Maybe this will become a Mesa Luna tradition. Some people may remember the moneen interview from April, which was presented in a transcript format. Conducted in a similar nature, the interview time I spent with Despistado was so all-over-the-place, it can be best captured as a transcript rather than a chopped-up article. So enjoy the weird progression here.

I sat down with these guys during a super-casual afternoon at Mesa Luna, after the first three shows of the Regina band's Canadian tour with Jade Tree labelmates Statistics. The Despistado guys often finish one another's thoughts, and they know when to be serious and when to shake it up. And they find many things to be 'awesome.' All told, I got both a cornucopia of information out of them, and a glimpse into their band-bubble. We wandered up to a balcony and hunkered down under an angry grey-white sky with a plate of nachos, an alarming amount of cigarettes, and plenty of good spirit.

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


JOEL PASSMORE (BASS) : Hello!

DAGAN HARDING (VOCALS/GUITARS) : We’re just throwin’some fucking nachos down…

Where’d he [drummer Brennan Schwartz] go? Oh well, he can’t complain anymore then about not being included in interviews. He just runs away. Now that you guys…

LEIF THORSETH (GUITARS) : Whoa what’s up? This one is the key.

What?

L : Nothing. We’ve got the key nacho.

(Thorseth lifts up a nacho drenched in all manner of toppings)

D : Nachoooo!

Oh there we go. The cornerstone nacho with all the stuff on it.

D : (mumbled) Oh fuck.

(Harding drops nacho toppings everywhere)

J : Nice. Nice work. You’re gonna wish you had that in about an hour.

Okay so now that you guys have had a few shows under your belt on this tour, what are your thoughts on it? How have you enjoyed the left coast so far?

L : It’s been awesome.

J : It’s a lot of fun touring with another band all the time. it’s like, we’re friends with them now, and it just makes it… makes it awesome! The shows have been really good too, which is nice.

Definitely good.

D : There’s been nice weather - it’s beautiful outside so…

L : Good fun.

How has it changed since the last time you guys came through this area?

D : It hasn’t really changed a whole lot. It’s just a different tour… I dunno.

B : We hadn’t played Vancouver since the first western tour. The Ship show. We played the Ship and Anchor right?

D : No that was in Calgary.

J : That was in Calgary.

B : Oh. What’s that little place we played here?

D : We played the Pic. And then we played the Brickyard.

L : And the Marine Club.

B : The Marine Club, that’s what I’m talking about, yeah.

Oh that’s a fun bar.

L : Well we didn’t play out here last tour. It got cancelled… in January or February.

(laughter)

It’s all just a bunch mumbling through food…

J : Rawrrawrrawrrawr…

L : Sorry should we…

No, no it’s all right, you can eat I’ve got people eating apples in interviews and stuff… all loud and crunchy.

J : Okay time out from the nachos…

So how is the Regina scene anyways?

L : Oh God.

D : That question.

Bad question?

D : No, that question, I just said.

L : It’s not a bad question.

D : Not a bad question at all. It’s a good question. 'Cause we are a product of that scene.

Like is it supportive and all? That’s mainly what I’m getting at.

D : Oh yeah.

J : Everyone sort of helps each other out, goes to each other’s shows and I find that’s sort of the biggest… personally for me that’s the biggest inspiration and the biggest motivation is just your friends and what they're doing and them supporting everybody.

D : Pushing forward.

J : Yeah it’s like it’s definitely not static, especially right now. Everyone’s really doing well for themselves and working hard at generating this sort of scene that’s been ongoing for a long time. Like it’s been a lot of the same people but now there’s younger bands coming up that are contributing as well.

D : Like us?

B : Yeah like us.

J : Yeah like us. We’re definitely a young band in the Regina scene. That’s for sure.

So do you think you definitely prefer going through your formulaic stages in that environment as opposed to a more metropolitan city where things are…

ALL : Oh yeah. Sure absolutely.

How are the venues over there? That’s the big question.

J : In Regina?

Yeah.

L : Oh, we got tons of venues.

Really?

L : Yeah. Not tons. You totally caught me in a lie with that one.

D : We have a few main ones.

I’m always curious about that 'cause Vancouver sucks for venues.

J : There’s as many good places to play in Regina as there are in Vancouver. There isn’t like… well I guess there is. Doris Knight Hall is like 2000, 3000 person venue, but other than that, they’re all really good, like 100- 500 people. There’s an all-ages place. There’s a hall that puts on all ages shows that you can just book your own show.

L : The Exchange?

J : Yeah the Exchange, it’s called. And there’s this space that does a lot of the band stuff and little bars and pubs that will put up bands.

D : Yeah, there’s this place called the Easy Alibi that’s downtown. It’s like a café sort of place. And then there’s the youth center which is like a youth-run… it’s a Christian guy that runs it, it’s a Christian place or whatever but… so there’s like a lot of hardcore shows there. That’s a totally different scene though. There’s like a lot of things going on in Regina for its size. And in some ways I kinda wish that it was a little bit more unified … not unified, 'cause it is unified, like people support each other. But I just wish it was more, everybody went to each other’s shows a bit more. 'Cause there is a hardcore scene and there is an indie rock scene… or not scene, just people that like that music.

Yeah, like a little bit cliquey?

D : It is a bit fractured but you get that in every scene. It’s just an ideal.

J : Like organize… not like organize, but if somebody were to maybe step up and start a collective and then just start it and let it run itself. There’s been talk. There’s always talk but nobody’s ever really…

D : I was talking my ass off about it like a month ago.

J : People will always talk about it but never…

D : I’ve been talking about it for years. But it’ll happen.

Confidence. How did you guys hook up with Jade Tree in the first place? Did they come to you or vice versa?

L : We had a friend…. Our manager Tara [Macdonald]. She knew Tim [Owen, Jade Tree founder] from a while back, so she just sent them our CD because she just thought that they should hear it.

D : We thought that they should hear it. We thought that they should hear it.

(laughter)

L : Yeah yeah, but that’s how it works. And then they got it, they got the CD and Darren [Walters, another founder] liked it and he…flew down to Regina and we hung out.

B : Saw two live shows in Regina.

L : Yeah, watched us play.

B : Just hung out with us. Nothing was spoken. We just learned about the label and history and everything and just hung around with them for a weekend. And then we weren’t expecting anything and then he called our manager out here like a few days after he got home. And said ‘let’s work with them.”

Cool.

D : And since then we’ve just been developing relationships with different people in the office.

Aside from the signing, what’s been a pivotal point for you in the last little while?

J : SXSW.

D : I’d say SXSW and the idea of touring on a consistent basis.

I hear that show was kind of a hot ticket.

L : In Texas?

D : Oh, it was pretty bizarre, man. It was cool.

L : Such a mecca. That’s what we kept on saying.

What the hell is going on in Texas? Man, everything’s going on down there.

L : Yeah!

We’ve got some friends down there recording right now at some guys house with like a beautiful pool in the middle of the desert, beautiful place. But since they mentioned that they were going to go down there and record, everything suddenly, Texas is popping up all over.

L : Oh yeah.

It’s really weird. But yeah, who’d have thunk it, hey?

J : SXSW I think is pretty much a yearly thing and I don’t know - I always get the little mailouts, right. The like ‘do you wanna buy a wristband or a pass?’ and I just look at the list of bands and it’s always insane and then to be down there and like amongst the masses. Not even necessarily playing. Just hanging out like at two o' clock when all the venues let out it’s like… it’s madness.

D : Weird buzz, energy.

J : Yeah like electric.

L : So weird.

D : But really fucking awesome bands. I guess there has to be, there’s so many bands. There’s like a thousand bands in three days. And the film festival’s going on and so many small clubs.

Oh yeah, all the arts. Were you guys expecting to have kind of a crowd at your show there?

L : The Jade Tree show?

D : We didn’t even know what Texas was all about. That wasn’t on our mind really. Like we got off the plane, played, and…

L : We literally like got off and we were playing like 45 minutes later. And we were done and we were like… that was awesome. We’re in Texas now.

B : There was a lot of people in the room, but it was like… okay cool…we’re hungry…

L : Nobody had heard of us. That was kind of cool.

B : Yeah, it was awesome. Everything was so awesome in Texas. Like we were jumping planes.

D : But yeah it was a good vibe, the Jade Tree showcase. People were there and…

L : And they were so awesome.

D : …the owners of Jade Tree and stuff were just hanging out. We met some of the bands that are on Jade Tree and heard their stories and they heard ours and it was cool.

J : It didn’t really hit me 'til the next day that I was actually in Austin. I’m like wakin’ up like, ‘I’m in Texas.’

D : I’m in Texas.

J : I’m in Texas right now. It’s warm outside.

B : Let’s go see the Constantines.

Yeah don’t you love that? You go halfway around the world and see your friends’ bands.

D : Yeah. They were the best show there too, well that I… whatever.

J : They were one of them, yeah.

D : Pretty Girls [Make Graves] rocked.

L : No Dilinger 4 rocked. That was my favourite.

D : That Swedish hardcore band that we saw.

So there was a lot of good stuff. What can we expect from the full-length from you guys now?

B : A whole lotta deadly deadly….

D : Who’s we, who’s we?

L : Yeah. You?

Me and my… My minions.

(laughter)

L : Like compared to our EP [The Emergency Response], that’s almost like taking... like we’d done our EP, like that’s almost two years ago. And our new set, you can tell that we’ve picked the things out of our EP that we really really… not picked, like consciously picked. But you can tell like, okay we’re gonna go this way. It’s more like…

B : We stayed true to our sound, but it’s more rockin’.

J : And it’s longer. It’s longer. It’s like forty minutes!

B : It’s got lots of songs on it!

J : It’s like an EP but twice.

(strange noisy singing interlude and laughter - there was a table-bump moment with some almost-spilled coffee)

I think we discussed this a little bit casually but let’s get in on tape so that I don’t screw anything up. But why, I mean aside from the obvious, that Jade Tree picked it up and everything got re-released again, why was the EP hung onto for that long of a time and brought out, and then brought out again…

D : Brought out again…

B : We brought it out independently just as a band and distributed it locally and did a little western tour with it and Boss Tuneage and Does Everyone Stare records out of Edmonton got it to Europe and across Canada I do believe. And yeah, well we just kept growing as a band. More and more things kept happening.

How did it do in Europe?

J : Oh, it never really got released over there. It was all kind of… it got sketchy there. It got really sketchy. It was probably the weirdest…

B : The biggest fuckup that happened.

J : Yeah. We’re really sorry Aston [Stephens, Boss Tuneage label head], if you ever read this or hear this. We’re really sorry.

D : It was just communication and the trickle-down shit happened and… I think things are good now and life continues for everybody.

B : I think Jade Tree picking it up is just its way of getting out there, all the way out there.

D : Well, they wanted to release it. We were totally happy with just, ‘oh yeah we’ll record another record and it’ll happen.’ But they were like, ‘oh we might as well release the EP again.’ Well okay. Are you sure? It’s a little old.

Sort of an in-the-meantime kind of thing?

D : Yeah. And we’re still playing some of the songs, and the EP… I like it a lot. That was just… that was our first set so.

Oh. Was it remixed at all as it was rereleased?

L : It was remastered.

D : It just sounds a bit thicker.

B : (in lispy voice) A bit crisper.

So your message board seems to be kind of a meeting place for friends as well as a… what?

(the band exchanges glances and smiles)

J : No no, we’ve had some good madness on there.

Madness. Okay. But there’s also been a lot of people who’ve just gone to your show and come home and been like, ‘holy crap you guys are neat.’ Just like a props board kind of thing. I noticed a lot of that on there too which is kind of cool. Having an accessible website, something where you guys can be in touch with people, how important is that? How integral is that to you?

B : Super-really important.

J : Yes. I do most of the web stuff so it’s all like I mean, that whole tour archive that we have on going, it’s all about like this… it’s kind of funny, right. I just started this, we just started this one day and thought, let’s keep it going. It’s fun and I like having that.

D : Not too many bands are very personal on their websites. It’s really clamorous or whatever it is. But it’s fun to have fun on your website.

B : And we had the chance too because Joel does it. The man does everything. He’s a Renaissance master. The clothes, the words you're saying…

L : He made this table today even.

Oh wow, that’s amazing. Make it less jiggly next time.

L : Some people call him God. We just call him joel.

(laughter)

So kind of speaking of the internet, on the topic… help or hindrance for you at this point? Regarding downloading and that kind of thing.

L : Internet?

J : I think honestly for the people who are gonna really enjoy the music we play, they’re gonna download it, and they're gonna listen to it, and they're hopefully, if they really like it, they're the type of crowd that would understand that if they had a chance to come to our show they would… they would support us, right?

L : Oh God…

(I’m taking a photo of Passmore and he’s making a silly face)

J : I mean, I download music all the time but I make a point that if I hear something I really like, I’ll go out and buy it because I want the package, I want everything. So I mean anyone that says the internet hinders them and they lose money from it, I mean, I can’t see it, unless you’re only making… when you’re that big it doesn’t matter. 'Cause everyone that complains is huge right? You can’t base your…

L : Yeah like, that thing with Metallica, he’s like ‘bla bla bla…’ Like dude, you just put 40 million dollars in your pocket and you’re worried about that $500,000?

D : They’ve got it easy anyways, I mean if you’re in a position where you can try and make a living if that’s what you wanna do with your life, as a musician, then you’re fuckin’ pretty lucky. Just because music’s so accessible now and I think that’s a good thing.

Now we get into the stupid questions.

L : Oh no no. I like…

No no no these are the goofy ones. Where I was like, hmmm what kind of stupid stuff can I come up with at 4 o' clock in the morning? And I was just kind of loopy.

B : Oh man, fair enough.

Do you ever just feel like breaking out in “Desperado” when you say your band name in interviews and stuff?

(they all exchange surprised glances)

Cuz every single time I think that… 'Despista… Desssspistaaaadooooo….'

B : Desssssperrrrrraaa….

(laughter)

L : No I never even thought of that but…

Really? That’s never come up before?

L : No.

(much mumbling and singing going on)

I thought I was gonna be so unoriginal…

L : Should we go into the song in the set? Despistaaaadoooo…

(silence)

Well anyways….

(laughter)

J : No no that was good by the way, that was good.

I’m crazy apparently, oh man. So if you guys were to choose a shade for a new brand of lipstick called Despistado, what would it look like?

L : I’d say lighter green. What would you say Dagan?

D : Oh I was thinking….

L : Oh no honestly!

B : I immediately thought bright orange.

D : Yeah, I was thinking hot orange.

J : I gotta say like an earthy, dark brown, but not too gross like you just had a chocolate bar but obviously…

B : Or a scoop of poop.

D : Black. Brown. Bright orange.

J : But no like a … we’ll say coffee.

L : Actually I like… I like this green.

(indicates the lighter on the table beside him)

You gotta hold up that lighter so we can illustrate what kind of green that is.

B : Put it on your lip.

L : See like if girls just had this colour eye shadow on too and they had like green highlights… maybe not like this. Maybe more like forest green. 'Cause that’s my favourite colour. Forest green.

D : (Laughter). ‘Cause that’s my favourite colour…’

Nice all right. I don’t know what I was…

D : I’m gonna have to… can I have that [cigarette pack]?

L : Are we done with this [cigarette pack] already.

D : Yeah.

L : Holy shitballs.

Oh you guys. Smokin’ too much. Okay St. Mary’s College of Notre Dame, Indiana’s Emergency Response Plan includes instructions to access the school’s tunnels and report immediately to the basement of Regina…

(incredulous look and nod from guys)

Have you seen this before?

B : No but that’s awesome!

L : What’s this?

I’m not kidding you.

L : What?

St. Mary’s College of Notre Dame in Indiana. Their Emergency Response Plan has instructions to access the school’s tunnels and report immediately to the basement of Regina, which is the name of a hall on campus.

D : Innnteresting.

L : Oh my God!

D : Where’d you find that?

I don’t know, I’m amazing…

L : That’s amazing. That is so amazing.

I was trying to come up with some kind of question around that and the only thing I could come up with was to use it as a segue into your thoughts on the current state of the world vs. music. That places like colleges actually have this on their website. A big emergency response plan that’s like fifty pages long about what to do in the event of a terrorist attack, like what the hell is going on with the world? And does it affect you guys at all as far as music and everything like that, I mean, you’ve got a lawnmower taking a city down on the cover [of the EP].

(laughter)

J : Well me personally, I use music as an outlet, so obviously stuff that happens around me is gonna come out in it. But I also try to use it as an escape in a way in that, I do this for fun. It’s a way for me to feel like I’m doing something worth something. Some time. Maybe.

L : Well if you can meet me somewhere between here and there, that would be really cool.

B : Halfway some time.

J : Halfway.

D : Well, yeah if you think about what it means to be human, whatever that means to you, then music is just another form of celebrating life or whatever. That’s cheesy but true, or whatever. And people do it for those reasons, some people do it for those reasons, some people do it for other reasons. And that’s why current affairs and politics and I mean, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the idea of post-modernism but, and that’s really cheesy again and intellectual and cliché, I know that, but that concept and how right now, the world’s at a boiling point. Everything’s just so fucked up and chaotic and even like the internet… it just seems like people who have had control for the past century are losing control and that’s a good thing I think, but the rest of us have to figure out how we’re going to deal with that. And that really… select bands and how more bands are touring and the little guys are figuring out how to live on their own I guess. Whatever. I don’t really know what I’m talking about. But yeah I think it totally affects everything and you can’t deny that. We’ll see what happens.

B : It’s an outlet for everyone involved though.

So if you guys were being chased down by a giant lawnmower, what would your emergency response plan be?

B : Jump.

D : If you look closely the lawnmower’s actually backwards so it’s not really mowing down anything. It’s just going somewhere to mow down. Could be going to another city and then…

But if, if, we turned around right now and there was a lawnmower the size of this building coming at us, it’s just going…

B : We’d go start the show.

Yeah?

B : We’d get chopped down in our prime.

D : I don’t know it wouldn’t be that much, it wouldn’t be very inconsistent, whereas in Iraq you could see something that’s comparable like a fleet of planes coming with bombs or whatever, and I mean it wouldn’t be that much different than seeing a huge lawnmower come at you.

J : I’d just start punching myself in the mouth and hopefully it would think, 'ah that guy’s already done.' And just go in the other direction.

D : I’d call home and tell mom and dad and then play a quick set.

J : Call Riva… I’m gonna be mowed down. I love you. Honey.

That’s charming.

J : 'Are you drunk?'

B : 'See you on the other side somewhere baby.'

Tell us something that the world needs to know about Despistado that we probably don’t.

(silence)

Everyone always banks out on that one.

L : Everyone should self-reflect on life. Okay? Self-reflection.

D : Take time to do that and don’t let anybody take you out of that.

L : Yeah.

D : 'Cause people wanna take you out of that.

L : And actually go to shows and actually lose your mind. And don’t care whatever the next person’s wearing.

B : Live in the present. That has nothing to do with Despistado at all!

D : That’s a good thing that we’re all trying to do.

That Despistado wants you to know!

B : But don’t overdo it on the self-reflection. Because then it becomes…

D : But then it’s not self-reflection. Then it becomes self-indulgence.

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : June 24, 2004.