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


KENNY BRIDGES (VOCALS/GUITAR) : We got six minutes!

Six minutes! Okay good. We've got a little ten question thing that we ask everybody. For a separate feature. Unfortunately, I'm kinda silly today and I forgot my little list, and I can only remember eight of the questions right now.

K : Oh is that what you were writing on the side (during the interview, I was taking notes)? As you're remembering your…

Yeah that's what I was writing on the side. So I wasn't like, not paying attention. So if I remember more, I'll ask you later.

K : Yeah yeah yeah yeahhhh. (Bridges singing again)

Anyways, what do you guys do on your downtime, when you're not touring or recording? Well… video games.

K : When we're at home? What do you do, Hippy?

CHRIS "HIPPY" HUGHES (GUITARS) : What do I do? Sometimes I walk around Toronto. Sometimes I hang with my ladyfriend. And sometimes, I walk around Toronto with my ladyfriend.

Very nice.

K : I go home and get really stressed with Lisa. 'Cause NO ONE ELSE DOES ANYTHING! I'm just kidding. Hoo! I'm just kidding. It was a joke!

Okay all right all right.

K : A joke. I do like video games, and I like to play guitar a lot. I like to write songs. Hold on. (something happens here that's amusing to describe, but words don't do the random humour of the situation justice. But bodily functions are a natural part of every human, and so we should accept such outbursts gracefully, even if they are completely played up by the functioner.)

(laughter)

I wonder if that will pick up. (it did)

K : Oh my God. Oh that's so disgusting.

H : Beautiful!

K : That's a ragin' party! Oh God, I'm so sorry. You know, at least we're outdoors.

That's true! Vice of choice!

H : Vice of choice?

K : Vice.

Vice.

K : Vice city guy, come on! GTA3! 4. GTA is vice city. Oh God. (note : GTA = Grand Theft Auto, the video game)

H : Ha ha.

In these times of crazy turmoil in the world, what issues are you most concerned with?

K : Well, we don't really throw ourselves into those po-litical discussions. But I'd have to say that, seeing our newspapers, US soldiers are being friggin', their dead bodies are being hung from bridges while Iraqui citizens are dancing gleefully around them. That really isn't that cool. So I cant say I'm a big supporter of the war, but at the same time, I don't know anything about it enough to speak up. But I will say that I don't like when people die. That's not very cool. But what is cool really, heh. Let's just all break it down now…

What's your favourite venue or city to play?

K : Why do they do this to us, Hippy? Why do they do this to us? Um, I don't know, to be honest, we have some like favourites, but they're always changing, they're always changin' and rearrangin'. One of my favourites is London, Ontario…. (Lisa, the band's road manager and merch girl, appears from the doorway to see if we're close to being done) Don't worry Lisa, we're wrapping it up! Thunder Bay. Uh, is the meet and greet here?

LISA : Some people are, yeah. (turns and leaves)

K : She's laughing at me. That fucking whore. Oh, I'm sorry, is this still on??

(laughter)

K : Um, what were we talking about?

Favourite venues, cities.

K : Oh yeah, London, Ontario and Call The Office is always really, really good.

H : Apollo.

K : And yeah, Thunder Bay.

H : Apollo.

K : There haven't been any places that we've got to keep going back to yet in the states to say that this is our favourite venue now. What's going on?

It's okay stay there. (I'm taking a photo from behind them)

K : Oh. Where do you want us to look? Just back atcha?

H : No no no.

It's fine, you're fine.

K : But uh, Florida is incredible. Florida and Texas. Crazy good shows down there.

What was your favourite Saturday morning cartoon?

H : Hmmm I gotta think about this one. Scooby Doo? I liked Scooby Doo when I was a kid.

K : That wasn't really a Saturday morning thing, I think that was weekday mornings. But it's probably on Saturdays too. X-men was one of my favourites. I liked the Wuzzles.

H : Oh yeah the Wuzzles.

I had a pencil of the Wuzzles.

K : Gummi Bears was really cool too.

H : Gummi Bears?

K : Remember they were just drunk all the time? Drinking that crazy juice?

H : Hahaha!

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

K : Oh my god, like friggin' [actress] Elisha Cuthbert. I'd make so many rude videos of myself and then email them all to Kenny@moneen.com. She's Canadian. Just oh, so Canadian!

Anything to add to that?

H : That says it all.

That says it all, okay.

K : Would you wanna be Rick White?

H : I'm sure that would be pretty fun.

K : Think about it man, you could do nothing and just sleep all day, wake up at night, and just friggin' burn CD-R's.

H : Yeah I could.

K : Burn them incorrectly. Sell them to your band.

H : Hahahaha.

There's a bear and a shark and they get into a fight.

K : (looks around himself, wide-eyed) Oh I thought you meant right here!

Look out! They're coming atcha! The water for the shark is just big enough for it to survive. And deep enough. Big… there's a rock in the middle of the water that the bear is standing on. Neither's been fed for a few days, neither's been trained. Who wins?

K : Who wins at what? At holding their breath for the longest time?

The fight! They fight to the death!

K : Oh it's a fight! The bear.

H : The bear. He can just... wah wah wah! (makes bear smackdown motions with his hand)

K : Yeah, bears are pretty good swimmers too. But yeah, the bear's got the advantage I think, because yeah it can be like, it'll be like standing up there… (runs to a small rise near where we'd been standing that Hippy's just jumped up on)

H : Yo, man, what's going on, sharky-shark, what's up, yo? You can't come up here, he just POW, hit him in the face. And if I touch your leg, all you have to do is take a slide, wrap it around, bears win.

And if you could ask me one question, what would it be?

K : It would be…

I'm very scared about this.

K : This would be my question to you.

Okay.

K : Shit actually I don't really know. Anything I was gonna ask would be really… rude... not rude in like a sexual way, but rude as like, aw fuck, I don't even …

H : Do you think… do you think…. If you jump from here, could you make it all the way to there, to that one? (indicating adjacent rooftop) If you had to.

Like jump onto that roof?

K : Yeah, if you had to. If you were being chased, and you were going to die.

I think I could, but I'd either go through the roof or break my leg. But I could probably make it.

K : Probably make the jump?

H : That's good to know.

I don't think it's that far, if you'd launch yourself off of [this railing].

K : Me and [drummer]Peter [Krpan] always talked about jumps we could make or not make. Or like, if you don't make it, you die.

I have to illustrate this for people. (go to take photo of the roof)

K : Can you get us in it pointing at it or something?

Yeah perfect. (taking photo of them pondering the rooftop) Great. So I cant remember those other two questions right now but if I do remember them, I'll chase you down later on tonight and ask them.

H : Okay cool.

Or…

K : Or…

Or I can send you an email.

H : Perfect perfect.

K : Eeeemail.

You can answer by email …

K : (sings)Eeeemail they call me the sheeemale.

LAST TWO QUESTIONS, WHICH WERE EVENTUALLY RECALLED, ASKED TO BAND AFTER MEET + GREET (Bridges had run off downstairs to meet a friend, but I grabbed up whomever was available):

What did you want to be when you were growing up, besides musician?

H : When I was like, 7 or 8 I wanted to be a marine biologist. I liked going into water, but I can't go too deep 'cause my ears hurt. So that didn't work.

Right, I wanted to do that too. I like the ocean. But then I realized that…

ERIK HUGHES (BASS): I wanted to be a garbage man.

H : Really?

E : Yep, I did. Just so I could ride on the back of the truck.

PETER KRPAN (DRUMS): I wanted to be an archaeologist. 'Cause I wanted to like… I like digging stuff up. And finding stuff. Uncovering buried treasure.

H : That's what I want, but of the sea!

Pretty cool.

P : Archaeology under water.

Ocean stuff is awesome. Everything about it!

P : Totally.

And what's one interview question you could care less to ever hear again?

H : What's that?

An interview question you could care less to ever hear again. Which hopefully I didn't ask you.

H : Hmmm, what did you ask? (laughs) Ummm... ask Peter. Peter does more interviews than me.

He's not paying attention. (I try to get Krpan's attention from the loud conversation he's involved in over the fruit platter)

P : Hello?

I'm supposed to ask you this one.

P : Okay.

An interview question that you could care less to hear again.

P : Yeah? ...Oh, what is?

Yeah.

P : Oh okay… no, I dunno, uh.. I dunno. I can't think of any off hand. I'm so stupid right now. I dunno, I dunno.

Nothing at all?

P : No, it's not so much stupid questions as the way they're executed.

Explain.

P : Like you know how there's interviews where people are just kinda not listening to what you're saying at all, they're just like, like they don't care. I did this one interview, phone interview…

H : As he said that you should been looking around and stuff…

P : Yeah…oh yeah I'm sorry, can you hold on a second, I gotta…

Ummm, hey can you hold this for me, I gotta go… (I hand Krpan my microphone and wander in the direction of the washroom)

P : (takes microphone and yells into it) Oh you… RAHHHHH! No it's just like…

Well you're holding [the microphone] now…

P : Right, I'll just hold on to it now. It's mine. You can't have it back.

Noooo, I've only had it for three days!

P : It was an interview where I could tell the person really didn't care, again it was for a paper or something, and, she's asking... she's going through the motions asking the most, like, typical typical questions. Like, how long have you been together, the sort of stuff that she would have known if she'd read the bio or knew anything about us. And maybe she was trying to get, she felt that people needed to know those facts or something, but she really wouldn't have needed to talk to me to get them. And I just kinda felt that it was patronizing and just felt like she didn't care at all and just going through the motions. It's really more about like, how, you can ask me here again how many years the band's been together, but if you actually care, and I can tell you actually care. I'll actually care to tell you, you know? So… yeah. That was like the longest answer to like the shortest question that ever could have been given. Whoa, I almost broke it. (gets hand caught in microphone cord as he hands it back to me)

(Hughes playing Coldplay songs in the background.)

Cool well thank you for your contribution to this.

P : Well thank you for letting me contribute!

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : May 21, 2004.