Second old interview

This second interview, is an old one way back from last spring with a fellow Mitch Clem Forum member from the Great White North.

Believe it or not, Canada has a rich punk rock history. With legends like DOA coming from up north during the early 1980s to the critically acclaimed Fucked Up, Canada has nothing to prove to the rest of the punk rock community. The Knife Party, are one of those bands full of Canadian punk tradition. Borrowing from bands like the Dwarves and the Stooges the Knife Party are a Canuck force to be reckoned with. I sat down with their drummer Eric Bourque, a member of the same punk rock message board as me and asked him all about being a band from Canada and my obscure attempts at trying to make a connection to the Ergs!

Me: What is it like being a band from Canada?

Eric: Probably the same as being a band from America, except you have to move your gear in -40C weather and sometimes up to 35cm of snow. The parka is punk rock in Canada out of necessity.

Me: Is it harder to try and get shows in the states and do you think it's better to cross the border to get your name out there?

Eric: Yeah it’s kinda rough. We’re still a pretty new band, so we haven’t put a ton of effort in, but other bands from around here have had some hard tours in the States. Some of the biggest punk bands in Canada are almost unknown across the border. The Replacements, Ripcordz, Forgotten Rebels, D.O.A… They get minimum name droppage at best. Even some of the all-time great New Brunswick bands (past and present) don’t get a lot of exposure West of Quebec. It’s never really been a concern to us, though. We’ve got a really strong (albeit small) punk scene here, but it’s more than enough for Knife Party to be content with. We’ll be trying for a little touring from here through to Ontario next year sometime, but in the meantime we’re working out kinks in the live show.

Me: Your lyrics seem rather aggressive and slightly sarcastic, who writes them?

Eric: I wrote all the lyrics for the first demo (Just Like You, Only Better) and Danny Whoremoan wrote a few tracks off the upcoming EP we’re working on. Half the songs are sarcastic and the other half are about movies and video games. I write what I know, which is mainly pop culture and shitty people, so I guess that reflects in the music. I was a little younger and going through a stressful period of my life when the first half of the demo was written. All the songs were written over the course of a year and all reflect my moods. At first, I didn’t write so much about being angry, as much as aggressively disappointed in people in general. It came to a head in Clusterfuck, which is admittedly a little harsh, and then I just gave up on making sense of people’s actions and just got ridiculous with the song writing. That’s when Just Like You, Killdorado, River City and Death By Dialogue were written. Killdorado’s about a friend’s overreaction to noisy kids at a restaurant, Death By Dialogue is about a guy I worked with who had the same fight every night with his lady, Mutated Street Beatniks is about Mike Allred’s Madman comic, and River City Ransom is about how awesome River City Ransom is.


Me: I know that River City Ransom is a video game, do you guys play a lot of them and why write a song about that game?

Eric: River City Ransom, along with Galaga (which I have a tattoo of on the back of my neck) were my favorite games as a kid. River City Ransom was the first game I could wrap my head around as a kid and kinda relate to. It’s a virtually generic storyline now (save the girl) but it was my first time playing a game with that story that didn’t confuse the shit out of me like Super Mario Bros. did (Mushrooms, duck-turtles, Goombas? The fuck?). Plus, I love that your little dude got better at stuff over time, what with the experience points and move upgrades and stuff. It was just awesome. We were messing around the in the jam room one day just talking about old games and the song just wrote itself.

Me: Any Ergs connection?

Eric: Ah, okay. Great song, but no connection. I don't think that song has anything to do with the game. I think River City is just a catchy thing to say.

Me: Also, I was just reading some of the lyrics and thought maybe people who take some the lyrics as "women" hating. I don't think you are chavunist though, I listen to the Dwarves so I guess I'm unmoved by it?

Eric: Dwarves rock. My other band covers Back Seat Of My Car. Most people don't understand a word Danny is saying, so we've been safe on that front.


Me: Many of the songs seem to deal with kids who are perhaps "posers" or "poseurs" in the punk rock scene are there several kids like this in your local scene?

Eric: Nah, not really. I never really liked the term poseur anyway. No one was born into a pair of bondage pants and a leather jacket. We all dressed like douches at one point or another. Calling someone a poseur just screams insecure. The only theme in our songs close to that is of liars. Punk Rock Fairytale in particular, is about moving to town from wherever and just talking shit and dropping names thinking you’ll impress me. Yeah, you know Jeff Rosenstock? Cool, I hear he’s nice. I like his musi- Oh yeah, that song’s about you, eh? Uh huh, uh huh…Even if it’s true, I’m tuned out by the ninth anecdote. Not sure why it irks me, it just does.

Me: Do you guys ever get pegged as a chavunist band? Or does that kind of go with the garage rock style?

Eric: Not that I know of. We get pegged as a ska band a lot because we wear matching black suits and pink ties, but it’s hard to call a band that sings about video games and comic books chauvinist. What do you think? Do we come off that way?

Me: That is funny about the ska thing, because that would happen to my old band, but only because we had someone who played trumpet...on one song that was far from ska.

Eric: We've had walk outs once people saw us. The other night at a club, some guy asked if I was going to "rat him out" for smoking in the bathroom. I couldn't understand why I would and his explanation was I was wearing a suit, therefore "could not be trusted". Ah...punx...At least the ladies like the suits.
Honestly, the suit thing was an idea brought up on day one of being a band and as our sound progressed and our set list grew, I found it became more important to follow through on it. We didn't want to draw any similarities to other bands in and around Moncton in terms of sound—and that essentially went hand-in-hand with our look, too. I'm not saying that everyone in Moncton looks the same and blah blah blah blurghity blah whatever… We just didn't want to be lumped in as another run-of-the-mill punk rock band, so we thought the best way to stand out onstage was take our style polar-opposite. Instead of dressing homeless, we dressed corporate and classy, but added the pink ties for that touch of sass. Also, because it made our bass player uncomfortable to wear pink. Another benefit was it made us more recognizable. It creates a band image. The Ramones, unfortunately, beat us to the best look by a few years and I was doing a lot of reading on the history of the suit at the time and said fuck it. I really like suits, so let's wear them. Now we're the "guys that wear the sissy little pink ties."

Me: What exactly is "Tainthammer" about?

Eric: Ah, "TAINTHAMMER." The most feared move in MMA history! We like writing over the top hardcore songs from time-to-time, like KILLDORADO on the first demo. We wanted to do another one and a buddy of mine had recently moved to Montreal to take up MMA training professionally, so we decided to write him some theme music. Tainthammer actually came from a deleted scene on the Human Giant – Season 1 DVD. We’re big Human Giant fans and the Tainthammer was a bit of a running joke for awhile. Like anything awesome, we jumped at the chance to turn it into a song. Stay tuned for Jason Vorhees: Cockblock on the next release.

Me: Recently your record was reviewed by Razorcake, how did that feel seeing that?

Eric: It has been an adjustment. People don’t look at us the same way. We’re by and far the most respected and renowned band from New Brunswick in the past 30 years now. We get a lot of calls from people who claim we used to hang out with, but it’s hard to keep remember everyone once you’ve become the only band to shatter the Punk Rock Glass Ceiling so many have tried and failed to even reach. Actually, nothing’s changed at all. We haven’t sold a single fucking demo and I’m pretty sure we didn’t even make it to the actual printed magazine. So it’s just sitting there on the World Wide Web for anyone to read and forget about. Maybe We did thank Craven for the kind words. Clearly, he likes bad music as much as we do.

Me: Did you feel like you accomplished something?

Eric: We make minimalist rock & roll music with a front man you either love or hate instantly (but you should really get to know). We’re gaining an O.K. following and we’ve played with some fantastic bands and met some really great people we’d never have had the chance to meet as a result of Knife Party. For something we started out of fun, and never expected to take off at all, the fact we’re still enjoying it and getting the odd free beer ticket is plenty.

Me: Where and how did you record the record?

Eric: Just Like You, Only Better was mixed and recorded by Kyle McDonald at Cabin Studios here in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. He could probably tell you more, but it definitely involved microphones and some fancy computer editing. He’s also part of SuperBob Records, who are currently distributing our demo.

Me: Was it self financed?

Eric: One hundred percent independently financed. We cut, printed and folded every cd insert ourselves and all the art was commissioned locally (Ian Doucett drew the back and insides of the cd and Ian “Legasee” MacMillan designed the front logo). We paid ½ with money we’d made playing shows and the rest out of our pocket.

Me: Are you thinking about perhaps sending it to some larger independent labels?

Eric: We’ve sent it around for reviews, mostly. We’re not against signing, in fact we’d sell out in a heartbeat, but no dice as of yet.

If you'd like to look at some fine young men in suits, be sure to check out their website www.knifeparty.ca which just directs you to their Myspace. Go pick up some issues of Razorcake too.