M : Andy have you got a question for Andy?

A : Um, well, for the interview not really, but I'm curious how you got into photography and all that stuff, but that might be too long for your transcript or whatever. But how did you get into that and where?

(long story told here - he was right, it was too long for my transcript. Hell, he's the one who asked, right?)

A : But I mean about all the technical stuff, you picked it up on your own, yeah?

Yeah.

A : Good stuff. When you want to do what you want to do, you gotta pick your way through all that shit, you know.

Yeah. Okay thank you. Well all right! Well that's it!

(thanks all around.)

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Live photos : Andy Scheffler
Band photo courtesy of mattmays.com
Published : April 22, 2004.