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Hi,
how ya doing?
Hi, I'm good
Are you off tour?
Yeah, for a little while.
I'd rather be on tour right now, I kind of hope to get
things going here
Well, you did a little thing
with Tonic, right?
Yeah, we did like a month
with them
Oh, so you got teased?
Yeah, they're mean
actually, cruel, a little teaser..... No, we were loving it
out there, it's like the records been done for like eight
months and we've been chomping a the bit here waiting to get
going on the road
I'm sure, it must be
frustrating
Yeah, it's not too bad,
using the time to write. I wrote a song yesterday and things
keep going, so
Oh, still writing, huh?
Yeah, that's all you can do
sometimes. That's one thing they can't take away
Ahhh.....have you always
been a writer?
Probably the first song I
wrote was around sixteen. A lot of the songs on this record,
the band's been together five or six years now, so a lot of
the songs that we ended up recording are what we gave
Maverick on our demo back in 2000 and we rerecorded. The
sounds and music for this album are songs I wrote when I was
like eighteen and we're still playing them. I got all this
new stuff that I've got to keep stocked away for another
day.
Do you look back at the old
stuff and kind of cringe now or are you still happy with
what you wrote?
Hm....Everything on the
record, I'm proud of it. I think back and I go wow, I was
eighteen when I wrote that.
Well, you can see the growth
in your writing at least!
Yeah, the lyrics are still
good, it always was like the most important thing to me,
it's almost like a craft, the more music you listen to, the
more you learn to steal from different places where no one
can tell (laughing)
(Laughing) So, when you
started writing at sixteen, were you also playing guitar or
did that come later on?
No, I started with guitar,
John and I, he's the drummer and we're cousins, we just
started jamming together in his bedroom trying to get things
to sound normal. In high school, we had a little blues band
that we played like birthday parties or wherever we could
and then we realized we didn't like blues (laughing) we were
what the hell let's just write our own stuff (laughing)
Being together for so long,
what has been the lowest point and the highest point of the
band so far?
Hm....that's a good
question....I think the high point...it's probably different
for some of the guys, but it was pretty exciting when we got
signed, ya know, for the first time you can do this for a
living, ya know, that could actually be your job, but I
think the high point for me was just finishing this record
and listening to a collection of songs that I thought turned
out well. Just sitting back, that's always been the hardest
thing to capture was the energy from our live set bringing
it down to the record, so that was the highest point. Now,
the lowest point, this record has been like a roller coaster
ride because we did it one and a half times. We spent
five months in Toronto with Arnold Lanni (Our Lady Peace and
Finger Eleven) and we got back from there and about
two-thirds of the stuff, the record label (Maverick) wasn't
happy with. That was probably is one of the lowest points
coming back after five months of work and we had too trash
like sixty-five percent of the stuff we'd done. Then we went
and banged it all out in about eighteen days with Rob
Cavallo. So, that was kind of a savior for that moment, it
gave us the confidence that we could do this, record quickly
and we're not complete peckers in the studio.
(laughing) OK. Do you feel
working with different producers helped?
I think there were
different approaches that were taken, the two producers that
we used were like night and day in terms of how they
approached recording a record, one was very methodical and I
don't know, I think as a young band you learn rather quickly
how you work best and after working with Rob Cavallo, he's
just so fun and captures your energy. We went in the first
day at Capitol Studios and we all sat down in a room
together and we hadn't even talked to him before we got
there and we talked for like (laughing) twenty minutes and
then we got in the room and we recorded it. We got like
seventy per cent of it done in like ten minutes, it was
like, this is how recording should be. Maybe one day we'll
try again with that other approach but definitely I think
we've been with these songs for so long, we knew them inside
and out and we would readdress them and try to write better
parts, but I think the parts that were there were pretty
much what was supposed to be there.
You guys sound like you've
been around forever, it sounds so sophisticated and mature
Probably because we have!
(laughing)
It's been a long ride
watching a couple of friends bands get signed and release
their record after we had already been signed.
You guys also released two
independent records?
Yeah, we did two
independent albums, they are not available any longer but we
might release some of the stuff. The first album was with a
different bass player and guitar player until the transition
and with the second independent album we had a keyboard
player on and now we are back with a four piece. We've gone
through some evolution and I think we're all really happy as
to where it is right now. It takes a while sometimes to find
that common thread that you guys can all ignite on and I
think we've got that.
Being that this is your
first release for the States, did you guys look into the
album as far as changing it up a little bit for the States
or do you think Canadian and US fans are all in the same
Yeah, I try not to say
aboot, they tend to get a lot of A's out of our lyrics. The
end of most lines had an A attached to it, but no, I don't
know, we didn't think about too much in terms of the market
ability, it might come back to haunt us because I think our
album where it fits right now is somewhere in-between pop
and rock radio, we don't really have one particular format.
Ya know, like you've got your Linkin Park in the rock,
you've got your Smashmouth in the pop, definitely we're
somewhere in-between, so I hope it works out to our benefit,
not having thought about it too much but it's cool because I
think there is a lot of good music coming out of Canada
right now in terms of commercial records like the
Nicklebacks, Our Lady Peace, there's a lot of records that
are really hitting. I think if you can come at it from a
different approach, I had someone describe Canada as kind of
musically half way between Britain and America and most of
my favorite bands are British with the exception of, ya
know, Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave but yeah we
just wrote these songs and recorded them and I didn't think
a lot about to where they were gonna fit or how they were
going to be marketing or one market over the other.
I know you had two different
producers and I know for mixing, you had two different
people mixing, how is it now looking back, do you think wow
there were a lot of hands in our creativity or did you enjoy
that?
Yeah, we're so hands on as
a band,. the only reason there's any hint of cohesion on the
record is because there was like, I think we had like thirty
engineers and there was like three producers, one producer
did another song and two mixes and it was definitely a hodge
podge but I'm always surprised when I sit back and listen to
it, not that I ever sit back and listen to my own record.
It is together decently considering so many hands had
been there and I think the next album I'd like to do it from
top to bottom from the get go, we wouldn't have to shift
around so much. I think that's what took so long after
recording this thing, switching and getting people available
but we're still writing songs, we recorded them, we
have demos from the studio and they're not a lot different
from the stuff on the record. I think Rob's main strong
point when he produced the songs, is he just let us do it,
it wasn't so much as he wanting to put his fingerprint on
everything. I think one day we'll be able to produce our own
record if we can start fighting amongst each other.
(laughing) Making a major
label CD, what besides changing producers, was the hardest
part compared to doing your independent releases?
I think the biggest thing
was, I think everybody is a little bit more aware of how
much things cost. Your counting by the minute, it's like one
hundred bucks there, one hundred bucks there, one hundred
bucks there. You weren't allowed to have
conversations cause your using too much money but that was
the biggest stuff. Our independent stuff, I'd just go into
this home like studio and I'd stay there from like ten
o'clock at night until six o'clock in the morning and I just
tried everything I could, I mean, I'd like to do that again
definitely, just the freedom you have. I know for one thing
I learned, we were in Capitol Studios in LA and Record One
and all these major world class studios, I don't know but
like just the vibe. It's great to have good tones but ninety
per cent of the people don't listen to tones they just
listen to the vibe your getting in the room and we were
lucky to get that in such a short time on this album but the
next one, I think I'd like to take it just a little more
relaxed, go rent a house on the coast some place and do
something low key.
Something like Incubus did?
Yeah, they did that Morning
View record, didn't they?
Yeah
Even more remote, I mean
the Malibu Coast isn't quite as desolate as I'm thinking.
There's some crazy houses up the West Coast of British
Columbia, like your in the middle of nowhere, it would be
nice there, a change of scenery.
I don't know if I could stay
there for two months
Yeah, we'd have lots of
breaks I'm sure Maybe there will be lots of waves outside to
surf, we'll see
You could always just go to
Hawaii
That's true, Bob Rock's
place
Yeah
Tonic went there last year
to do their record, roughing it over there in Maui
Yeah, roughing it! The one
question I have to ask you is why Maverick?
Why Maverick?
Well, see I've heard horror
stories about Maverick, so every time a new band signs I go
Oh, why did you go with Maverick?
We were really excited
because they offered the most artistic freedom of anybody
that was there and we really liked what they had done with
the Deftones, a band that didn't get a lot of radio support
and they pushed them and pushed them and pushed them until
the album did something and we were liked that building
philosophy and I think maybe that's changed since we got
signed a little bit. One of the guys who were real
instrumental in bringing us in by the name of Russ Rega, he
comes from a managing position in the industry and he's the
kind of guy that will get you psyched up and get you through
it without LA poppy cock ya know, he just makes it real and
gets you excited and he kind of got this kind of spiritual
aspect to our music and life aspects and we just picked up
on all kinds of aspects, but Russ isn't there anymore
Ut Oh
So much for that
(laughing) Do you still feel
confident though?
Yeah, I mean, I
know....that's kind of a bit of a question mark for me right
now. We've had a record done for like eight months and we're
just kind of sitting back and waiting for things to happen
and it's a little frustrating.
I'll have to re-talk to you
in like a year!
Yeah, then I'll be bitter,
I'll be on heroin or something like that
Oh Stop! (laughing)
Oh Stop! (laughing)
(laughing) Yeah, I guess
it's just early, we're just waiting, we're right on the edge
and we're going to find out if we made the right choice or
not. (laughing)
Right
The other choices we had,
ya know, we could have gone into a bidding war with
Interscope and Maverick and Dreamworks and Columbia, but
looking at all those other labels, I don't think I would
have chose, Maverick is one of the smaller labels, ya know,
they have the major label power through Warner, but they're
still like a boutique label, there's only like thirty
artists on there, so yeah that was what we were excited by.
There are a lot of bands having problems with labels
Yeah, I think the whole
industry is going through a power over sell
Yeah, I heard somebody say
the other day that there won't even be CD's five years from
now, it's pretty insane. I think the record label industry
has just become more and more obsolete. You can have a great
production, a great marketing program with the Internet. I'm
going to miss the packaging, ya know, getting the record,
crack open the cellophane thing and getting the artwork.
And trying to open up with
that stupid tape on the top on the CD
Oh, that's the best, I've
got this great little canine tooth
Oh you do
I can just slice it open in
a second so let me know if you have any CD's you want
opened.
When you come to town, I'll
bring them all, and I'll be can you open all these
(laughing)
Beautiful
(laughing) That's what
you'll do pre-show time
(laughing) Good way to
relax
Yeah, hey it's a meditation
Exactly
You write mostly all the
lyrics?
Yeah, I write all the
lyrics
I see that you go from like
a personal aspect to like social issues, you have a song
about religion in there?
Yeah, it's IN
GODS NAME. Yeah, I wrote
that after September 11th. I had written most of the song
before that and it was just, we have a lot of faith in this
band and we don't want to shove that down anybody's throat
but it seeps out sometimes but that song was about just
being pissed off at people using religion to justify hatred.
I don't blame anybody who hates organized religion cause
they're responsibly for the crusades to the KKK to 9/11.
That's what that was all about being someone who has faith
and all these people using God's name to justify killing and
hatred.
When your writing, where do
you draw the line, like this is too much to write about or
do you not even think about that?
Hm....If I'm going to talk
about that issue, I gonna make sure that it relates to
everybody. A lot of people who get into thing so deep that
they become so personal and a lot of people can't relate to.
U2 pulled it off very well I think. I tried to do that as
much as I can. My antenna gets turned off pretty quick
because I get really turned off by a lot of cheesy music
(laughing). It's got to be relevant, ya know, and if it's
not relevant to everybody and I thought IN
GODS NAME was relevant to
everybody and affected so many people. There's people in the
Christian faith, there's people in the Muslin faith, it
started and they just screwed up a good thing, kind of
tainted it for everybody and killed people and worse and
that's what that was about, just kind of telling those
people to get lost or whatever.
Do you find that is your
proudest moment on the record lyrically?
Hm....Yeah, I have lines
that I like better than lines in that song but I think as a
whole, it was kind of neat, we went down with Tonic, we're
Canadians and we were playing like in Tennessee right when
the war started in Iraq so we were sort in this hot bed of
guns and God, guns and God and we sang that song and we
could hear a pin drop when we played it, people were
listening and some people interpreted it as an antiwar song
and they were trying to justify this war as much as others,
that was the tongue in cheek part but it's the kind of song
that gets people to notice, ya know. If you can't hum our
songs then you have nothing to latch on to with the band. I
think that's how you build a long career by getting people
to know you by the lyricist. I kind of latch on that aspect
as well, so I guess, man, it's one of my favorite songs on
the record.
Cool, all right. When your
playing live, I mean, you've gone out with Tonic, and you
have kind of the same vibe going on, did the fans every
night, they must have not known who you were
No, we're the band that no
one's heard of
(laughing) So, were they
willing to come up and listen?
Oh, yeah it was amazing. I
think we had these little demo CD's and we sold I think like
one in four people bought one so I think it was a great
response for a band no one had heard of before. That's why
getting back home, you feel like the ball's rolling, you
wanna get out and play for more people. Get us back out
there, I want to play for more people.
(laughing) How did you act
with fans, I mean, were they all genuine people or did you
get some crazy people out there?
Hm....I don't know, hm it's
was great. Anybody who can listen or learn to listen to what
we've done here on this record, you've got to show them
nothing but gratitude. They're the whole reason your able to
do it. No, people are great except for them confusing my A's
(Canadian hey) in the southern tour. Personality is pretty
bad but no people were great.
Now you guys didn't do East
Coast, right?
We did New York, Tennessee,
North Carolina
OK. Had you been to any of
these places?
We had done a couple of
shows in New York before, probably four shows in New York, a
couple for a label and fun days out there for Teen Suicide
Prevention or something a couple of years ago. Yeah, that
went really well, hold down a couple of theaters, I don't
know how we did that, nobody knew who we were, it must have
been good promo.
It must have been intrigued
by you (laughing)
Maybe, we'll go with that
Back in the day, I heard you
guys played for a hospital benefit?
(laughing)
Is this true?
Yeah, we would play
anywhere
Oh OK, but this was a
special hospital benefit?
Yeah, sex therapy
(laughing)
Yeah, that was wonderful
Did you know about it before
going it?
No, we had no idea. We got
there and we thought we were the opening band and we get
there and there's a table and a microphone and it was Rona
Astin doing her sex therapist question and answer for kids.
What can get you psyched up for that but a little rock show
before it.
(laughing) Did you learn
anything?
Yeah, I learned a whole
bunch about STD's and everything that I ever wanted,
actually I was in the front row asking all the questions
Did she give you some
condoms afterwards?
(laughing) The kids were
probably hoarding them.
After this, were you more
choosy in what you did, as in playing shows?
Nah, we early on, this was
probably 1999 or 2000 that we did that, we'd do high school
shows, every high school we could get in to, we'd go in and
set up and play during they're lunch hour and play for the
kids for free. We'd play wherever we could, water slides,
when your in Vancouver you gotta kind of, we're just outside
of Vancouver, actually not even in Vancouver, we just say
that to try and sound cool. You kind of just take what you
can get and I think that's one thing that has helped us is
our drive, our willingness to do things that a lot of other
bands won't do. We just go in play for people, try to make a
couple of fans and we can ask some questions about sex at
the same time
(laughing) You learnt a lot
about sex for the whole touring process now.
Exactly (laughing) we are
all informed
Now, you also had a big fan
base in Seattle?
Yeah, we did a bunch of
high school shows down there too. Didn't play as much as we
did in Vancouver because of visas and stuff, we'd have to
lie at the border every time we wanted to cross.
How are people looking at
you now in your home town?
I walked into a grocery
store the other day and this girl was behind the counter and
she goes hey, your the singer from DAKONA
right and I go yeah and she
said I used to watch you when I was in high school. I
realized I felt like a has-been in a little town, it's just
been so quiet for so long. As soon as something does happen,
people go there they go again, we've played maybe two shows
locally in the past year and a half and it's been kind of
quiet. We just been waiting for this record to come out so
we can play our scene here but it's been cool just taking
off and playing places we don't know where there are no
preconceptions.
When is the album actually
coming out?
The date we have now is
September 9th.
September????
September 9th, radio the end of June
You Serious!!
Yes
That's a long ways away!
Yeah. I don't know if that
will change at all, it could maybe be sooner but
God, I hope so
Radio is not too far off.
It's like four or five weeks away from radio date so
The single is GOOD, right?
GOOD the
single, right
Wow! Your gonna have to
write a new album for me!
Yeah, I've got one here. I
can send it to you
Oh you do (laughing) Well,
send it my way (laughing)
We seriously got about
twenty-five, thirty songs, this is like the longest record
cycle of all times
Holy cow!
I hope your still
interested by the time it comes out
We're gonna have to do like
five more interviews before the album comes out
Yeah, we'll come over with
some CD's opening sessions or something like that
There ya go. Maybe we can
have like a sex therapist interview (laughing) I don't know
(laughing) I'll call Rona,
see if I can get her on the line (laughing)
(laughing) OK. One of my
last questions is if you could describe your band members,
how would you describe each of them?
We kind of do, the body
part analogy
OK
Brook is, I'm going to say
the hands, Shane the feet. John is the heart and I guess I'd
have to be the head, so we're basically a giant head and a
heart and feet and hands, so if you want to do an
illustration of DAKONA
That would be beautiful (laughing). OK, is there anything
else you want to add, anything we left
out?
I probably should but I
can't think of anything now.
All right, I hope everything
goes OK and tell your band that I really like them
Awesome
and we will talk again soon
once
Yeah, if you need anything
Stephanie, just give us a call
I will
All right
All right, thank you
Thanks so much
All right, bye
~
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