Answered by Patrick, Jay, and Chris.
Chris: Every time I come up with what I think are good lyrics I wonder if Morrissey would be caught dead singing them. I love his lyrics and I love the words and phrasing of Chuck Berry. I suppose I like a lot of John Lennon's lyrics too.
Patrick: Jeff Martin has a way with words that I find quite refreshing. Especially considering that he's deaf. He is deaf isn't he? He must be.
Chris: I have about as much insight on the "debate" concerning Napster as I have financial advice. Both affect me but I don't think about them on a daily basis. My financial advice is to save money. My Napster take is that everything will right itself in the end and I'll keep my band together as long as I can. That said, I liked the lawlessness of it all. I have never downloaded a song from the net.
Patrick: Napster itself, being a file sharing program, isn't something that worries me, but the attitude that some people have expressed concerning artists rights verses freedom of information does. A songwriter makes a living through royalties paid to them from, among other things, record sales. The trading of songs, either album tracks or live bootlegs, doesn't worry me that much as I think the more people exposed to you the more will come and see you live. Most bands don't own the music that they release, they sell those rights for money up front to record companies or publishing companies, and are probably happy with the increased visibility that they could enjoy from being a popular download. But for a band like us, where we own the bulk of our back catalogue, it means royalties aren't being paid to us where they should be. It's wrong to undervalue the rights of songwriters, people who tend to risk everything gambling on whether people will like what they're writing. But I think that people wanting to download you is a good problem to have. It means they're into you.
Chris: Musically, we are all on the same page for the most part. It's the idiosyncrasies of the other guys that tend to drive you berserk. I can't really answer this in the way that would make it interesting, except to say that the complaint about me is that I can be musically and lyrically cheeky. I'll add one more unnecessary chord at the last second or put a pun in an otherwise melancholic song.
Patrick: At the moment we're making a record, so we seem to be getting along creatively in the music department. I think we tend to disagree on things like how we're presented publicly, the look of videos or photos. But we actually don't disagree that often about things creatively. Sometimes there can be issues about the merits of musically catchy songs verses musically complicated songs.
Chris: We had an amazing time the first time we played in Tokyo, Japan at the Club Quattro. The lights were over the top and the club was packed and the people were all singing along. We hadn't played in Japan before and we hadn't played outside North America in 6 years so we were as happy as we ever get at the same time. We also played in a great venue in Sydney, Australia. It was a veteran's club of some kind. I forget the name of it.
Jay: I agree with Chris. In Canada though it's hard to say. I always like playing Halifax obviously, but our last couple of shows there were not among my faves. Vancouver is almost always good and we've had a history of fun shows in Winnipeg... Uhhh, it's hard to choose. In the US, NYC is always a good show and Chicago or Detroit would be right up there as well.
Patrick: We always have a good time in Chicago at the Metro, the Bowery Ball room in NYC, the Middle East in Boston. We did a few nice theatres in Europe with the Tragically Hip last year. The Club Quatros in Japan are pretty cool. We just played in London at a place called the Garage which had nice carpet in the ladies room. We enjoyed playing the two shows at the Concert Hall during OCTA, before the Mike Bullard show moved in. We were actually going to play there on the Navy Blues tour, but they weren't as cooperative as we thought they were going to be about moving their five string basses out of the way (they were going to be on hiatus), so we moved to the Palais Royale. Nothing against the Bullard people though; they've had us on a few times, and actually had Andrew, of all people, talk to Mike. There have been so many places over the years that we've lied and said we would like to come back to. Quite often it has less to do with the venue or city and more to do with the show itself, the crowd or the staff, how we were treated etc...
Chris: "I Am The Cancer" has remained in the set forever without a lot of moaning from me. "The Good in Everyone" is so kick ass and only 2:00 long so I never get bored of it.
Jay: I like the songs where I get to play bass... mainly Andrew's songs. I like playing some of the more understated songs that have little musical parts that stand out when we're not bashing away... stuff like "I Can Feel It" or "Bells On". Of course the rockers are 'good times' too.
Patrick: I can play basically anybody's songs and just zone out. Some can get boring, but there's always something to keep you interested. I feel that it's my job to back up the other members and make their songs as good as possible, as I would like them to do for me. I tend to get sick of all of my songs pretty quickly, but hate it when people take any of them out of the set without talking to me first. But generally I like to play Sloan songs, covers, or jam in A.
Chris: I can't do "She Says What She Means". There are a couple that drive me nuts. Just look at my face at the show for the rolling eyes. Songs that can be described as long AND slow get on my nerves first, though not always.
Jay: The ones of mine when I have a hard time singing. Other than that, I'll play anything.
Patrick: I don't believe that every song that you write should be played live. Some songs are just better on record and to do them live cheapens them. I often feel that "Suppose They Close The Door", which I actually do like playing, isn't nearly as strong as it should be live. There's a lot of production that we can't cover. I think we can wreck that song sometimes, which is shame because it's a good one. "Everything You've Done Wrong" is another that I think we aren't able to do well, but it was a single so people want to hear it.
Chris: I like to hang out with my friends, eat and combinations involving both. Of all things, I have been playing ice hockey a couple of times a week for the first time, barring an embarrassing game last year, since grade 8.
Jay: I'm trying to get out and see more movies. I'm a slave to collecting records.
Patrick: I work with the amnesia victims, trying to help them remember their past, or just making up a past for them.
Patrick: Aside from that show that we did last summer when you were away on vacation, it's been a while hasn't it? We'll always play Moncton as long Elevator live there, I can tell you that.
Chris: Moncton, or Punk-ton has always been good to us. We sell almost as many records there as we do in Vancouver, a city many times the size. Besides our friend Jayme living there (she is the cutest thing alive), Moncton has the highest per capita of amazing bands of any city in the world. We are probably not going to play anywhere until the summer but Moncton will be on our map. I love it there. Thanks for asking for us.
Jay: I think the last time we played there was opening for Eric's Trip at their farewell concert. Yeah , shows there are always good and well attended. I think the last couple of times we tried to play there, the shows fell through because of scheduling, but we usually want to play there.
Chris: Murderecords is definitely Sloan centric and has been for a few years.
Jay: We tried for a couple of years to make Murder an entity unto itself that could survive and keep bands around for few records. It's hard for us to keep it going when Sloan is so busy and it's also tough to pry the Murder reigns out of our (Chris and I mainly) hands. We released some good singles and albums, but for now we're more comfortable with Murder just being Sloan's outlet.
Patrick: We did. It's called "Open Up Napster, Type In Sloan, Then Rare, And Hit Search"
Chris: I shot my mouth off a lot last year about a pending rarities album but I guess it was wishful thinking. We definitely have enough songs not on any of our official albums to compile a rarities album but I don't see it happening soon. We released Navy Blues, 4 Nights..., Second Hand Views (video comp), and Between The Bridges in about 18 months and we want to put an album out by the summer and that will be a new album so we will have to wait to do the rarities album. It's a drag that people are buying the expensive Japanese albums for the bonus tracks. We have a "Don't You Believe A Word" CD single for sale through the website with the latest Japanese bonus tracks: "Summer's My Season" and "At The Edge of the Scene".
We don't consider Kearney Lake Rd. to be proto Sloan. FYI, Jay and I were in the band and it existed from 1987 until 1990. I fantasize about making a KLR CD but Jay is not so enthused. Remember, I also pushed for the live record which didn't sell great guns.
Jay: Yeah, I don't know about a KLR compilation. Chris and Henri and I will have a three way arm wrestle over that one! Yeah, eventually I would love to release a well annotated Sloan rarities CD, but as Chris said, not right away. Maybe during a year when we decide to take some time off or something. Based on our Sloan photo library , the graphics will be good!
Chris: We won't be playing until the summer.
Chris: I would like to place credit and or blame onto Andrew. FYI, the logo of lots of little "m's" is supposed to be a group of crows and a group of crows is called a murder.
Chris: Yeah, I said it would be different but it's no Kid A. My songs are hopefully better than the last record but so far it's the same band. My strategy was to get a bunch of conventional songs done and then to start experimenting. Well, we're not done the conventional stuff yet. I have every intention of trying to do some more experimental stuff before the case is closed.
Patrick: Actually, we had to revamp things a bit because the other night I went to another neighbour's house and listened to the Beatles, so I think we're going to go in that sort of direction.
Chris: Every decision I make is in the interest of the longevity of the band. I love my job and I like the legacy. I will do it as long as I can. It's hard to keep it together and we broke up once already for a while. Being in a relationship is hard. Being in a 4 way relationship is even harder (apparently).
Jay: I'm glad our band has stuck together and not just remained an early 90's footnote. So many bands that we know or started when we did are long gone. There are lots of bands who have been together for ages, but often their records get weaker with only occasional glimmers of good tracks. I would love for our band to stay together for a long time while still creating worthwhile LPs and be able to look back on a large catalogue of quality music.
Patrick: "Or have that commended to you guys a little later?"????
Chris: I would say November or December of 2001 would be a good guess unless you can get us on the Fugi festival in August. Good luck.
Chris: I am a Kiss fan (not everyone is if you can believe it). We will do the solo records when we are selling enough that we can ship one million of each (4 million) and sell a total of one million all together, in the spirit of Kiss.
Jay: Sounds good to me! Andrew will do all the portraits.
Chris: Personally, I frown upon side projects as I always want Sloan to do more.
Patrick: Personally, Chris frowns upon side projects as he feels Sloan should do more. Chris is a Catholic.
Chris: We had good luck in Chapel Hill the past few times so we are into it but we are off until the summer at least. We will probably be in the states in the fall of 2001.
Chris: I would pay good money to see The Jay Ferguson Explosion. But if it exists, unfortunately (for everyone including me) it does not feature our Jay Ferguson.
Chris: This is never really worked out before. The only thing I can suggest is that the albums are sometimes reactionary to what we have just done prior. Twice Removed was very un Smeared. Navy Blues rocked harder than the poppy One Chord. Between The Bridges was more subdued than the unruly live album.
Don't teach anyone else how to play Coax Me. It's a secret.
Patrick: We tend to work with different engineers or have other people help us produce, so that can make a difference. With four songwriters also being interested in stretching themselves by trying different things even on one record the combinations just dictate variety. But the main difference would be the recordings more than the actual songs, I would say.
Chris: We lucked into that stuff through a friend of our manager's and they used Money City because it was a "hit" and they used Sensory Deprivation because it "rocked". I don't know. I just know that the money saved us because we run everything ourselves and times were tight.
Chris: Hello Laura. How's the new boyfriend? I haven't edited the whole thing yet. I will not be doing this until the new record is finished. The audio has to be mixed before the video is edited and Brenndan McGuire will be doing that but he is busy recording our new record. I'd like to do this in the spring. I don't know yet how I will show it around. I think we will still be knee deep in this record when we turn 10.
Jay: Chris, can we release this on DVD?
Chris: I was recently offered to read for a part in a movie and I wanted to do it but I didn't like the script that much. I want to do a movie with this band and have Patrick write it. He is so funny but he won't do it. Whatever I chose to do would end up comedy unless it was supposed to be funny.
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