This started out as a great, fun, casual Ten Questions set, but when it came to the final question, evening turned it around and ended up interviewing me for a good while. Serves me right I suppose!
(Cord Magazine's questions are in blue. Artist responses are in grey.)


We’ve got a set of ten questions that we ask every band.

ZACH BREWER (BASS): Okay. Go.

Okay. What do you guys do on your downtime when you’re between touring and recording?

Z: Writing.

LEE BURICK (GUITARS): Yeah unfortunately I work like six or seven days a week to try and stay afloat. ‘Cause you know we have two weeks tops between trying to pay the rent and... it’s hard.

Z: Yeah I work four, and I’m a slacker. I should be working more days a week. What else do we do?

L: We like to read a lot.

Uh, vice of choice.

Z: Coffee.

Coffee.

L: Um, my vice of choice…

Z: No wait… cigarettes. No wait… at issue number 13, that guy Erik Lavoie, that was rad. French-Canadian thing.

L: I think as far as the vice things, we’ve sort of, we’ve had some run-ins, some problems with vices in the past. I think we kind of stick to weed at this point.

Favourite venue or city to play in.

Z: Hmmmm…Café Du Nord, San Francisco.

L: Really?

Z: Yeah. It’s my favourite place to play, it will always be.

L: Um, I like the Great American, actually.

Z: We only played there once! Oh, seeing shows, not playing shows…?

L: Oh, playing shows?

Um, yeah to play in.

L: Actually, not to blow smoke or anything, but Vancouver I really liked last time we were here.

Z: Yeah that was really good last time we were here.

Really. When was the last show?

Z: It was about a year and a half ago.

L: At the Piccadilly.

Z: The Pic.

L: It’s like, the kids here were so …

Z: They all call it the Pic here.

Yup.

L: So supportive and excited about seeing the bands as opposed to other cities where they just sort of stand there with crossed arms.

You hit a good night.

L: They’re like nice versions of Americans.

Z: (laughing) They’re like, they’re like little nice people! They look just like Americans, but…

L: Americans are jaded.

Um, oh we touched on this a little bit. But let’s go into it a little further. What issues and aspects of the world most concern you these days?

Z: Oil. Money. What else? The media.

L: Yeah.

…sorry.

Z: Ownership. No no! Not… I didn’t mean journalists.

Should I turn and run?

L: Hyped… yeah…

Z: Media.

L: Yeah if you’re gonna go that way, hype is crazy, out of control.

Okay, got it.

Z: The homogenization of everything that we hear, read or see in American culture. Or I guess just, on a global level.

L: Totally global. You go to Thailand and there’s a Starbucks.

What’s one interview question you could care less to hear again?

Z: Have there been any problems with drugs in the band?

(laughter)

Z: What else? One interview question… uhhhh… I can’t think of another one. Have you got anything?

L: Uh… how do you curl your moustache?

(laughter)

L: Does that take a lot of effort?

That’s interesting. What was your favourite Saturday morning cartoon?

Z: Voltar.

(Patrik Sklenar wanders from down the alleyway where we're sitting and joins us)

PATRIK SKLENAR (GUITARS) : Smurfs.

Z: Smurfs?

P: I love the Smurfs. They were rad.

Everyone... the Smurfs are a popular one.

Z: Can we help you (spoken to Sklenar)?

L: I like those really old fucked up…

Z: This is our roadie, Pat.

L: Like 1930’s Disney cartoons…

Z: Just kidding. Player syndrome.

P: Me?

(laughter)

Sorry, you were saying? Something about Disney…

L: Old… old Disney cartoons.

Z: Those didn’t play on Saturday mornings.

L: Yeah they did.

Z: Did they?

Really? Okay what did you guys want to be when you were growing up, aside from musicians, if that factors into it?

Z: Dancer. No no, a dancer, seriously.

And did you do anything to attain that?

Z: Ohhh yeah. (laughter) I shouldn’t have said dancer.

Care to discuss?

P: I always wanted to be a musician.

L: Yeah. I remember being huddled over my radio in my room when I was like eight years old. Playing the radio was mighty exciting.

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

Z: Hmm… I would be uhhh… is it a cliché to say George Bush?

P: That’s what I was gonna say.

It has been said a lot…

Z: Yeah... or no maybe [Ariel] Sharone…

L: Cher??

Z: (laughter) Sharone.

L: So you could feel sexy for one day in your life?

Z: No, the Israeli prime minister, hello.

L: Sharone?

Z: Um, yeah him, or maybe that Colin Powell guy. It would be pretty cool…

P: And what would you hope to accomplish?

Z: Just tell everybody over there to fucking cool out. That’s what I would do. (talks direct into mic) Everybody just cooool out, okay man?

Anybody else?

P: No. I don’t think I’d want to be anybody else.

Z: You’re so stuck up.

P: I know. I like being me.

Z: He’s a maniac. Was that the ten questions?

No we’re almost done. This is the fun one though. It’s sparked many, many debates. A shark and a bear fight. Here are the rules. There’s just enough water for the shark to exist. You know, swim around keep itself alive. Just barely. There’s a small rock in the middle of the pond … water... on which the bear is standing. Neither’s been trained, neither’s been fed for a few days. Grizzly bear, great white shark, they fight to the death. Who wins?

Z: Shark. Yeah.

Action plan?

P: Shark.

Z: The shark can immobilize the bear - which is easy because the bear has to be up like on it’s feet in the water…

L: Bears can swim too…

Z: So if he attacks the feet, then it’s over. The bear can no longer move around.

P: How big’s the bear?

It’s a grizzly bear. A sizeable grizzly bear. It’s described as the baddest of grizzly bears against the baddest of great white sharks. So they’re pretty damn big.

P: So that answers my other question, it’s a great white shark.

Z: So we’re talkin’ like…

Yeah it is. Yup.

P: And wait, there’s a rock in the middle?

Yeah there’s a rock that the bear is standing on in the middle of the water.

P: Oh okay.

So the bear can’t run away.

L: Yeah but the bear can pick up the rock and just pounce the shark.

P: Yeah can the bear pick up the rock?

I don’t think so.

P: No. It’s just a big rock.

Pretty big. Well, big enough…

Z: For me it’s more of… it’s really the shark’s environment.

P: That’s right.

Z: If it were like a shark and a bear up on a beach, where the water came in every now and then, but the shark had to go up on the land to get the bear, then I’d say the bear. But not in the water.

Okay.

P: How deep’s the water?

Just enough for the shark to exist.

Z: Swim around? Or exist?

Well, he has to swim a bit to keep alive. But that doesn’t mean there’s a lot of moving room.

P: In order to derive oxygen from the water, it has to be up at least that high ‘cause the gills are right here (indicates with hands).

Yup.

Z: Shark. Totally shark.

P: Well... yeah.

Z: Lee, you don’t even look like you care. I really care about this. I’m going with the shark.

P: I’m just trying to figure it out. Yeah that’s…

Z: Oh man, that’s really deep!

P: Tired…

L: Yeah we’ve been destroying ourselves the past week.

Okay last question. If you could ask me one question, what would that be?

P: What’s your name?

Oh, I’m Andy!

P: Patrik.

(shakes hand)

Z: I already knew that.

P: You gotta think of a different one.

L: Can I just ask another question before that one?

Okay.

L: Are you… do you live here? In the city?

Yeah. Well, not right here. I live in the suburbs.

Z: That’s your question Lee. Now me.

L: Is weed legal here?

No ... yeah… well, kinda.

P: Yeah how is it living in Canada?

What, from a weed perspective?

P: No no no…

(laughter)

Z: How do you like living here, like, marijuana-wise?

(more laughter). It’s good, it’s nice up here. It feels both safe and tense. You know... I’m gonna say it, being next to America.

Z: Like as far as…

We don’t really feel like we’re in any danger up here, you know what I mean? Like it feels like Canada’s not even worth bothering with.

P: I heard you guys don’t lock your front doors here.

Um yeah we do.

P: You do?

Yeah.

Z: That’s bullshit.

P: No I saw that on a documentary.

Well, it depends on where you are. I mean, people out in the boonies don’t.

P: Depends where you are, not in the city, yeah.

But yeah the city for sure, I mean, it can get pretty rough around… not right here necessarily, but if you go down to Hastings Street and you go like four blocks that way, it just like cuts off. You’re in an okay place, and then suddenly you’re in, you know, it’s just… people wandering around in the middle of the streets, drugs all over the place.

L: Really?

Yeah yeah.

L: What part of the city?

East Van.

L: Really. I didn’t know there was a ghetto here.

It’s just, it’s such a cut off. Oh it’s the worst in Canada. Absolutely, way worse than any other city.

L: Really. What’s the…

Huge. There’s more poverty in Vancouver than there is in like Toronto or Montreal or anything.

L: What’s the… I mean, what is…

Like around 100 West Hastings that’s where it kind of… ick. Hastings sort of goes around a bend, and you go around that bend and suddenly it’s just like…

L: What’s the race make-up?

A lot of Native people, a lot of Caucasian people...

L: Like kinda Indian Native?

Yeah. But yeah there’s a lot of prostitutes, a lot of problems with prostitution, drugs certainly. You know you just drive even in the middle of the day, you go down the street and down the alleyways there’s people shooting up…

L: Is it kind of like, where the natives were sort of put into areas, like… like in America they were shunned and they all became alcoholics and sort of lost their culture, and…

Z: I’ve got a really good question for you.

Yeah there’s a fair bit of that going on, but I think that’s less of an issue right here. That’s more like other parts of BC where they’ve got reservations and they’re just like these tiny little areas and there’s not a lot of programs or funding for them. But here I mean, there’s a lot of Caucasian people in that area who are just down on their luck or they have a mental disability of some sort or you know... they don’t really get a lot of help with it or they cant afford help or whatever, you know.

L: Right.

Z: Uhh… what do you call your hair colour? Which colour would you classify…

Um, needs-to-be-dyed-again red.

(laughter)

Z: Needs-to-be-dyed-again red! You should market that shit!

L: It matches your shirt.

It does match, yeah…

Z: Market that!

It’s supposed to be roughly the colour of that truck… a little bit brighter.

Z: Like a hair colour that’s meant to look like it needs to be dyed again. It could be like a conversation-starter.

Yeah, but everyone’s saying that, it looks like the shirt.

L: How did you come across this interview with … like did Lookout [records] get in touch with you guys or…?

No. I pursued it myself.

L: Oh. Where did you get the record?

Where did I get… I don’t have the record.

L: Oh really?

I’ve heard some songs.

L: How did you find out about us…?

Just anything that comes through Vancouver I try to check out. ‘Cause I like hearing new things.

L: Cool.

And I like, I like…

P: Is there not a lot of bands coming through, or...?

Oh no there’s a fair bit of stuff. But there’s a lot of bands that will go to Seattle and not come to Vancouver because its too much of a pain in the ass to go over the border.

P: We didn’t have too much problems this time around.

Good. There’s been a lot of shows that have been cancelled or postponed or whatever because they were stopped.

P: That sucks.

Yeah. But. Anything else, anything else? Education here…

Z: Uhh, international licensing, we’re looking for it.

Okay I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll tell my people.

Z: Hahah tell your people. Cool. This water tastes weird.

Give evening a whirl on CordMag's audio player.

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By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : June 7, 2004.