January 10, 2024 • 65 mins
From the Great White North, it's KEN Mode! Jesse Matthewson is the vocalist/guitarist over these noise mongers and let me be clear...you have to listen to them if you are a fan of all things noisy/ugly. Jesse was a great hang as we got to discuss what it was like winning a JUNO award (Canadian Grammy Award), being a late bloomer band and the importance of noise.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
You're listening to one hundred words or less with Ray Harkins.
What is happening? Everybody? Welcome to yet another episode of
this podcast where we talk to people who are involved
in independent music and love it dearly, like it's at
the core of their being. And then they maybe like
put out some records, or they may be like tour,
you know, all of those things that we care about, punk, hardcore, indie, rock, emo,
(00:41):
whatever it is. That is what we document here. And
today I've got a great discussion with Jesse Matthewson. He
plays in a band called ken Mode from the very
middle of Canada. If I'm not mistaken, I'm fairly certain
that's where they're from. Well, regardless they're from Canada, I
can tell you that, and they are, i mean, going
(01:02):
on twenty plus years band definitely in the loud and
noisy variety. I first got into them via the hydro
Head Records connection. Actually no, no, no, that's not true,
Escape Artist Records, because we actually Jesse and I nerd
out about that a lot. But Ken Mode is just
a really, really interesting and good band. And Jesse also
(01:22):
works in the music industry as like a business manager.
He helps out with finances and make sure that you
know bands are you know, just doing the right thing,
spending their money appropriately. But let's talk some things that
you should know about. First of all, you can always
email the show one hundred words podcasts at gmail dot com.
Second of all, you can leave it rating and review.
(01:43):
People ask, honestly all the time, how to support the show,
because sometimes I get people are like, can I like
send you five bucks on PayPal? No, no, no, don't do that.
Don't worry about that. It's all good. But what you
can do is you can leave a rating and review
on the Apple podcast page. That helps out tremendously. Or
you can leave a rating on the Spotify page. If
you listen to podcasts on Spotify, it helps out tremendously. Also,
(02:08):
I publish these chats on YouTube, So if you like
to listen to podcasts on YouTube, there's a link in
the show notes where you will be able to subscribe,
and that way you will not miss an episode. From
that side of things, Also, there is I'm doing a
new thing this year where each week I will be
recommending something music wise that I enjoyed and that you
(02:29):
should pay attention to. So I'm going to continue that
first week I recommended something, so you'll have to pay
attention to that. But the most important note is the
fact that I'll include a link in the show notes
as well where you can dive into a playlist and
be able to listen to the music that I'm recommending.
And this week's recommendation is a band from Europe. I
(02:50):
think they're from Berlin, I could be wrong, called Force
a Denial, Holy crap. If you like anything nineties hardcore,
if we're talking like classic Victory Records style stuff, you
know strife, Earth Crisis, nowcase, but you know with modern twist.
Forsta Denial, it's a four song EP. It's called Times
of Strife, which of course like you know strife. It's
(03:12):
funny anytime you can connect a band name to a
band name that has or a record name to a
band name that has exists in the past. I'm all yours.
But forst Denial really really good. They have a guest
spot from the vocalist of Magnitude. They also have a
guest spot from someone in the band Spark, who's really
really good. But yes, a four song EP. If you
(03:34):
like your hardcore classic in nineties filled, then you will
absolutely adore what this band has in store. So again
a link in the show notes and you will be
able to listen to this band and then all the
previous recommendations. I'm going to be doing one a week
for the rest of this year. So there we go.
Let's talk about Jesse. Like I said, Ken Mode, really
(03:55):
interesting band. They're getting more popular, which is awesome because
you know, band that's been twenty plus years in their career.
Sometimes it's kind of just like, all right, you know,
we're totally content with the fan base that we have,
and you know, there isn't much that we can do.
But Ken Moon seems to be catching more and more
people's attention, which is awesome and I love that. And
Jesse was a great hay. So without further ado. That's
(04:18):
so many people say that right when it's like tossing
off the interview portion without further ado. But anyways, I
will I will try to not lean on that cliche cliche.
So here we go. Let's talk to Jesse.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Great Hays.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
What that.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Out?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I got it supposed to you many moons ago via
your Escape Artist release because you are old school, then yeah,
you know we're talking like you know, I am a
early forties hardcore kid. So the U and I like
how we refer to ourselves as kids regardless, because.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I mean, a hardcore kid is a hardcore kid forever.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So no matter which way you slice it.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
But you were an a Scape Artist fan. You weren't
a regular hardcore kid.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I appreciate you, I feel seen, Jesse, thank you for
saying that. But yeah, but I was obsessed with everything
that Gordon put out, you know, even down to you know,
Time and Walter what have you.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
But all the releases that came out like right near
the end of their time, which were underappreciated and all
like just killer records it. Yes, I agree, Blunderbuss the
Dream is dead totally. So they do collapse, are us?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, no, totally. And you mentioned that, like it just
that time, especially like in the early, you know, to
mid two thousands, was so interesting for you know, for
lack of better term, like artistic heavy stuff, you know,
with bands like obviously you guys mastered on Breathe and
Resist and so so many more that you toured with.
(06:21):
I know that you guys were obviously removed geographically from
a lot of that stuff that was happening, But did
you feel, for lack of a better term, that you
were kind of part of a scene because there was
stuff happening or no.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Ish, but not really. We were like definitely on the
young side of all the bands going at that time,
and we also didn't tour very hard, and that actually
becomes like a recurring theme with us and part of
why we had like clear cut resurgence in the very
(06:53):
end of the aughts and like early twenty tens when
we were literally throwing everything into touring full time because
we felt like that was the only way we could
really get any recognition at least wider spread, because I mean,
like Escape Artists had some and like case in point,
you heard us, but like they weren't a popular label.
(07:14):
They were a weird one. They were like hydra Heads,
like uncool little Brother, even though I guess I don't
even know if you should say little Brother because like
they probably started around the same time.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
But yeah, no, you're well, it was basically like you
had your big two of hydra Head and Relapse, and
then like you know, you had what what Gordon was doing,
and then you had you know, like Hawthorne Street, like yeah,
just had random labels, but yeah, I understand your point.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, but like Escape Artist was one of those ones that,
like Pound for pound, I felt like they didn't miss
on anything, and like all those labels missed on some things,
at least for my personal taste. So I think that's
part of why we had such a long standing relationship
with people like Gordon Conrad, not to exclude Adam Peterson
(08:03):
who is his partner and Escape Artists, but because Gordon
has continued to work within the industry and we work
with them all through our time at season I missed
as well. We've we can't shake that guy, and he
can't shake us even now, like last year, the go
to guy we have and we have problems on the
East Coast Gordon Help. Who do you know? Help? Gordon?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Well, I love that description because like they're I mean,
people throw around the word lifer and there that can
mean different things to different people in regards to like,
oh their lifer where like you know, like they're they're
gonna be involved with this thing. But then some people,
you know, they trickle out of like working in the
music industry or playing bands or whatever. But like Gordon,
by any search of the imagination is lifer.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Oh, yeah, absolutely, and he consumes his life thoroughly. You
gotta believe he enjoys some of it, right, totally. He
has to. Even though he's grumpy, he has to some
of this he.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Has to has to. Yeah, I mean, especially like what
you were talking about, where it's like you you know,
because you were, you know, touring, but not to the
same degree as many of those other bands. Like I'm
sure there was that ability to you know, write off
the coattails of certain bands just because it was like, oh, yes,
like you know, we get compared to this band, so
(09:23):
people will check it out by default.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yeah, I never really got much of a sense of
how far that went back in the day. And again
it's really just where kids. The internet was like very
new to most people. And yeah, I just us being
in Winnipeg, it was so hard to take a proper
temperature gauge of where we existed in that general scene situation.
(09:50):
I definitely know we connected more with it when we
started touring the US all the time in like twenty ten,
because we even off the hop the first like re
entry to the States, we did shows with Gaza Engineer
clinging to the trees of a forest fire Rosetta, Like
we connected with the right bands and kind of started that.
(10:13):
I feel like the re emergence we did properly as
opposed to when we were kids we were just flailing wildly.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So totally and we'll talk about that filling a little
bit later, but the focus on you as a person.
Were you actually born and raised in Winnipeg. I know
that probably seems like very basic of me to find out,
but I was not aware.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, yeah, I was. I was born and raised here
with my brother. I have two brothers, but only one
of them is in ken mode.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Right, your your other brother obviously he just wasn't able
to hack it with you guys.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Huh No, No, he was. While he's like almost six
years younger than me too. He took to powerlifting instead
of playing rock music, and now he's a doctor. So
he did something right.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, I would dare say he did much better than you. No,
just kidding him.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
We're all broken in the same way, though, He's just
as unhappy.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So exactly, it's like it's just a different shade of broken.
It's totally fine, yeah, exactly. And so I'm gonna kind of,
you know, typify maybe your experience of growing up in Winnipeg,
because I mean all I know about Winnipeg is going
through there on tour ones and obviously it's a very
interesting slash desolate, you know, major metropolitan area. But then
(11:30):
also obviously not you know, I'm gonna guess that you
were forced to play hockey, you had no choice in
the matter, Like what was your upbringing?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Like I actually wasn't. Wow, I'm a weird one too
in that I did play hockey, but it was because
I really really wanted to and I started. I think
I was ten, So I was like a way late
bloomer okay, but that ended as soon as the dirty
grip of underground music grab my neck. So right, basically
(12:03):
most things in my life got destroyed when that happened, as.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
As most cute things do. Where it's like, you know what,
there's no room for anything else. I'm just gonna pay
attention to dumb loud bands.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, exactly. I used to draw. I used to have
so many things going on and just destroyed.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I want to play music. I want to go see shows. Right,
poor that poor kid.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I know that old chestnut. The uh so did you,
I mean, did you care about school? Like what was
the relationship looking like with your brothers in the house, Like,
were you guys all you know, just goofing around and
wrestling with each other? What was the vibe?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I mean, there's a little of that, we didn't do
it a ton of it, but like school was very
important too, Like our parents are both chartered accountants, and uh,
not performing well at school was not an option. So
we were like nerds, but not nerds, like angry nerds
who would kill you if you cross them.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Sure, threatening nerds.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Right, like yeah, and the only really I guess you
can't escape the nerd side. But like, yeah, we we
did well in school, but like, weren't your usual like nerds.
But I'm sure like that that's what a lot of
the scene is made up of, especially like the artsy
(13:25):
FARTSI side, like, they're usually pretty pretty intelligent people who
were able to put bands together that think outside the box.
Or maybe I'm just extrapolating. There's also a lot of
dumb asses, So I don't know. I mean, I'm talking
out of my ass at this point.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
No, No, well, I I think you the idea of
what you're talking about, where it's like there is a
level of you know, intelligence, albeit maybe small, to be
able to you know, get together a group of friends
to play music and then actually write some songs and
put out a demo and you know, have those logical
steps because you know, like that does take effort in
(14:04):
ways that some people just don't want to put towards that.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, but even specifically, like the style of music, when
it's it's a little brainier, a little artier, it has
a tendency to attract a certain type of person. And
again I'm not trying to toot my own horn here,
but like I mean, if you chat with who's a
good example, Brian Cook, He's he's a good ambassador of
(14:29):
people who play good, interesting, heavy music and he's not
a moron. I would agree, Brian, Brian would love that
that's the example.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I totally He's gonna be like, you know what, I
I play bass very well, I play a broad genres
of music, and yeah, I'm just like an artistic not moron,
I guess, But I know, I do understand where you're
coming from in regards to you especially, It's like, you know,
(14:58):
most people obviously enter this independent music scene via you know,
punk or hardcore, and it's very you know, simple and basic,
and then as you start to you know, progress and
your mind expands a little bit and you are able
to wrap your head around more intricate things. Not everybody
continues to go down that path. I can't tell you.
And I'm sure you have many friends that are just like, dude,
(15:20):
what do you why do you like neurosis?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Like that?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
They like ninety minute long songs. You're like, yeah, and
they could go fourteen and I'm fine.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
And just the people we've made friends with as a
result of music, like, they're all right, we're friends with them. Yeah, nerds, totally, totally.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
I have to place the Winnipeg you know, a wreath
on you in regards to the fact that there's obviously
most people point to a band like Propagandhi, and obviously.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
We actually do their we do their accounting.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Of course, of course you do. Yeah, And like, I'm
gonna guess that that band was probably inescapable for you
living in that area and probably getting attracted to you know,
punk or hardcore in you early ears.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Surprisingly, they didn't really have anything to do with me
getting into the scene. Okay, Yeah, I actually got into
Propaganda because a girl I liked was a big fan
of Theirs, but in terms of getting into the scene
in Winnipeg, not a lot of people in the US
know them. But this band called Kittens.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Who was Oh yeah, Sonic Onion.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yeah, yeare we go? Hell yeah yeah. They were the
band that did it for me. And I didn't even
know they were local, but saw a show poster. I
was already a fan. Me and our original bassist Daryl
Axtell went to go see in a dirty basement Wellington's.
(16:50):
It was Kittens and like a ska punk band and
like a weird kind of emo band, and we're talking
like real emo, like og emo, but Kittens, like it
was an all ages show at the time. I think
we were fourteen and fourteen or fifteen anyway, that doesn't matter.
(17:10):
But Kittens was not an all ages band. So they
played this all ages show. Tons of people there and
as soon as Kittens started, everyone took like twenty steps
backward and Darryl and I were right up front and
they were writhing and spitting and just the most feral
thing I'd ever seen, and like it, it changed my life.
(17:32):
I had to be in a band when I saw that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
That's incredible because that like first of all, I never
knew Kittens be or the Kittens being from Winnipeg. I
just knew them like based on their sonic onion connection.
And yeah, they were such a strange band, like in
the way that obviously, like you said, they never came
across the border from a you know, American perspective, like
(17:57):
getting any recognition. But it's like there's so many bands
that are so country specific where it's like, you know,
Tristan Psionic or like all these bands that it's just like, dude,
no one knows about them in the States, and the
Kids are definitely a band that just didn't didn't have
any resonance in this country.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
It's really too bad too, because like if they would
have toured or made an attempt to really tackle that market,
I think they could have done pretty well because especially
like they started off pretty Melvin's Warship, but what they
turned into became I feel truly unique in what the
noise rock community has and had, And actually they're Bazuk
(18:37):
and the Hustler Records still really holds up to modern
material because of how well it was recorded, Like it
doesn't sound dated at all to me. Maybe I am
a little biased because it is one of my favorite
records that has ever been made. And I am, like,
I've been friends with the members of the band.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
But it it's, I feel, a truly special rock record,
and it's it's really too bad that they never got
the recognition they deserved. And part of it is just
because they didn't. They threw in the towel earlier than
maybe they should have. And that's sure arguably why people
(19:19):
know Ken Mode. We probably shouldn't because we refuse to
throw the towel in right right, And it is.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
You you hit on a very interesting topic that I
think you know, a lot of bands wrestle with as
they you know, either if they break up or stop
playing together and then start a different iteration or whatever.
It's like the bands that you can point to that
you know are able to not even reinvent themselves, but
just to like to your point, persist, just be like
(19:51):
whether or not, like you know, we've ridden waves of
popularity up and down. It's like, as long as there's
this like slow continual growth, like you know, we'll able
to find our space.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, And I mean a lot of the time that
doesn't even work out, which is the funny thing. And
I kind of can't believe it has worked out for us.
Like things are better now than they've ever been for
this band, and I feel lucky that they are going
as well as they are. And I'm not going to
pretend like we haven't worked really hard at it, but
(20:23):
like that doesn't mean you're owed anything. So it's it's
definitely wild that here we are in twenty twenty three,
the band is twenty four years old, and like we
can actually pay our members something when we go on tour.
That's crazy to me.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
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only like what ten band shirts. Come on, let us
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(20:59):
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(21:21):
it's high quality stuff and the bands get paid. They
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(21:43):
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So rockabilly dot com hundred words are less is the
promo code. A lot of that is a testament to
the fact that you know, you not only how did
you guys dedicate yourselves more to obviously going out and
(22:05):
you know, continuing to push the live envelope from that
side of things, but then you continue to, you know,
be prolific in releasing music, because there definitely is that
idea of if you're a band that has to exist
in the music industry, every you know, year and a
half or two years, you got to put a new
record to you know, satiate the public and you know
go on to or whatever. And you guys have been
(22:27):
able to you know, sort of be able to call
your shots from that side of things to be like, yeah,
it's going to be three or five years before you're
canna get another one, and then sometimes it'll be a
year like you just did.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
And that was only because of the pandemic, because we
wrote two records at the same time.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Right, It's like, oops, sorry, yeah, so I know, like
like you're mentioning the Kittens. It was a huge band
for you. But how did like that get intro to you?
Was it? You know, like you and your brother are
kind of pingponging off of each other with music that
you were you know, being excited about, or did you
get exposed to via friends at school or how'd that go?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Honestly, at that stage of the game, Shane was more
of a tag along. It was me and Daryl, who
was our first bassist, were like best buds. I mean,
Shane and I were best best friends, but like Daryl
was my next next best friend through junior high and
high school, and him and I were kind of on
the musical journey at the time, and it was like
(23:29):
the dawn of the Internet type stuff. I think he
may have discovered kittens in some free magazine that was
in an HMV in the mall that we'd go for
to get CDs. That'd be where kittens came from. But
I know, like I remember in the early days of
like Netscape, people used to make weird websites dedicated to bands,
(23:54):
and you do searches for like the Melvins, and all
of a sudden, this site would pop up that was
dedicated to talking about Cop Shoot Cop the Cow is
an unsane It's like, I don't know why this came up,
but I'm gonna check all this out and then you're
a fan of those three bands, and it's just it
was such a weird time. But also like from the
(24:14):
perspective of being like a teenager discovering music, it was
absolutely the wild West and it was just so cool.
But right, I know, for like opening up the underground sense,
the big one for me was and for millions of kids.
Nirvana was the one.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Right that had just opened up the portal, and then
you kind of, you know, went went down and found
all the things that you needed to find.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yeah, yeah, I h yeah, it was it was in
Utero that did it. And then I read the book
that Michael lazared, Come As You Are, and basically went
and looked up most of the bands that Kurt referenced
in it, like Bad Brains, Black Flag, Jesus Lize, Big
Black Scratch, Acid like and from there you just go
(25:05):
down that rabbit hole. Now you're into Touch and Go records,
Now you're into amphetamine, reptile.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Right, and now you right now you know what these
words mean, whereas like if you say them to an
average citizen, they're just like, what do you mean, amrap?
What is this? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Touching go some sort of sexual thing?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Totally? Did your parents have any reservation in regards to
you starting to bring home some very weird music and
then probably you know, when you started to play in
bands and stuff like that, or were they generically pretty supportive.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
They're the reason I even got a Nirvana tape in
the first place. My dad wanted to listen to it,
and he thought he might be too old to buy
it for himself.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Shut up. That is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
This is all This is all his fault.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I love the fact just that that wherewithal that your
dad had where he's like, man, this is way too
way too young for me.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
You try hardy, I don't know. I'm gonna get this
for the kid. See how this goes? Right?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Is this cringe? As the kids would say?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Jeez, it's kind of awesome because now at this stage
in his musical development, I'm like his truffle pig for
this stuff. So I only share music with him that
I think is like the top like fifteen of the year,
so I buy. Whenever I buy a CD for myself,
I usually buy a copy for him. So he's shy
of like pretty extreme metal, which he's not always super
(26:37):
into anything else I like he generally likes.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
That's incredible because usually, especially once kids start to get
into stuff that is clearly left of center and like
something that it wouldn't even make sense to most parents.
The fact that you can show him things that that
would be stretching any boundaries, He's like, yeah, I'm I'm
fout along.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Yeah, Yeah, he was wasted in neurosis now incredible.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So what was the proverbial? I mean, I know that
from a professional perspective, you you know, do business planning
and management for bands and stuff like that. Was there
an expectation that you were going to set forth in
your parents' footsteps as far as being an account and
everything like that, or was the you know, the palette
wide open.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
It was pretty wide open. And honestly, when I came
out of high school, I thought I was going to
go down into the science path and I started there
in university, but quite literally felt like I had a
out of body experience when I was in a lab
and decided I had to get out of the science
is because I didn't think I'd ever be able to
(27:48):
amount to anything because I didn't really care and the
only thing that I did care about was music. And
the only way I was ever going to make any
money in music was if I got a business degree
and putotentially worked in the music industry. So, like we're
talking maybe two thousand, I started this long game of
hopefully working in the music industry. Sure, and by like,
(28:13):
I guess it was twenty sixteen that Shane and I
decided to like try to do the thing with that,
and we're making a living now, So that's cool. It's
cool that that stupid, like eighteen year old brain had
a long game that actually played out and worked.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Sure, I do love like that concept. I mean, I'm
sure you experienced it as you started to you know,
play shows outside of you know, Winnipeg and tour and
all that sort of stuff. Just the idea of like
the business person of the band. You know, usually it
gets thrust onto the vocalists because that, for whatever reason,
it just always is. But it sounds like you had
(28:54):
maybe an interest or proclivity as you started to do
that where it's like, oh, yeah, I'll be the you know,
business person because like I know roughly what I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, I mean I kind of took the reins of
it just because I'm the most proactive with everything to
do with the band anyway, But actually I don't. Shane
does most of the accounting now. I guess we kind
of split some of it because I handle all the
online store stuff, so I do the nitty gritty transactional
stuff there just because it helps me keep organized in
(29:25):
shipping things. So I handle like the PayPal and the
Shopify and then he does everything else, the higher level accounting.
But it is funny because we literally will do like
financial accounting on tour, so we know where things are
at at any one moment. Like he might not do
it every day, but it'll be every second day for sure.
So it's kind of cool because we'll know exactly how
(29:47):
the tours are doing in real time, right.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
I mean that is really like the concept of like
I'm sure you felt this as you first started a tour,
like when you level up and they're like, okay, we're
going to like keep inventory of our merch and like
just when we start to add these little things on.
But like you've you've obviously like you know, big brained
it to where it's like, oh, yeah, we know exactly
how this is going to go.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Yeah, my dad used to kind of put the gears
to us, like super early on, trying to get us
to to do things the way he would and back then,
like we just we didn't have the numbers or experience
to be able to do any of that. So it's
one of those like Dad, but Dad, like none of
(30:32):
this makes none of this matters, and like straight up now,
of course we do all that because we have the
data and I love using the data.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
That's incredible. Uh, I'm guessing it was Ken Mode, like
your actual first band or did you play in some
you know, terrible stuff before that.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Ken Moud is the first one that ever played any
actual shows. And it's it's honestly, it's it's it was
just the last name that this three people were playing
in any way. So the Shane, Daryl and I started
playing probably around like ninety six, and by the time
we started playing shows, it was Ken Mode, but it
(31:14):
was still just the three of us.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Got it, got it and with the because Ken Mode
from a classification perspective, is like, you know, it's like
you're not necessarily a metal band, you're not necessarily a
hardcore band. You're obviously just you know, you're classic fence itters,
you know, I'm just kidding, Yeah, but yeah, would you
kind of classify yourself as that? Like as you were
(31:38):
starting to like get into music, I mean, I know,
like you were saying, they, you know, Nirvana, Beacats, you know,
scratch acid and et cetera, et cetera. Like did you
find yourself I guess gravitating towards you know, being like
a you know, punk kid, metal kid, hardcore kid or
was it pretty agnostic because.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
I got into everything through basically noise rock. I felt
no allegiance to anything, and like, Winnipeg had a really
strong noise rock scene in the nineties, but by the
time we really entered the scene, it had almost completely died.
So we were clinging to playing with like hardcore bands
and the odd punk band, grindcore bands like Malfaction, who
(32:18):
actually came they were a hardcore band first.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
But.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, we didn't really have a scene, so it was
it was always It's always been strange, and I've never
even as the band has developed, like we've never really
fit into any one category. We're a little too metallic
for a lot of noise rock purists, were clearly too
noisy for most hardcore kids. Most metal people think were
(32:44):
just noise. So it's been strange. We end up finding
fans in people that don't follow any one thing, and
they end up being kind of weird, like we are.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Right, no, And I agree with you because I see
the through lines of like you know, looking at all
those labels like we were talking about at the top
of the conversation, where it's like you almost were able
to pick out like a hydra head kid where it's like, oh, yes,
like you know, they're you know, they just look maybe
like they're totally fine standing by themselves in a room
(33:21):
listening to weird, loud music that you wouldn't really be
able to easily define and like and that's totally fine
and they're good with that.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Yeah, And a lot of the time, like if they
talk to a hardcore kid, like they they have similar roots,
and yet they also have similar roots to some of
the metal kids. And then they also have some bands
that both of those kids would hate. So it's right
strange missionsh it is.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
It is when you started to tour and you know,
play outside of Winnipeg and everything like that. Did you
like touring? Was it as you anticipated or was it
something that you were very taken aback by.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
No, I don't know if I ever like, specifically liked it.
I also didn't hate it, but it's always felt like
it was a means to an end no matter what,
even from the first tour onward, Like we we've been
kind of fortunate in the way we've approached some things.
We're like our first tour ever, we kind of piggybacked
(34:22):
on that band, The End, who was on Relapse Back.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Oh yeah, yep, yep, I remember them.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Two thousand and two. They had a tour that was
booked that was supposed to be with another band. The
other band couldn't do it, so we just like hopped
on it, and that was our first tour ever. Like
most bands like us need to like truly eat shit
trying to do their own thing and booking it, and
we just hopped on a thing with The End, which
(34:48):
I mean, we've eaten our fair share of shit, share
me wrong, but like that was like a really good
first feather in our cap when we're trying to like
the industry thing, like, yeah, you've heard of The End, right, yeah?
Yeah yeah we toured with them. Oh really totally.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Oh yeah you're legitimate, Like yeah, we can probably talk
to like maybe Darkest Hour to like take us out
or something like that, like we can at least drop
The End's name.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah it's a something right right?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
What what did you like? You said you kind of
had your rough sites set on the music industry broadly speaking,
you know what what sort of inroads were you trying
to make? Like did you want to work at a
label and obviously like be an accountant or did you
want to do an r even though you probably didn't
even know what that word meant at the time, Like
were you no hot clue? Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
And the funny thing is like after getting a business degree,
you find out that nobody in the music industry actually
knows how to run a business at all, which is
just funny. And I mean that's part of why Shane
and I have a career now, because we have legitimate
big business skills and we're not crooks, so it's pretty
easy to start getting clients pretty quickly. One of the
(36:08):
things people complain about now is that it's unfortunate that
we aren't American or European because they all wish they
had a version of us. Right, That's cool, nice, nice
to have other people telling us that.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Right, right, it is because I think it's I mean,
especially when you are young and you're just like, Okay,
I like music. I want to try to figure out
whatever I can do to make a living out of it.
Whether that I mean, because no one, especially when you
get attracted to heavy music, it's not like there's a
lot of paths forward to be like oh yes, you
(36:45):
know we're either I guess we're either Hate Breed or
you know, some other bands like maybe that can try
to like make a living out of this. But I mean,
I guess in the two thousands you started to see
a little bit of a path. I mean, now there
definitely is a clear path.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
But it's even that it's that there is a path.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
It's true. I mean, I guess maybe the path is
just the idea of like the fact that you can
be you know, more clear eyed about your approach where
it's like, oh, yeah, like you don't have to you know,
lose your butt on this tour because you can make
these you know, predictions of like, oh, yes, we're getting
paid one hundred dollars a night, maybe we shouldn't buy
a van first off, Like maybe maybe we should rent
(37:24):
this or whatever.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, and even with all that, like it's it's it's
interesting how little so many musicians actually make.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
No, especially when you're talking about like and I'm sure
you've done this exercise of the amount of time spent
versus you know, an hourly rate.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
It's like, yeah, let's not even talk about that.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
It's a fruitless add For for many years, I put
on that Sound and Fury music festival down here in California,
and it was one of those things I did that
exercise with my friend where we were like because it
wasn't our full time job, so we just did it
because obviously love the game. I mean, yes, we made
some money off of it, but just the idea of like,
oh so we could have done a lot less work
(38:10):
and worked at like a Starbucks and we would have
been like four xing our income, Like this is crazy.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Jane always says, Uh, if you want to make money,
go work at a bank.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
It's true, think about free samples, right, not kidding.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
You like what you're doing a little bit with this stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
So exactly you're right, You're right.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
I have to focus specifically on a song of yours.
Usually I don't get this nerdy in regards to you know,
specific bands and or songs, but the uh a love
letter to me. Like when I I've like I said,
I've always enjoyed your band, but like that song spoke
to me in ways that I was just like, oh
my gosh, Like it kind of unlocked another portal for
(38:54):
me to like, you know, like you even more, where
I basically it was just like, oh, so basically this
is like Dead Guy except in twenty you know, twenty two,
we'll call it or whatever, even though Dead Guy obviously
exists now. But I can't help but notice your you know,
fandom for Dead Guy and obviously representing them by wearing
you know, their shirts on stage and stuff like that.
(39:17):
Have you does that resonate with you? Or I presume
you probably have liked Tim Singers projects like overall.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
I mean Tim is on one of our records.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I didn't even know that.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
That's amazing, he sings on No, I'm in Control on
our Entrench record.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Oh that's great. Well, I'll have to I'll have to
pay closer attention there.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Yeah, and I mean Dead Guy. I've always liked Dead Guy,
but honestly I like KISSI Goodbye More.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Hell yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
And uh, this is funny because I've said this online
a bunch of times. And then Tom from Kissiicabye will
chime in. The The EP that Damien was on for
KISSI Aabye is my favorite material that Tim was ever on,
and I feel it's the best of the whole as
a goodbye Dead Guy whole catalog, and I mean, that's
part of why I love Damian so much though too,
(40:06):
like and actually legitimately, Damien may be the reason that
anyone has ever heard of.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Us, right he he does have the ability to you know,
champion bands in his own way.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah. It was a weird chain reaction though, because like
he discovered ken Mode on MP three dot com, he
exchanged messages with me and this was like at the
very beginning of when playing Enemy started, too and he's
the one who introduced me to Gordon Conrad.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So amazing, amazing.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
And Gordon's the only reason anyone knows.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Us too, right right, Yeah, Well, happenstance, you know, like
when you especially when you resonate with certain people, Like
that's the awesome part about putting out art, whatever it's
music or anything, you never know who will impact and
then obviously the different rows that will throw you down.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Yeah, And it's refreshing when you meet those types of
people because and it really reaffirms it. We're all just
a bunch of nerds looking for things to make that
make us feel good and trying to share it with others.
And nothing exemplifies that more than that situation. And and now,
like us championing the new Great Falls record to anyone
(41:19):
who listen, Like, yeah, I just want to share this
cool shit that people should.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Hear totally, and this just happens to be that I
have to tour in a band to you know, let
you know about that and my band as well, but
like you know, we want we want you to be
into the stuff we're into.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And I mean that's it's It's funny
you mentioned the ban shirt thing, because I know we
we both get flak from people and also like endless props.
It's funny when people give us flack and and claim
we're like being tryhards or something. It's like, this is
my actual wardrobe. Do you think someone's dressing us in
our photos? Like we're wearing clothes that we wear in
(41:57):
everyday life. We just are fans of bands and like
wearing band shirts.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
In a really weird discourse that I've seen over this
last couple of years, it is.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
To me, it's my numbingly stupid, especially if you're talking
about like it's a different story if you're you know,
like throwing stones of some pub at some public figure,
that's like, oh dude, you know whatever, like Kylie Jenner
doesn't know who Agnostic Front is or whatever. That's a
whole different like. But like if you're being like, oh dude,
why are you wearing a dead guy's shirt? Jesse, Like,
(42:33):
it's like, what that's a problem? Why a shirt?
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Yeah, shirt man? Exactly, I wear an early Grave shirt
because I like that shirt.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Right. I enjoyed the band, and uh, you know, it's
a great form of advertising for them when I wear
it on stage and everybody wins.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
My favorite and tomb shirt. Right now, Well, while we're speaking.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Here, spectacular something that I know that you have experience with,
and I'd like to hear exactly when you started to
become aware of the grant system. I've always being from America,
and then I worked at Century Media Records for many
years and actually a band from Winnipeg that you are
maybe tangentially familiar with called Burn the eight Track. So
(43:20):
I was shocked because I worked with that band, like
they're you know, cool at what they did. But talk
about an amazing grant writer. The singer got like hundreds
and thousands of dollars for marketing in regards to like
music videos and stuff like that. So when did you
become like aware of the fact that, like you know,
you could get grants, and like I've just I always
find it so interesting because bands of your nature and
(43:42):
then like you know, even Cursed or whatever has dipped
into a factor. So yeah, to.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Walk me through your experience with that, Yeah, I mean
I was aware of them because of things going on
in the nineties. Yeah, like being on the back of
like a shall North Dakota record or the Cursed record
and burn the a track, And but I didn't we
didn't start tapping into it actually until after we won't know.
(44:08):
I guess I was right before we won a Juno Okay,
we I remember I tried to get some marketing money
for our Venerable record, because like that was the record
that we were trying to really really push. And I
did get some marketing money through our province. It wasn't
a huge amount, but like it allowed me to do
like a radio campaign in the US for college radio
(44:29):
and something in Canada too, and it just generally allowed
us to start pushing the band to people who might
not know us. And I mean even early on, I
was one of the early adopters with Facebook marketing and
us it's too bad things. Not still like that, but
(44:49):
I remember shocking a lot of people when because you
could get super specific in how you target it back then,
and we gained a lot of fans as we were
trying to first start touring the again that way. But anyway,
to circle back to grants, it wasn't until around like
twenty twelve that we really started going after them and
(45:10):
I started learning how to both get them and use
them to the fullest extent. And since then, like since
Shane and I started doing MKA management services. That's actually
how I make a lot of money because I do
the grant writing for a lot of other heavy bands
because a lot of bands in our community didn't necessarily
(45:33):
know they could even access that, and a lot of
the like quantitative stats that they used to determine whether
or not a band can kind of is quote like worthy.
A lot of Canada's heavier bands crush all the like
radio friendly indie stuff. So sure, I kind of started
(45:58):
spreading filth throughout that system, and I've been amazing getting
a lot of like pretty not commercial sounding bands some money.
It's been really cool.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, No, that's amazing that you because I do think
that that is such a unique thing that obviously happens
in Canada and you know, countries in Europe and stuff,
and it's such a obviously a foreign concept for us
here in America where it's just like wait a minute,
what like the government would rather you know, set you
on fire down here. But the fact that you can
(46:33):
point to, like you said, the metrics that can show
the fact that like, yes, this band is literally getting
Canada on the map, this province on the map in
ways that you know, these other grants might not you know,
the money might not go as far or whatever.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yeah, and a lot of the bands that they still
favor these bands, but a lot of the bands that
they do pour a lot of money into end up
becoming like indie darlings in Canada and they just don't
click anywhere else. And the big thing I can always
point to with especially like the bands I work with,
is there are international names first and foremost, Like they're
(47:11):
making their money in Europe, they're making their money in
the US. Canada is just kind of an afterthought with
all that. So and ultimately with a lot of these
Canada heritage funds, like having cultural exports is a big deal.
So it's kind of a no brainer to fund some
of these groups because they are quite literally like art
(47:33):
that is successful around the world from Canada.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Right. Yeah, it's like the literal definition of what you
are trying to accomplish, Like here you go, this is
what it is.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Yep. And just because Gorgutz doesn't sound like Celine Dion
doesn't mean they shouldn't get some cash exactly.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
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so as you were, like you know, as ken Mode
was putting out records and getting your start and everything
like that, like you said, you were clearly not like
making a living off of, you know, your music and
(49:42):
everything like that. Were you, you know, doing accounting and
like working for lack of better term, like a quote
unquote regular job.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Yeah. After graduating university in what was it like end
of two thousand and four, I actually got a marketing
and small business management degree. But I was one of
the first wave of millennials that learned that quite literally,
because I guess the technical term for a millennial like
(50:12):
is people born from nineteen eighty one onward, and I
was born in eighty one. So I learned the hard
way that just because you have a university degree doesn't
mean you're going to get a job in your field,
which prior to that was like not a thing right totally.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Yeah, It's like you get a degree and then you
do the thing.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Yeah, and I couldn't, so that came with some baggage.
So I started doing accounting because it's something I could
get a job in and did that from like two
thousand and five through two thousand and eleven, when I
quit and we went on the road full time.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Okay, was that decision like did you was that difficult
for you to arrive to because I know, like you said,
or was a real demarcation from the decision to be like, yes,
we're gonna go out there, We're going to make this
band whatever it may turn into. Was that a difficult
decision or was it relatively easy because you wanted to
do it.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
I mean it was a tricky one because I was
either going to go back to school or we were
going to try this. And I was making that decision
at the same time that my brother was graduating from
the CAA School of Business, so he got his chartered
accountancy and he was faced with like do I jump
into industry and become like a controller of a company.
(51:32):
And he was only twenty five years old, so it's like,
I don't really want to like start a career in
something right now. So I kind of mildly convinced him,
like we should try this thing just so we never
look back and go like what if we tried? You know.
So when we made that decision, it still took two
(51:53):
years to build us up to a point where we
felt like we had something we could work because we'd
just gone on our first European tour, which was like
a couple week like fun thing with a band called
Taint from Wales. We just got a new bassist, so
we started laying the groundwork to try to do it
(52:16):
full time. So we wrote a bunch of songs. I
made plans to record with Kirk Blou because I felt
like it would help to have like a proper producer
making this record and someone within our scene that could
at least like it would help having the connection to
a guy like him, because obviously Converge was like completely
(52:37):
owning everything at the time. He was really really growing
as a producer too, so a lot of really neat
records were getting made out of his studio. So I
thought this was our first attempt at trying to record
even outside of our city. So I thought this was
a good idea, so we booked him recorded it in
twenty ten. Then I started laying on the framework for
(52:58):
trying to put it out. We lined up with Profound
Law Records, which felt like a good fit to like
take this first step. So yeah, twenty eleven came and
I think we put the album out in March and
we toured for the rest of the year.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Sure, I definitely. I mean I know almost every single
interview since you won the Juno Award, like no one
can't mention it, and obviously I'm gonna fall right in
line with that. The I just remember it where it
was just like this is so weird. Like I mean
I remember not because like you don't deserve it, but
(53:34):
it's just like that's bizarre, like here's the band. Like
in the same way you could understand why a band
like Alexis on Fire is winning like multiple Juno Awards
even though you know they were I mean like just
friends of mine or whatever. Just in the same way
that I felt like I was friends with you even
though I didn't know you. It's it just it was
probably like so surreal, bizarre, whatever you want to call it.
(53:57):
Did you have feelings towards that of just like all right,
I guess we're along for this ride. This is this
seems funny.
Speaker 3 (54:03):
Yeah, that was absolutely a feeling like we no expectations.
It was strange that we were even nominated and then
to win like we were for sure the underdogs. We
were the least popular of all the bands that were
up for it, and winning was we literally just started
laughing right like I really did ham it up when
we went up there, like I stretched my arms out.
(54:25):
It was just like what is what is this? What
is going on? I mean, I wouldn't trade it for
the world. It was cool.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
Sure, what would you say? I mean, I'm putting on
the spot here. What was the most either bizarre or
interesting interaction that you had with you know, that sort
of more mainstream world of being like who is kit?
Like you know, interviews? I'm sure you did, or like
maybe it was people you know randomly dming you guys
or whatever. Do you have any things that stick out
(54:55):
in your mind?
Speaker 3 (54:58):
We I know, because of that, we got approached by
booking agents and management people and labels in Canada that
were for sure completely inappropriate.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
Right, You're like, did you listen to us?
Speaker 3 (55:14):
Yeah? And I know even that we did have a
Canadian agent for a while that we did get as
a result of this, and he was a real piece
of shit. I'd later find out that he was like
actively talking shit on us while representing us to like
talent buyers and cities. It's like, what the fuck are
(55:35):
you doing, dude? Right right, Like, we're gonna talk hat
on for this guy now?
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Sure? Like, yeah, we're going to talk to these promoters
because we've played shows with them before, even before you
were involved or whatever.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Yeah, we there was for sure some some weird scenarios,
but I mean for the most part, people were pretty cool.
Even like the press leading up to the Juno's we
got featured in a lot of the articles talked because
it was the first time they brought the heavy like
heavy metal slash hard music Juno. It was the first one,
(56:09):
so I think it's almost like they were trying to
give metal a different image while they were presenting this
new award, because they did focus on us a fair
amount leading up to it, and I think it was
simply because we had the accounting background. It was kind
of like, not all metal heads are long haired, drugged
(56:32):
out losers, Like, look at these fine young boys.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
Totally, here's some respectable number crunchers that happened to play
heavy music, right.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
Just don't listen to them, for the love of God,
don't listen to them totally.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
It's like their band name is agnostic, where you can't
really necessarily tell what they sound like. They are somewhat
presentable human beings, like yes, they're wearing weird shirts or whatever,
but they don't look, you know, like the typical metal
band or whatever. So I could see the calculations that
someone would go through to be like, oh, yeah, these
this seems like a safe award to give this band too.
Speaker 3 (57:08):
Yeah. I still think a good part of the reason
we ever got any push in the larger kind of
mainstream underground press was because of how we are a
little bit left of center where in terms of something
that's a little bit more presentable and a weird story
like accountants. Why Yeah, Like as soon as they kind
(57:33):
of got that initial shock of presenting it out, then
they never touched us again, which.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
Is fun, which is fine totally, or it's like, hey,
we've already gone through that press cycle, like that story
is an interesting what else you got?
Speaker 3 (57:46):
Yeah, Yeah, we definitely got picked up by Pitchfork for
like a year, and then they decided they wanted to
destroy us and have nothing to do with us. And
that's fine, right.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Your next record gets a three point oh and they're like, okay,
I see where we're sit now.
Speaker 3 (58:00):
Yeah, And that was quite literally how it played out.
It's perfect point. I think it was maybe a four
point something and yeah, well did they talk some shit?
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Well, you know, I mean, at that point, you have
truly made it, because you've obviously you know, like when
you become a divisive band to that you know type
of reader. It's like, all right, I think we've accomplished
something here.
Speaker 3 (58:23):
Yeah, we must be doing something right.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
Right right out of pure curiosity, where is your judo?
Speaker 3 (58:30):
Like?
Speaker 1 (58:30):
Do you do you have it on a mantlepiece? Is
it a you know, in the storage unit.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
Or whereas mine is on my parents piano?
Speaker 1 (58:38):
Oh beautiful?
Speaker 3 (58:39):
Yeah yeah, and I'll probably I'll move it. I'm kind
of like quasi actively looking for a house right now,
which seems insane, but I mean I'm a forty two
year old man and my partner and I have some
money that we have for a down payment, so I
think we can pull it off because we live in Winnipeg,
and Winnipeg sucks when I buy. When I buy a house,
(59:02):
I'm going to display it somewhere there, right Or.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
You could bring that into the you know, house tour
with a realtor and be like, hey, you know, maybe
we'll get a little discount on this. Do you know
who we are?
Speaker 3 (59:16):
I think that'll that'll impress Winnipeg Zellars for sure.
Speaker 1 (59:20):
Oh, absolutely, for sure. The last two things I wanted
to hit on was the actually you know, apropos of
you talking about buying a house, like considering the band's
location and like how much effort it takes to you know,
basically go anywhere outside of Winnipeg. From a touring perspective,
do you do you kind of reflect on like the
(59:43):
you know, non geographical nature that most bands exist in now. Like, yes,
bands start in maybe a city or whatever, but like
you can't really point to them being like oh, you know,
like if you play in New York, I can totally
hear like the New York City hardcore or whatever, Like
is it you know, how do you reflect on that
like lack of regionality that exists for most bands these days?
Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Yeah, that's the Internet. It's one hundred percent the Internet. Yep, totally,
Which is it can be a good thing and a
bad thing. It's it's removed some of the special qualities
of the regional stick. But at the same time, like
when something clicks, you can have a built in audience immediately,
and like I don't know in case in point, where
(01:00:24):
a band like Chatpile, where like there are a bunch
of guys who are just doing local bands all the
way up until they're all almost forty and then they
put together the right ingredients for this band that just
clicks at the right time, and like their first tours
are sold out six hundred cap rooms all across America.
Like what the actual fuck is going on right outside
(01:00:45):
of it is like can be super cool, but like, yeah,
kind I kind of do lament that the days of
the regional scene because like you'd see some really weird stuff,
like even Winnipeg, like throughout the nineties and then the
early two thousands, like we had weird little pockets. Is
like I mean, I was a part of it, a
strange subsect of bands. It didn't really fit in anywhere,
(01:01:06):
and it was it certainly was because of Winnipeg. But
you don't see that anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Right, right, And on that sort of general idea of like,
you know, did the presentation that bands obviously have to
do you know on the internet, like it seems like you,
i mean, not only your personality, but then just kind
of the band's personality cuts through really well. And the
fact that like, yes, we take our music seriously, but
(01:01:34):
we don't take ourselves seriously, not like you're just you know,
some jokes or band like the Aquabats or something like that,
but although it would be kind of cool if you,
you know, lead a little bit in that direction.
Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Yeah, I mean where we got a saxophone player.
Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
I think I know it is true. I mean there
is brass in the band, so we're close.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
You're all better look out for what's next. What can
only hope And.
Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
I'm sure you've gotten like in the same way that
you know, people have commented on shirts you're wearing and
stuff like, have people you know either come at you
or commented on the you know, the fact that you
were like not this like super serious, you know, overwrought
band or have you know you kind of not seen
that percolate towards you.
Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
No, I haven't really seen much attitude usually people. It actually, uh,
I think warms people up to us, especially after they've
seen us live because like the stage show is hostile. Yah,
it's very I mean we were raised on all things
eighties and nineties underground and like there was not much
(01:02:45):
of a sense of humor with a lot of that,
and we do not have a sense of humor on stage.
But as soon as we get off, like I don't
I don't want to do well unless unless something really
fucked up happens at the show that I might want
to actually hurt someone, But sure, we generally are are
working out our shit through that thing. So, especially like
(01:03:07):
from a writing perspective, I feel like I'm at least
prior to the pandemic, I felt like I was getting
better and better at concentrating all the bad, toxic things
in my life down to this poison that we're putting
into this music. Although I do think that the pandemic
has done some damage that it's going to take years
(01:03:27):
to fix. Sure, just in terms of being irritable and angry,
and I really put a lot of work into not
being that, and I'm for sure angrier than I was
before the pandemic, but sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
It'll take a few years to sand those edges down,
so to speak.
Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Yeah yeah, if at all right, I probably need therapy,
but fuck it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
No, that's obviously that's why you have, you know, the saxophone.
Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Yeah, that's what you hear therapy when you have a saxophone.
I mean, Catherine that tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Totally you could just be like, you know what, I
think we solve the problem here, Like you know, I mean,
what licensed therapist doesn't have a saxophone? In the background
of their zoom chat or whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:04:12):
You know, that's why she's the cheeriest one in the band.
It's because she's tooting that horn.
Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Oh absolutely, well, Jesse, I very much appreciate you goofing
around and hanging out with me. I yeah, like I said,
I enjoyed what you've done for a long time, and
now you will be a friend of mine, whether you
liked it or not. Hell yeah, yes, that was Jesse.
And hopefully you learn some stuff because yeah, Jesse was
(01:04:38):
not only spitting truth about his band, but you know,
talking about the grant system. Oh man, I love grant talk,
which I know sounds absolutely ridiculous to say out loud,
but I just find it so fascinating that the rest
of the world has programs to support the yards and
not here in America, you know, just godless America or
something like that. Anyways, thank you to Jesse, and thank
(01:04:58):
you to Current, a long time friend of mine and
he's a pr extraordinary human being, and so he brought
this idea to me. We made it happen. It was great.
Let's talk about what's happening next week. I have Keith
Buckley X every time I die, but now currently plays
in a band called Many Eyes, who is you know
embarking on their first tour with Thursday and Rival Schools,
(01:05:20):
and it's gonna be very very exciting to watch that transpire.
But Keith and I we spent some time on the
road many many moons ago and it was a great chat,
Keith was was a good hang. And that's that's all
we really want here, right, A nice hang you get
to know a person, hopefully like their art a little
bit better, or you just come to understand the person
a little more.
Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
So.
Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
Anyways, until next week, please be safe, everybody,
You're listening to one hundred words or less with Ray Harkins.
What is happening? Everybody? Welcome to yet another episode of
this podcast where we talk to people who are involved
in independent music and love it dearly, like it's at
the core of their being. And then they maybe like
put out some records, or they may be like tour,
you know, all of those things that we care about, punk, hardcore, indie, rock, emo,
(00:41):
whatever it is. That is what we document here. And
today I've got a great discussion with Jesse Matthewson. He
plays in a band called ken Mode from the very
middle of Canada. If I'm not mistaken, I'm fairly certain
that's where they're from. Well, regardless they're from Canada, I
can tell you that, and they are, i mean, going
(01:02):
on twenty plus years band definitely in the loud and
noisy variety. I first got into them via the hydro
Head Records connection. Actually no, no, no, that's not true,
Escape Artist Records, because we actually Jesse and I nerd
out about that a lot. But Ken Mode is just
a really, really interesting and good band. And Jesse also
(01:22):
works in the music industry as like a business manager.
He helps out with finances and make sure that you
know bands are you know, just doing the right thing,
spending their money appropriately. But let's talk some things that
you should know about. First of all, you can always
email the show one hundred words podcasts at gmail dot com.
Second of all, you can leave it rating and review.
(01:43):
People ask, honestly all the time, how to support the show,
because sometimes I get people are like, can I like
send you five bucks on PayPal? No, no, no, don't do that.
Don't worry about that. It's all good. But what you
can do is you can leave a rating and review
on the Apple podcast page. That helps out tremendously. Or
you can leave a rating on the Spotify page. If
you listen to podcasts on Spotify, it helps out tremendously. Also,
(02:08):
I publish these chats on YouTube, So if you like
to listen to podcasts on YouTube, there's a link in
the show notes where you will be able to subscribe,
and that way you will not miss an episode. From
that side of things, Also, there is I'm doing a
new thing this year where each week I will be
recommending something music wise that I enjoyed and that you
(02:29):
should pay attention to. So I'm going to continue that
first week I recommended something, so you'll have to pay
attention to that. But the most important note is the
fact that I'll include a link in the show notes
as well where you can dive into a playlist and
be able to listen to the music that I'm recommending.
And this week's recommendation is a band from Europe. I
(02:50):
think they're from Berlin, I could be wrong, called Force
a Denial, Holy crap. If you like anything nineties hardcore,
if we're talking like classic Victory Records style stuff, you
know strife, Earth Crisis, nowcase, but you know with modern twist.
Forsta Denial, it's a four song EP. It's called Times
of Strife, which of course like you know strife. It's
(03:12):
funny anytime you can connect a band name to a
band name that has or a record name to a
band name that has exists in the past. I'm all yours.
But forst Denial really really good. They have a guest
spot from the vocalist of Magnitude. They also have a
guest spot from someone in the band Spark, who's really
really good. But yes, a four song EP. If you
(03:34):
like your hardcore classic in nineties filled, then you will
absolutely adore what this band has in store. So again
a link in the show notes and you will be
able to listen to this band and then all the
previous recommendations. I'm going to be doing one a week
for the rest of this year. So there we go.
Let's talk about Jesse. Like I said, Ken Mode, really
(03:55):
interesting band. They're getting more popular, which is awesome because
you know, band that's been twenty plus years in their career.
Sometimes it's kind of just like, all right, you know,
we're totally content with the fan base that we have,
and you know, there isn't much that we can do.
But Ken Moon seems to be catching more and more
people's attention, which is awesome and I love that. And
Jesse was a great hay. So without further ado. That's
(04:18):
so many people say that right when it's like tossing
off the interview portion without further ado. But anyways, I
will I will try to not lean on that cliche cliche.
So here we go. Let's talk to Jesse.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Great Hays.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
What that.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Out?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I got it supposed to you many moons ago via
your Escape Artist release because you are old school, then yeah,
you know we're talking like you know, I am a
early forties hardcore kid. So the U and I like
how we refer to ourselves as kids regardless, because.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I mean, a hardcore kid is a hardcore kid forever.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So no matter which way you slice it.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
But you were an a Scape Artist fan. You weren't
a regular hardcore kid.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I appreciate you, I feel seen, Jesse, thank you for
saying that. But yeah, but I was obsessed with everything
that Gordon put out, you know, even down to you know,
Time and Walter what have you.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
But all the releases that came out like right near
the end of their time, which were underappreciated and all
like just killer records it. Yes, I agree, Blunderbuss the
Dream is dead totally. So they do collapse, are us?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, no, totally. And you mentioned that, like it just
that time, especially like in the early, you know, to
mid two thousands, was so interesting for you know, for
lack of better term, like artistic heavy stuff, you know,
with bands like obviously you guys mastered on Breathe and
Resist and so so many more that you toured with.
(06:21):
I know that you guys were obviously removed geographically from
a lot of that stuff that was happening, But did
you feel, for lack of a better term, that you
were kind of part of a scene because there was
stuff happening or no.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Ish, but not really. We were like definitely on the
young side of all the bands going at that time,
and we also didn't tour very hard, and that actually
becomes like a recurring theme with us and part of
why we had like clear cut resurgence in the very
(06:53):
end of the aughts and like early twenty tens when
we were literally throwing everything into touring full time because
we felt like that was the only way we could
really get any recognition at least wider spread, because I mean,
like Escape Artists had some and like case in point,
you heard us, but like they weren't a popular label.
(07:14):
They were a weird one. They were like hydra Heads,
like uncool little Brother, even though I guess I don't
even know if you should say little Brother because like
they probably started around the same time.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
But yeah, no, you're well, it was basically like you
had your big two of hydra Head and Relapse, and
then like you know, you had what what Gordon was doing,
and then you had you know, like Hawthorne Street, like yeah,
just had random labels, but yeah, I understand your point.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, but like Escape Artist was one of those ones that,
like Pound for pound, I felt like they didn't miss
on anything, and like all those labels missed on some things,
at least for my personal taste. So I think that's
part of why we had such a long standing relationship
with people like Gordon Conrad, not to exclude Adam Peterson
(08:03):
who is his partner and Escape Artists, but because Gordon
has continued to work within the industry and we work
with them all through our time at season I missed
as well. We've we can't shake that guy, and he
can't shake us even now, like last year, the go
to guy we have and we have problems on the
East Coast Gordon Help. Who do you know? Help? Gordon?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Well, I love that description because like they're I mean,
people throw around the word lifer and there that can
mean different things to different people in regards to like,
oh their lifer where like you know, like they're they're
gonna be involved with this thing. But then some people,
you know, they trickle out of like working in the
music industry or playing bands or whatever. But like Gordon,
by any search of the imagination is lifer.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Oh, yeah, absolutely, and he consumes his life thoroughly. You
gotta believe he enjoys some of it, right, totally. He
has to. Even though he's grumpy, he has to some
of this he.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Has to has to. Yeah, I mean, especially like what
you were talking about, where it's like you you know,
because you were, you know, touring, but not to the
same degree as many of those other bands. Like I'm
sure there was that ability to you know, write off
the coattails of certain bands just because it was like, oh, yes,
like you know, we get compared to this band, so
(09:23):
people will check it out by default.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yeah, I never really got much of a sense of
how far that went back in the day. And again
it's really just where kids. The internet was like very
new to most people. And yeah, I just us being
in Winnipeg, it was so hard to take a proper
temperature gauge of where we existed in that general scene situation.
(09:50):
I definitely know we connected more with it when we
started touring the US all the time in like twenty ten,
because we even off the hop the first like re
entry to the States, we did shows with Gaza Engineer
clinging to the trees of a forest fire Rosetta, Like
we connected with the right bands and kind of started that.
(10:13):
I feel like the re emergence we did properly as
opposed to when we were kids we were just flailing wildly.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So totally and we'll talk about that filling a little
bit later, but the focus on you as a person.
Were you actually born and raised in Winnipeg. I know
that probably seems like very basic of me to find out,
but I was not aware.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, yeah, I was. I was born and raised here
with my brother. I have two brothers, but only one
of them is in ken mode.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Right, your your other brother obviously he just wasn't able
to hack it with you guys.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Huh No, No, he was. While he's like almost six
years younger than me too. He took to powerlifting instead
of playing rock music, and now he's a doctor. So
he did something right.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, I would dare say he did much better than you. No,
just kidding him.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
We're all broken in the same way, though, He's just
as unhappy.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So exactly, it's like it's just a different shade of broken.
It's totally fine, yeah, exactly. And so I'm gonna kind of,
you know, typify maybe your experience of growing up in Winnipeg,
because I mean all I know about Winnipeg is going
through there on tour ones and obviously it's a very
interesting slash desolate, you know, major metropolitan area. But then
(11:30):
also obviously not you know, I'm gonna guess that you
were forced to play hockey, you had no choice in
the matter, Like what was your upbringing?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Like I actually wasn't. Wow, I'm a weird one too
in that I did play hockey, but it was because
I really really wanted to and I started. I think
I was ten, So I was like a way late
bloomer okay, but that ended as soon as the dirty
grip of underground music grab my neck. So right, basically
(12:03):
most things in my life got destroyed when that happened, as.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
As most cute things do. Where it's like, you know what,
there's no room for anything else. I'm just gonna pay
attention to dumb loud bands.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, exactly. I used to draw. I used to have
so many things going on and just destroyed.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I want to play music. I want to go see shows. Right,
poor that poor kid.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I know that old chestnut. The uh so did you,
I mean, did you care about school? Like what was
the relationship looking like with your brothers in the house, Like,
were you guys all you know, just goofing around and
wrestling with each other? What was the vibe?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I mean, there's a little of that, we didn't do
it a ton of it, but like school was very
important too, Like our parents are both chartered accountants, and uh,
not performing well at school was not an option. So
we were like nerds, but not nerds, like angry nerds
who would kill you if you cross them.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Sure, threatening nerds.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Right, like yeah, and the only really I guess you
can't escape the nerd side. But like, yeah, we we
did well in school, but like, weren't your usual like nerds.
But I'm sure like that that's what a lot of
the scene is made up of, especially like the artsy
(13:25):
FARTSI side, like, they're usually pretty pretty intelligent people who
were able to put bands together that think outside the box.
Or maybe I'm just extrapolating. There's also a lot of
dumb asses, So I don't know. I mean, I'm talking
out of my ass at this point.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
No, No, well, I I think you the idea of
what you're talking about, where it's like there is a
level of you know, intelligence, albeit maybe small, to be
able to you know, get together a group of friends
to play music and then actually write some songs and
put out a demo and you know, have those logical
steps because you know, like that does take effort in
(14:04):
ways that some people just don't want to put towards that.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, but even specifically, like the style of music, when
it's it's a little brainier, a little artier, it has
a tendency to attract a certain type of person. And
again I'm not trying to toot my own horn here,
but like I mean, if you chat with who's a
good example, Brian Cook, He's he's a good ambassador of
(14:29):
people who play good, interesting, heavy music and he's not
a moron. I would agree, Brian, Brian would love that
that's the example.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I totally He's gonna be like, you know what, I
I play bass very well, I play a broad genres
of music, and yeah, I'm just like an artistic not moron,
I guess, But I know, I do understand where you're
coming from in regards to you especially, It's like, you know,
(14:58):
most people obviously enter this independent music scene via you know,
punk or hardcore, and it's very you know, simple and basic,
and then as you start to you know, progress and
your mind expands a little bit and you are able
to wrap your head around more intricate things. Not everybody
continues to go down that path. I can't tell you.
And I'm sure you have many friends that are just like, dude,
(15:20):
what do you why do you like neurosis?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Like that?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
They like ninety minute long songs. You're like, yeah, and
they could go fourteen and I'm fine.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
And just the people we've made friends with as a
result of music, like, they're all right, we're friends with them. Yeah, nerds, totally, totally.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
I have to place the Winnipeg you know, a wreath
on you in regards to the fact that there's obviously
most people point to a band like Propagandhi, and obviously.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
We actually do their we do their accounting.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Of course, of course you do. Yeah, And like, I'm
gonna guess that that band was probably inescapable for you
living in that area and probably getting attracted to you know,
punk or hardcore in you early ears.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Surprisingly, they didn't really have anything to do with me
getting into the scene. Okay, Yeah, I actually got into
Propaganda because a girl I liked was a big fan
of Theirs, but in terms of getting into the scene
in Winnipeg, not a lot of people in the US
know them. But this band called Kittens.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Who was Oh yeah, Sonic Onion.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yeah, yeare we go? Hell yeah yeah. They were the
band that did it for me. And I didn't even
know they were local, but saw a show poster. I
was already a fan. Me and our original bassist Daryl
Axtell went to go see in a dirty basement Wellington's.
(16:50):
It was Kittens and like a ska punk band and
like a weird kind of emo band, and we're talking
like real emo, like og emo, but Kittens, like it
was an all ages show at the time. I think
we were fourteen and fourteen or fifteen anyway, that doesn't matter.
(17:10):
But Kittens was not an all ages band. So they
played this all ages show. Tons of people there and
as soon as Kittens started, everyone took like twenty steps
backward and Darryl and I were right up front and
they were writhing and spitting and just the most feral
thing I'd ever seen, and like it, it changed my life.
(17:32):
I had to be in a band when I saw that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
That's incredible because that like first of all, I never
knew Kittens be or the Kittens being from Winnipeg. I
just knew them like based on their sonic onion connection.
And yeah, they were such a strange band, like in
the way that obviously, like you said, they never came
across the border from a you know, American perspective, like
(17:57):
getting any recognition. But it's like there's so many bands
that are so country specific where it's like, you know,
Tristan Psionic or like all these bands that it's just like, dude,
no one knows about them in the States, and the
Kids are definitely a band that just didn't didn't have
any resonance in this country.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
It's really too bad too, because like if they would
have toured or made an attempt to really tackle that market,
I think they could have done pretty well because especially
like they started off pretty Melvin's Warship, but what they
turned into became I feel truly unique in what the
noise rock community has and had, And actually they're Bazuk
(18:37):
and the Hustler Records still really holds up to modern
material because of how well it was recorded, Like it
doesn't sound dated at all to me. Maybe I am
a little biased because it is one of my favorite
records that has ever been made. And I am, like,
I've been friends with the members of the band.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
But it it's, I feel, a truly special rock record,
and it's it's really too bad that they never got
the recognition they deserved. And part of it is just
because they didn't. They threw in the towel earlier than
maybe they should have. And that's sure arguably why people
(19:19):
know Ken Mode. We probably shouldn't because we refuse to
throw the towel in right right, And it is.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
You you hit on a very interesting topic that I
think you know, a lot of bands wrestle with as
they you know, either if they break up or stop
playing together and then start a different iteration or whatever.
It's like the bands that you can point to that
you know are able to not even reinvent themselves, but
just to like to your point, persist, just be like
(19:51):
whether or not, like you know, we've ridden waves of
popularity up and down. It's like, as long as there's
this like slow continual growth, like you know, we'll able
to find our space.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, And I mean a lot of the time that
doesn't even work out, which is the funny thing. And
I kind of can't believe it has worked out for us.
Like things are better now than they've ever been for
this band, and I feel lucky that they are going
as well as they are. And I'm not going to
pretend like we haven't worked really hard at it, but
(20:23):
like that doesn't mean you're owed anything. So it's it's
definitely wild that here we are in twenty twenty three,
the band is twenty four years old, and like we
can actually pay our members something when we go on tour.
That's crazy to me.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Let's be real, it's twenty twenty four and you have
only like what ten band shirts. Come on, let us
get you into new shirts by going to rockabilia dot
com and using this promo code one hundred words or less.
It gets you ten percent off your entire order. And
what's even cooler is they have a seventy percent off
(20:59):
warehouse right now, Like they're going through their archives. They're
pulling out shirts that you know, have just been kind
of languishing on their shelves, and you can take advantage
of that. I mean, if you want to buy an
a wreath of Franklin shirt or a bullet for my
Valentine shirt or bring me the Horizon T shirt. Like
we're talking about a wide palette of music that rockabilly
exists in. But it's all officially licensed and that means
(21:21):
it's high quality stuff and the bands get paid. They
ship it from the Midwest here in the United States
of America. And I love this company so much. They've
supported this podcast for gosh five six years and I
just love what they do. Hardcore kids work there just
ticks all the boxes for things that I like to
support and love. And plus band merch man, come on,
you need more shirts, just plain and simple. So go
(21:43):
to rockabilly dot com, use the promo code hundred words
or less and enjoy ten percent off your entire order
and just look cooler amongst your friends, or just give
it as a gift. You know, it's a win win situation.
So rockabilly dot com hundred words are less is the
promo code. A lot of that is a testament to
the fact that you know, you not only how did
you guys dedicate yourselves more to obviously going out and
(22:05):
you know, continuing to push the live envelope from that
side of things, but then you continue to, you know,
be prolific in releasing music, because there definitely is that
idea of if you're a band that has to exist
in the music industry, every you know, year and a
half or two years, you got to put a new
record to you know, satiate the public and you know
go on to or whatever. And you guys have been
(22:27):
able to you know, sort of be able to call
your shots from that side of things to be like, yeah,
it's going to be three or five years before you're
canna get another one, and then sometimes it'll be a
year like you just did.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
And that was only because of the pandemic, because we
wrote two records at the same time.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Right, It's like, oops, sorry, yeah, so I know, like
like you're mentioning the Kittens. It was a huge band
for you. But how did like that get intro to you?
Was it? You know, like you and your brother are
kind of pingponging off of each other with music that
you were you know, being excited about, or did you
get exposed to via friends at school or how'd that go?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Honestly, at that stage of the game, Shane was more
of a tag along. It was me and Daryl, who
was our first bassist, were like best buds. I mean,
Shane and I were best best friends, but like Daryl
was my next next best friend through junior high and
high school, and him and I were kind of on
the musical journey at the time, and it was like
(23:29):
the dawn of the Internet type stuff. I think he
may have discovered kittens in some free magazine that was
in an HMV in the mall that we'd go for
to get CDs. That'd be where kittens came from. But
I know, like I remember in the early days of
like Netscape, people used to make weird websites dedicated to bands,
(23:54):
and you do searches for like the Melvins, and all
of a sudden, this site would pop up that was
dedicated to talking about Cop Shoot Cop the Cow is
an unsane It's like, I don't know why this came up,
but I'm gonna check all this out and then you're
a fan of those three bands, and it's just it
was such a weird time. But also like from the
(24:14):
perspective of being like a teenager discovering music, it was
absolutely the wild West and it was just so cool.
But right, I know, for like opening up the underground sense,
the big one for me was and for millions of kids.
Nirvana was the one.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Right that had just opened up the portal, and then
you kind of, you know, went went down and found
all the things that you needed to find.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yeah, yeah, I h yeah, it was it was in
Utero that did it. And then I read the book
that Michael lazared, Come As You Are, and basically went
and looked up most of the bands that Kurt referenced
in it, like Bad Brains, Black Flag, Jesus Lize, Big
Black Scratch, Acid like and from there you just go
(25:05):
down that rabbit hole. Now you're into Touch and Go records,
Now you're into amphetamine, reptile.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Right, and now you right now you know what these
words mean, whereas like if you say them to an
average citizen, they're just like, what do you mean, amrap?
What is this? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Touching go some sort of sexual thing?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Totally? Did your parents have any reservation in regards to
you starting to bring home some very weird music and
then probably you know, when you started to play in
bands and stuff like that, or were they generically pretty supportive.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
They're the reason I even got a Nirvana tape in
the first place. My dad wanted to listen to it,
and he thought he might be too old to buy
it for himself.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Shut up. That is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
This is all This is all his fault.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I love the fact just that that wherewithal that your
dad had where he's like, man, this is way too
way too young for me.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
You try hardy, I don't know. I'm gonna get this
for the kid. See how this goes? Right?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Is this cringe? As the kids would say?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Jeez, it's kind of awesome because now at this stage
in his musical development, I'm like his truffle pig for
this stuff. So I only share music with him that
I think is like the top like fifteen of the year,
so I buy. Whenever I buy a CD for myself,
I usually buy a copy for him. So he's shy
of like pretty extreme metal, which he's not always super
(26:37):
into anything else I like he generally likes.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
That's incredible because usually, especially once kids start to get
into stuff that is clearly left of center and like
something that it wouldn't even make sense to most parents.
The fact that you can show him things that that
would be stretching any boundaries, He's like, yeah, I'm I'm
fout along.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Yeah, Yeah, he was wasted in neurosis now incredible.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So what was the proverbial? I mean, I know that
from a professional perspective, you you know, do business planning
and management for bands and stuff like that. Was there
an expectation that you were going to set forth in
your parents' footsteps as far as being an account and
everything like that, or was the you know, the palette
wide open.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
It was pretty wide open. And honestly, when I came
out of high school, I thought I was going to
go down into the science path and I started there
in university, but quite literally felt like I had a
out of body experience when I was in a lab
and decided I had to get out of the science
is because I didn't think I'd ever be able to
(27:48):
amount to anything because I didn't really care and the
only thing that I did care about was music. And
the only way I was ever going to make any
money in music was if I got a business degree
and putotentially worked in the music industry. So, like we're
talking maybe two thousand, I started this long game of
hopefully working in the music industry. Sure, and by like,
(28:13):
I guess it was twenty sixteen that Shane and I
decided to like try to do the thing with that,
and we're making a living now, So that's cool. It's
cool that that stupid, like eighteen year old brain had
a long game that actually played out and worked.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Sure, I do love like that concept. I mean, I'm
sure you experienced it as you started to you know,
play shows outside of you know, Winnipeg and tour and
all that sort of stuff. Just the idea of like
the business person of the band. You know, usually it
gets thrust onto the vocalists because that, for whatever reason,
it just always is. But it sounds like you had
(28:54):
maybe an interest or proclivity as you started to do
that where it's like, oh, yeah, I'll be the you know,
business person because like I know roughly what I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, I mean I kind of took the reins of
it just because I'm the most proactive with everything to
do with the band anyway, But actually I don't. Shane
does most of the accounting now. I guess we kind
of split some of it because I handle all the
online store stuff, so I do the nitty gritty transactional
stuff there just because it helps me keep organized in
(29:25):
shipping things. So I handle like the PayPal and the
Shopify and then he does everything else, the higher level accounting.
But it is funny because we literally will do like
financial accounting on tour, so we know where things are
at at any one moment. Like he might not do
it every day, but it'll be every second day for sure.
So it's kind of cool because we'll know exactly how
(29:47):
the tours are doing in real time, right.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
I mean that is really like the concept of like
I'm sure you felt this as you first started a tour,
like when you level up and they're like, okay, we're
going to like keep inventory of our merch and like
just when we start to add these little things on.
But like you've you've obviously like you know, big brained
it to where it's like, oh, yeah, we know exactly
how this is going to go.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Yeah, my dad used to kind of put the gears
to us, like super early on, trying to get us
to to do things the way he would and back then,
like we just we didn't have the numbers or experience
to be able to do any of that. So it's
one of those like Dad, but Dad, like none of
(30:32):
this makes none of this matters, and like straight up now,
of course we do all that because we have the
data and I love using the data.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
That's incredible. Uh, I'm guessing it was Ken Mode, like
your actual first band or did you play in some
you know, terrible stuff before that.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Ken Moud is the first one that ever played any
actual shows. And it's it's honestly, it's it's it was
just the last name that this three people were playing
in any way. So the Shane, Daryl and I started
playing probably around like ninety six, and by the time
we started playing shows, it was Ken Mode, but it
(31:14):
was still just the three of us.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Got it, got it and with the because Ken Mode
from a classification perspective, is like, you know, it's like
you're not necessarily a metal band, you're not necessarily a
hardcore band. You're obviously just you know, you're classic fence itters,
you know, I'm just kidding, Yeah, but yeah, would you
kind of classify yourself as that? Like as you were
(31:38):
starting to like get into music, I mean, I know,
like you were saying, they, you know, Nirvana, Beacats, you know,
scratch acid and et cetera, et cetera. Like did you
find yourself I guess gravitating towards you know, being like
a you know, punk kid, metal kid, hardcore kid or
was it pretty agnostic because.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
I got into everything through basically noise rock. I felt
no allegiance to anything, and like, Winnipeg had a really
strong noise rock scene in the nineties, but by the
time we really entered the scene, it had almost completely died.
So we were clinging to playing with like hardcore bands
and the odd punk band, grindcore bands like Malfaction, who
(32:18):
actually came they were a hardcore band first.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
But.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, we didn't really have a scene, so it was
it was always It's always been strange, and I've never
even as the band has developed, like we've never really
fit into any one category. We're a little too metallic
for a lot of noise rock purists, were clearly too
noisy for most hardcore kids. Most metal people think were
(32:44):
just noise. So it's been strange. We end up finding
fans in people that don't follow any one thing, and
they end up being kind of weird, like we are.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Right, no, And I agree with you because I see
the through lines of like you know, looking at all
those labels like we were talking about at the top
of the conversation, where it's like you almost were able
to pick out like a hydra head kid where it's like, oh, yes,
like you know, they're you know, they just look maybe
like they're totally fine standing by themselves in a room
(33:21):
listening to weird, loud music that you wouldn't really be
able to easily define and like and that's totally fine
and they're good with that.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Yeah, And a lot of the time, like if they
talk to a hardcore kid, like they they have similar roots,
and yet they also have similar roots to some of
the metal kids. And then they also have some bands
that both of those kids would hate. So it's right
strange missionsh it is.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
It is when you started to tour and you know,
play outside of Winnipeg and everything like that. Did you
like touring? Was it as you anticipated or was it
something that you were very taken aback by.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
No, I don't know if I ever like, specifically liked it.
I also didn't hate it, but it's always felt like
it was a means to an end no matter what,
even from the first tour onward, Like we we've been
kind of fortunate in the way we've approached some things.
We're like our first tour ever, we kind of piggybacked
(34:22):
on that band, The End, who was on Relapse Back.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Oh yeah, yep, yep, I remember them.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Two thousand and two. They had a tour that was
booked that was supposed to be with another band. The
other band couldn't do it, so we just like hopped
on it, and that was our first tour ever. Like
most bands like us need to like truly eat shit
trying to do their own thing and booking it, and
we just hopped on a thing with The End, which
(34:48):
I mean, we've eaten our fair share of shit, share
me wrong, but like that was like a really good
first feather in our cap when we're trying to like
the industry thing, like, yeah, you've heard of The End, right, yeah?
Yeah yeah we toured with them. Oh really totally.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Oh yeah you're legitimate, Like yeah, we can probably talk
to like maybe Darkest Hour to like take us out
or something like that, like we can at least drop
The End's name.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah it's a something right right?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
What what did you like? You said you kind of
had your rough sites set on the music industry broadly speaking,
you know what what sort of inroads were you trying
to make? Like did you want to work at a
label and obviously like be an accountant or did you
want to do an r even though you probably didn't
even know what that word meant at the time, Like
were you no hot clue? Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
And the funny thing is like after getting a business degree,
you find out that nobody in the music industry actually
knows how to run a business at all, which is
just funny. And I mean that's part of why Shane
and I have a career now, because we have legitimate
big business skills and we're not crooks, so it's pretty
easy to start getting clients pretty quickly. One of the
(36:08):
things people complain about now is that it's unfortunate that
we aren't American or European because they all wish they
had a version of us. Right, That's cool, nice, nice
to have other people telling us that.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Right, right, it is because I think it's I mean,
especially when you are young and you're just like, Okay,
I like music. I want to try to figure out
whatever I can do to make a living out of it.
Whether that I mean, because no one, especially when you
get attracted to heavy music, it's not like there's a
lot of paths forward to be like oh yes, you
(36:45):
know we're either I guess we're either Hate Breed or
you know, some other bands like maybe that can try
to like make a living out of this. But I mean,
I guess in the two thousands you started to see
a little bit of a path. I mean, now there
definitely is a clear path.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
But it's even that it's that there is a path.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
It's true. I mean, I guess maybe the path is
just the idea of like the fact that you can
be you know, more clear eyed about your approach where
it's like, oh, yeah, like you don't have to you know,
lose your butt on this tour because you can make
these you know, predictions of like, oh, yes, we're getting
paid one hundred dollars a night, maybe we shouldn't buy
a van first off, Like maybe maybe we should rent
(37:24):
this or whatever.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, and even with all that, like it's it's it's
interesting how little so many musicians actually make.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
No, especially when you're talking about like and I'm sure
you've done this exercise of the amount of time spent
versus you know, an hourly rate.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
It's like, yeah, let's not even talk about that.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
It's a fruitless add For for many years, I put
on that Sound and Fury music festival down here in California,
and it was one of those things I did that
exercise with my friend where we were like because it
wasn't our full time job, so we just did it
because obviously love the game. I mean, yes, we made
some money off of it, but just the idea of like,
oh so we could have done a lot less work
(38:10):
and worked at like a Starbucks and we would have
been like four xing our income, Like this is crazy.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Jane always says, Uh, if you want to make money,
go work at a bank.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
It's true, think about free samples, right, not kidding.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
You like what you're doing a little bit with this stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
So exactly you're right, You're right.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
I have to focus specifically on a song of yours.
Usually I don't get this nerdy in regards to you know,
specific bands and or songs, but the uh a love
letter to me. Like when I I've like I said,
I've always enjoyed your band, but like that song spoke
to me in ways that I was just like, oh
my gosh, Like it kind of unlocked another portal for
(38:54):
me to like, you know, like you even more, where
I basically it was just like, oh, so basically this
is like Dead Guy except in twenty you know, twenty two,
we'll call it or whatever, even though Dead Guy obviously
exists now. But I can't help but notice your you know,
fandom for Dead Guy and obviously representing them by wearing
you know, their shirts on stage and stuff like that.
(39:17):
Have you does that resonate with you? Or I presume
you probably have liked Tim Singers projects like overall.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
I mean Tim is on one of our records.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I didn't even know that.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
That's amazing, he sings on No, I'm in Control on
our Entrench record.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Oh that's great. Well, I'll have to I'll have to
pay closer attention there.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Yeah, and I mean Dead Guy. I've always liked Dead Guy,
but honestly I like KISSI Goodbye More.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Hell yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
And uh, this is funny because I've said this online
a bunch of times. And then Tom from Kissiicabye will
chime in. The The EP that Damien was on for
KISSI Aabye is my favorite material that Tim was ever on,
and I feel it's the best of the whole as
a goodbye Dead Guy whole catalog, and I mean, that's
part of why I love Damian so much though too,
(40:06):
like and actually legitimately, Damien may be the reason that
anyone has ever heard of.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Us, right he he does have the ability to you know,
champion bands in his own way.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah. It was a weird chain reaction though, because like
he discovered ken Mode on MP three dot com, he
exchanged messages with me and this was like at the
very beginning of when playing Enemy started, too and he's
the one who introduced me to Gordon Conrad.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So amazing, amazing.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
And Gordon's the only reason anyone knows.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Us too, right right, Yeah, Well, happenstance, you know, like
when you especially when you resonate with certain people, Like
that's the awesome part about putting out art, whatever it's
music or anything, you never know who will impact and
then obviously the different rows that will throw you down.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Yeah, And it's refreshing when you meet those types of
people because and it really reaffirms it. We're all just
a bunch of nerds looking for things to make that
make us feel good and trying to share it with others.
And nothing exemplifies that more than that situation. And and now,
like us championing the new Great Falls record to anyone
(41:19):
who listen, Like, yeah, I just want to share this
cool shit that people should.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Hear totally, and this just happens to be that I
have to tour in a band to you know, let
you know about that and my band as well, but
like you know, we want we want you to be
into the stuff we're into.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And I mean that's it's It's funny
you mentioned the ban shirt thing, because I know we
we both get flak from people and also like endless props.
It's funny when people give us flack and and claim
we're like being tryhards or something. It's like, this is
my actual wardrobe. Do you think someone's dressing us in
our photos? Like we're wearing clothes that we wear in
(41:57):
everyday life. We just are fans of bands and like
wearing band shirts.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
In a really weird discourse that I've seen over this
last couple of years, it is.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
To me, it's my numbingly stupid, especially if you're talking
about like it's a different story if you're you know,
like throwing stones of some pub at some public figure,
that's like, oh dude, you know whatever, like Kylie Jenner
doesn't know who Agnostic Front is or whatever. That's a
whole different like. But like if you're being like, oh dude,
why are you wearing a dead guy's shirt? Jesse, Like,
(42:33):
it's like, what that's a problem? Why a shirt?
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Yeah, shirt man? Exactly, I wear an early Grave shirt
because I like that shirt.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Right. I enjoyed the band, and uh, you know, it's
a great form of advertising for them when I wear
it on stage and everybody wins.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
My favorite and tomb shirt. Right now, Well, while we're speaking.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Here, spectacular something that I know that you have experience with,
and I'd like to hear exactly when you started to
become aware of the grant system. I've always being from America,
and then I worked at Century Media Records for many
years and actually a band from Winnipeg that you are
maybe tangentially familiar with called Burn the eight Track. So
(43:20):
I was shocked because I worked with that band, like
they're you know, cool at what they did. But talk
about an amazing grant writer. The singer got like hundreds
and thousands of dollars for marketing in regards to like
music videos and stuff like that. So when did you
become like aware of the fact that, like you know,
you could get grants, and like I've just I always
find it so interesting because bands of your nature and
(43:42):
then like you know, even Cursed or whatever has dipped
into a factor. So yeah, to.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Walk me through your experience with that, Yeah, I mean
I was aware of them because of things going on
in the nineties. Yeah, like being on the back of
like a shall North Dakota record or the Cursed record
and burn the a track, And but I didn't we
didn't start tapping into it actually until after we won't know.
(44:08):
I guess I was right before we won a Juno Okay,
we I remember I tried to get some marketing money
for our Venerable record, because like that was the record
that we were trying to really really push. And I
did get some marketing money through our province. It wasn't
a huge amount, but like it allowed me to do
like a radio campaign in the US for college radio
(44:29):
and something in Canada too, and it just generally allowed
us to start pushing the band to people who might
not know us. And I mean even early on, I
was one of the early adopters with Facebook marketing and
us it's too bad things. Not still like that, but
(44:49):
I remember shocking a lot of people when because you
could get super specific in how you target it back then,
and we gained a lot of fans as we were
trying to first start touring the again that way. But anyway,
to circle back to grants, it wasn't until around like
twenty twelve that we really started going after them and
(45:10):
I started learning how to both get them and use
them to the fullest extent. And since then, like since
Shane and I started doing MKA management services. That's actually
how I make a lot of money because I do
the grant writing for a lot of other heavy bands
because a lot of bands in our community didn't necessarily
(45:33):
know they could even access that, and a lot of
the like quantitative stats that they used to determine whether
or not a band can kind of is quote like worthy.
A lot of Canada's heavier bands crush all the like
radio friendly indie stuff. So sure, I kind of started
(45:58):
spreading filth throughout that system, and I've been amazing getting
a lot of like pretty not commercial sounding bands some money.
It's been really cool.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, No, that's amazing that you because I do think
that that is such a unique thing that obviously happens
in Canada and you know, countries in Europe and stuff,
and it's such a obviously a foreign concept for us
here in America where it's just like wait a minute,
what like the government would rather you know, set you
on fire down here. But the fact that you can
(46:33):
point to, like you said, the metrics that can show
the fact that like, yes, this band is literally getting
Canada on the map, this province on the map in
ways that you know, these other grants might not you know,
the money might not go as far or whatever.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yeah, and a lot of the bands that they still
favor these bands, but a lot of the bands that
they do pour a lot of money into end up
becoming like indie darlings in Canada and they just don't
click anywhere else. And the big thing I can always
point to with especially like the bands I work with,
is there are international names first and foremost, Like they're
(47:11):
making their money in Europe, they're making their money in
the US. Canada is just kind of an afterthought with
all that. So and ultimately with a lot of these
Canada heritage funds, like having cultural exports is a big deal.
So it's kind of a no brainer to fund some
of these groups because they are quite literally like art
(47:33):
that is successful around the world from Canada.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Right. Yeah, it's like the literal definition of what you
are trying to accomplish, Like here you go, this is
what it is.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Yep. And just because Gorgutz doesn't sound like Celine Dion
doesn't mean they shouldn't get some cash exactly.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
That's a great pull. I was hoping that you were
going to do something like that. Our friends at Evilgreed
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(48:13):
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(48:36):
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(48:58):
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so as you were, like you know, as ken Mode
was putting out records and getting your start and everything
like that, like you said, you were clearly not like
making a living off of, you know, your music and
(49:42):
everything like that. Were you, you know, doing accounting and
like working for lack of better term, like a quote
unquote regular job.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Yeah. After graduating university in what was it like end
of two thousand and four, I actually got a marketing
and small business management degree. But I was one of
the first wave of millennials that learned that quite literally,
because I guess the technical term for a millennial like
(50:12):
is people born from nineteen eighty one onward, and I
was born in eighty one. So I learned the hard
way that just because you have a university degree doesn't
mean you're going to get a job in your field,
which prior to that was like not a thing right totally.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Yeah, It's like you get a degree and then you
do the thing.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Yeah, and I couldn't, so that came with some baggage.
So I started doing accounting because it's something I could
get a job in and did that from like two
thousand and five through two thousand and eleven, when I
quit and we went on the road full time.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Okay, was that decision like did you was that difficult
for you to arrive to because I know, like you said,
or was a real demarcation from the decision to be like, yes,
we're gonna go out there, We're going to make this
band whatever it may turn into. Was that a difficult
decision or was it relatively easy because you wanted to
do it.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
I mean it was a tricky one because I was
either going to go back to school or we were
going to try this. And I was making that decision
at the same time that my brother was graduating from
the CAA School of Business, so he got his chartered
accountancy and he was faced with like do I jump
into industry and become like a controller of a company.
(51:32):
And he was only twenty five years old, so it's like,
I don't really want to like start a career in
something right now. So I kind of mildly convinced him,
like we should try this thing just so we never
look back and go like what if we tried? You know.
So when we made that decision, it still took two
(51:53):
years to build us up to a point where we
felt like we had something we could work because we'd
just gone on our first European tour, which was like
a couple week like fun thing with a band called
Taint from Wales. We just got a new bassist, so
we started laying the groundwork to try to do it
(52:16):
full time. So we wrote a bunch of songs. I
made plans to record with Kirk Blou because I felt
like it would help to have like a proper producer
making this record and someone within our scene that could
at least like it would help having the connection to
a guy like him, because obviously Converge was like completely
(52:37):
owning everything at the time. He was really really growing
as a producer too, so a lot of really neat
records were getting made out of his studio. So I
thought this was our first attempt at trying to record
even outside of our city. So I thought this was
a good idea, so we booked him recorded it in
twenty ten. Then I started laying on the framework for
(52:58):
trying to put it out. We lined up with Profound
Law Records, which felt like a good fit to like
take this first step. So yeah, twenty eleven came and
I think we put the album out in March and
we toured for the rest of the year.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Sure, I definitely. I mean I know almost every single
interview since you won the Juno Award, like no one
can't mention it, and obviously I'm gonna fall right in
line with that. The I just remember it where it
was just like this is so weird. Like I mean
I remember not because like you don't deserve it, but
(53:34):
it's just like that's bizarre, like here's the band. Like
in the same way you could understand why a band
like Alexis on Fire is winning like multiple Juno Awards
even though you know they were I mean like just
friends of mine or whatever. Just in the same way
that I felt like I was friends with you even
though I didn't know you. It's it just it was
probably like so surreal, bizarre, whatever you want to call it.
(53:57):
Did you have feelings towards that of just like all right,
I guess we're along for this ride. This is this
seems funny.
Speaker 3 (54:03):
Yeah, that was absolutely a feeling like we no expectations.
It was strange that we were even nominated and then
to win like we were for sure the underdogs. We
were the least popular of all the bands that were
up for it, and winning was we literally just started
laughing right like I really did ham it up when
we went up there, like I stretched my arms out.
(54:25):
It was just like what is what is this? What
is going on? I mean, I wouldn't trade it for
the world. It was cool.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
Sure, what would you say? I mean, I'm putting on
the spot here. What was the most either bizarre or
interesting interaction that you had with you know, that sort
of more mainstream world of being like who is kit?
Like you know, interviews? I'm sure you did, or like
maybe it was people you know randomly dming you guys
or whatever. Do you have any things that stick out
(54:55):
in your mind?
Speaker 3 (54:58):
We I know, because of that, we got approached by
booking agents and management people and labels in Canada that
were for sure completely inappropriate.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
Right, You're like, did you listen to us?
Speaker 3 (55:14):
Yeah? And I know even that we did have a
Canadian agent for a while that we did get as
a result of this, and he was a real piece
of shit. I'd later find out that he was like
actively talking shit on us while representing us to like
talent buyers and cities. It's like, what the fuck are
(55:35):
you doing, dude? Right right, Like, we're gonna talk hat
on for this guy now?
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Sure? Like, yeah, we're going to talk to these promoters
because we've played shows with them before, even before you
were involved or whatever.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Yeah, we there was for sure some some weird scenarios,
but I mean for the most part, people were pretty cool.
Even like the press leading up to the Juno's we
got featured in a lot of the articles talked because
it was the first time they brought the heavy like
heavy metal slash hard music Juno. It was the first one,
(56:09):
so I think it's almost like they were trying to
give metal a different image while they were presenting this
new award, because they did focus on us a fair
amount leading up to it, and I think it was
simply because we had the accounting background. It was kind
of like, not all metal heads are long haired, drugged
(56:32):
out losers, Like, look at these fine young boys.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
Totally, here's some respectable number crunchers that happened to play
heavy music, right.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
Just don't listen to them, for the love of God,
don't listen to them totally.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
It's like their band name is agnostic, where you can't
really necessarily tell what they sound like. They are somewhat
presentable human beings, like yes, they're wearing weird shirts or whatever,
but they don't look, you know, like the typical metal
band or whatever. So I could see the calculations that
someone would go through to be like, oh, yeah, these
this seems like a safe award to give this band too.
Speaker 3 (57:08):
Yeah. I still think a good part of the reason
we ever got any push in the larger kind of
mainstream underground press was because of how we are a
little bit left of center where in terms of something
that's a little bit more presentable and a weird story
like accountants. Why Yeah, Like as soon as they kind
(57:33):
of got that initial shock of presenting it out, then
they never touched us again, which.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
Is fun, which is fine totally, or it's like, hey,
we've already gone through that press cycle, like that story
is an interesting what else you got?
Speaker 3 (57:46):
Yeah, Yeah, we definitely got picked up by Pitchfork for
like a year, and then they decided they wanted to
destroy us and have nothing to do with us. And
that's fine, right.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Your next record gets a three point oh and they're like, okay,
I see where we're sit now.
Speaker 3 (58:00):
Yeah, And that was quite literally how it played out.
It's perfect point. I think it was maybe a four
point something and yeah, well did they talk some shit?
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Well, you know, I mean, at that point, you have
truly made it, because you've obviously you know, like when
you become a divisive band to that you know type
of reader. It's like, all right, I think we've accomplished
something here.
Speaker 3 (58:23):
Yeah, we must be doing something right.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
Right right out of pure curiosity, where is your judo?
Speaker 3 (58:30):
Like?
Speaker 1 (58:30):
Do you do you have it on a mantlepiece? Is
it a you know, in the storage unit.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
Or whereas mine is on my parents piano?
Speaker 1 (58:38):
Oh beautiful?
Speaker 3 (58:39):
Yeah yeah, and I'll probably I'll move it. I'm kind
of like quasi actively looking for a house right now,
which seems insane, but I mean I'm a forty two
year old man and my partner and I have some
money that we have for a down payment, so I
think we can pull it off because we live in Winnipeg,
and Winnipeg sucks when I buy. When I buy a house,
(59:02):
I'm going to display it somewhere there, right Or.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
You could bring that into the you know, house tour
with a realtor and be like, hey, you know, maybe
we'll get a little discount on this. Do you know
who we are?
Speaker 3 (59:16):
I think that'll that'll impress Winnipeg Zellars for sure.
Speaker 1 (59:20):
Oh, absolutely, for sure. The last two things I wanted
to hit on was the actually you know, apropos of
you talking about buying a house, like considering the band's
location and like how much effort it takes to you know,
basically go anywhere outside of Winnipeg. From a touring perspective,
do you do you kind of reflect on like the
(59:43):
you know, non geographical nature that most bands exist in now. Like, yes,
bands start in maybe a city or whatever, but like
you can't really point to them being like oh, you know,
like if you play in New York, I can totally
hear like the New York City hardcore or whatever, Like
is it you know, how do you reflect on that
like lack of regionality that exists for most bands these days?
Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Yeah, that's the Internet. It's one hundred percent the Internet. Yep, totally,
Which is it can be a good thing and a
bad thing. It's it's removed some of the special qualities
of the regional stick. But at the same time, like
when something clicks, you can have a built in audience immediately,
and like I don't know in case in point, where
(01:00:24):
a band like Chatpile, where like there are a bunch
of guys who are just doing local bands all the
way up until they're all almost forty and then they
put together the right ingredients for this band that just
clicks at the right time, and like their first tours
are sold out six hundred cap rooms all across America.
Like what the actual fuck is going on right outside
(01:00:45):
of it is like can be super cool, but like, yeah,
kind I kind of do lament that the days of
the regional scene because like you'd see some really weird stuff,
like even Winnipeg, like throughout the nineties and then the
early two thousands, like we had weird little pockets. Is
like I mean, I was a part of it, a
strange subsect of bands. It didn't really fit in anywhere,
(01:01:06):
and it was it certainly was because of Winnipeg. But
you don't see that anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Right, right, And on that sort of general idea of like,
you know, did the presentation that bands obviously have to
do you know on the internet, like it seems like you,
i mean, not only your personality, but then just kind
of the band's personality cuts through really well. And the
fact that like, yes, we take our music seriously, but
(01:01:34):
we don't take ourselves seriously, not like you're just you know,
some jokes or band like the Aquabats or something like that,
but although it would be kind of cool if you,
you know, lead a little bit in that direction.
Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Yeah, I mean where we got a saxophone player.
Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
I think I know it is true. I mean there
is brass in the band, so we're close.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
You're all better look out for what's next. What can
only hope And.
Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
I'm sure you've gotten like in the same way that
you know, people have commented on shirts you're wearing and
stuff like, have people you know either come at you
or commented on the you know, the fact that you
were like not this like super serious, you know, overwrought
band or have you know you kind of not seen
that percolate towards you.
Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
No, I haven't really seen much attitude usually people. It actually, uh,
I think warms people up to us, especially after they've
seen us live because like the stage show is hostile. Yah,
it's very I mean we were raised on all things
eighties and nineties underground and like there was not much
(01:02:45):
of a sense of humor with a lot of that,
and we do not have a sense of humor on stage.
But as soon as we get off, like I don't
I don't want to do well unless unless something really
fucked up happens at the show that I might want
to actually hurt someone, But sure, we generally are are
working out our shit through that thing. So, especially like
(01:03:07):
from a writing perspective, I feel like I'm at least
prior to the pandemic, I felt like I was getting
better and better at concentrating all the bad, toxic things
in my life down to this poison that we're putting
into this music. Although I do think that the pandemic
has done some damage that it's going to take years
(01:03:27):
to fix. Sure, just in terms of being irritable and angry,
and I really put a lot of work into not
being that, and I'm for sure angrier than I was
before the pandemic, but sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
It'll take a few years to sand those edges down,
so to speak.
Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Yeah yeah, if at all right, I probably need therapy,
but fuck it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
No, that's obviously that's why you have, you know, the saxophone.
Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Yeah, that's what you hear therapy when you have a saxophone.
I mean, Catherine that tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Totally you could just be like, you know what, I
think we solve the problem here, Like you know, I mean,
what licensed therapist doesn't have a saxophone? In the background
of their zoom chat or whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:04:12):
You know, that's why she's the cheeriest one in the band.
It's because she's tooting that horn.
Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Oh absolutely, well, Jesse, I very much appreciate you goofing
around and hanging out with me. I yeah, like I said,
I enjoyed what you've done for a long time, and
now you will be a friend of mine, whether you
liked it or not. Hell yeah, yes, that was Jesse.
And hopefully you learn some stuff because yeah, Jesse was
(01:04:38):
not only spitting truth about his band, but you know,
talking about the grant system. Oh man, I love grant talk,
which I know sounds absolutely ridiculous to say out loud,
but I just find it so fascinating that the rest
of the world has programs to support the yards and
not here in America, you know, just godless America or
something like that. Anyways, thank you to Jesse, and thank
(01:04:58):
you to Current, a long time friend of mine and
he's a pr extraordinary human being, and so he brought
this idea to me. We made it happen. It was great.
Let's talk about what's happening next week. I have Keith
Buckley X every time I die, but now currently plays
in a band called Many Eyes, who is you know
embarking on their first tour with Thursday and Rival Schools,
(01:05:20):
and it's gonna be very very exciting to watch that transpire.
But Keith and I we spent some time on the
road many many moons ago and it was a great chat,
Keith was was a good hang. And that's that's all
we really want here, right, A nice hang you get
to know a person, hopefully like their art a little
bit better, or you just come to understand the person
a little more.
Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
So.
Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
Anyways, until next week, please be safe, everybody,
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