LORD BEGINNER Q&As


Colin McKill (vocals, guitar)

Tell me about this Bluegrass night that got things going…

The bluegrass night was started to get people who don't normally sing or play instruments to do exactly that - to have a "group" and have fun playing with other people without the pressure of writing/playing live/recording/other bullshit that goes into being in a band. It's a revolving membership. It's fun to have some people sing who don't normally sing, and learn some old country songs. It is a good-feeling friend builder with a musical subtext.


How does Hard Drugs tie in again? Who the fuck is in it again? Like, half of Vancouver?

Pete and I both play in Hard Drugs, and Bryce played and help record the album. That's how Bryce and I met Pete. Shira Bluestein (A Pale Blue, Blood Meridian), Ashley Webber (Pink Mountaintops), Jenni Lee Nelson (a fashion designer in New York for Zachary's Smile and Jeff's wife) and Kevin (Blood Meridian) round out the live lineup, but yeah, pretty much everyone played on the album. This project has literally been going on for about three or four years.


What's LB all about for you?

I am lucky to have the chance to play music with friends in a band where we take the songs very seriously and try to make them sound as good as they can possibly sound. Lord Beginner is about respecting music, appreciating each other's input and trying to create something beautiful. We've all been in bands for long periods of time so doing this is getting easier and easier.


As a guy who's played music much of his "adulthood", how are you feeling getting older? Has music's role in your life changed?

The best part about having done the band thing for this long is that I don't care about stupid things anymore. Making sure everyone in our band knows they are important and their input is appreciated, as well as taking some pride in one's musicianship and songwriting; that trumps any of the petty concerns I may have had with other bands I've been in.


 
Bryce Janssens (vocals, bass)

In between the Options & Lord Beginner you’ve continued to make music right?

I’ve played a bunch of music by myself; I made a record but it hasn’t been released due to lack of money. I’ve never been a “career musician”. I went to film school, which was a waste of money, but whatever, I still pick up editing work here and there which is nice cos I can work from home.


You kind of run your own studio – who else have you recorded?

I did some recording for Hard Drugs and I’ve done post editing for films.


Talk to me about Nugrass.

Nugrass is how I came to know Pete. It was a few people just turning up and playing bluegrass each week and it’s fun. Basically people just show up and sing their hearts out. There’s a song sheet that Pete prints off each week. It’s great.


How’s writing working?

Colin and I write all the songs and when we started, we had some songs on the side that we just started playing. Now we’ve started kind of writing “for the band”, knowing that we’re gonna have harmonies here and keys there.


You guys have a very congealed sound for a relatively new band. The vocal harmonies are spot on.

Yeah, for Colin and I that’s never been very difficult. We’ve been making music together for so long and that’s the thing we’re kind of good at, polished vocal harmonies and catchy melodies. I mean it’s been ten years now…


A lot of what you guys are doing is very simple but perfectly fitted within each song…

I’ve been looking for a way to play one note. With any song now, my first instinct is to try to find that one note that works through all the chords. If it’s there, I’m much happier doing that than finding change ups and finding turn-arounds. I like keeping it driving.


How is it surviving in Vancouver’s musical landscape compared to Vic?

It’s great. In Vancouver, bands seem a little more eager to search out press or go looking for a record deal and really take projects that they work on seriously, which has been great. [The] Victoria [music scene] has a bit of a tendency to be dismissive when it comes to press of any kind, whereas in Vancouver, there’s a bit of a “we’re in this all together” vibe, like let’s do this without feeling lame about it. It’s not lame to do an interview or have your picture taken or tour or make an album.

 

Patrick Beattie [guitar, keys, vocals]

Can you elaborate on how you came to be involved with Lord Beginner?

Last year Bryce and Stephan were playing together, just writing songs and doing recordings.  Then Colin and Jeff got involved, then me. So the first practices happened last January I think.... We weren't too sure where it was going to go, but we somehow managed to get some gigs and we have nice friends who came to our first few [shows]. Then people started just coming of their own volition.  I think the first gig we got lined up was through Jeff opening for Dead Meadow and that seemed kind of exciting.  That forced us to pick a name and play a few shows leading up to the big out-of-towner opening slot. The compelling things happen when you start playing together; like the reason for forming the band comes after the fact. 


How is LB compared to your experience with Chet? It's a little more straight ahead rock - is it nice being able to “give 'er” a little more?

Well, that is a surprisingly hard question. Yep, pretty different bands in sound and practice.  Making a lot more noise in LB is a pretty fun thing. It's louder and more psychedelic. I don't know really where to begin comparing the two bands, but I certainly don't feel like I’m repeating myself much. After a long time with Chet, it was good to play with some new people in something that wasn't Chet.  Of course I love that band and the people in it, and it has changed a lot over the years.  Very much so in recent months.  So I'm certainly not bored.


Creatively, what drives the band? Are there specific influences that pop up that unite everyone involved?

I'm not so much concerned with common influences as the varying ones that everyone brings to the band and how we can combine them. I'm pretty familiar with Bryce and Colin's tendencies as songwriters/musicians because I've known them for a long time, but it's an exciting and inspiring thing to hear what kind of adjustments they make in the presence of the rest of the band. They're playing with people who do different things, have different instincts than they are/were used to.
This goes for me too. I became aware of the particular element that I was bringing, and have been mining that, trying to see what new things can be done with it. I suppose that’s a long-winded way of saying that's what being a band is, really: everyone's differences and how they fit together.




ESPIONAGE Q&A

So how are you guys?

Rob: Good... oh sweet a dictaphone. I used to have one of those, but then I left in on a bus. I used to tke it to school for the purpose of having a clock, but now someone has a whole bunch of really random "ooooh-ooooweeoooooooooh" and "dah-dah-dududu-dah-dah". I used to be like hey, what about this "bom-bom-baaaaaaah". They're nifty for when you're walking around and you get a riff in your head and are like "where is this riff in my mind coming from? Is it mine? I should probably record this cos it might actually be really good!" Then you listen to it a couple of days later and you're like "what the fuck?"


My buddy had a recorded version of a session my band did of a song that had this one-off guitar bit on it that for the life of him, he couldn't remember the part he played. And he wanted to know cos he remembered it being a sweet riff, but then his phone died so I'm just not sure the status of that...

R: I had that kind of thing going for a while with a cell phone, but it would only record if you were holding down this button. So I'd be in these hilarious positions, holding the phone behind the neck of the guitar with my fretting hand trying to play this idea AND hold this button down. It was like "FUCK! This is pointless!"


So outside of ulterior recording methods, what are you guys up to?

Neil: We're tracking a new record. Our first album, Python Octagon, is going to be a free net release (via espionageband.com - go get it!). The whole thing will be there for anyone to download.

R: We're eight songs deep on a twelve song record.


What do the new tunes sound like?

N: Busier than Python Octagon. More 70's influenced.


Yeah, Python Octagon had a bit of an 80's thing going. Whenever I've watched you guys in the past, I always end up thinking of The Police, in a good way. The low/hi relationship between the bass and guitar is always spot on.

R: Python Octagon was a thing where Connor & I had been jamming all these tunes for a while and then Neil got on board and we were like "we're a band". So we jammed those songs for the lack of better things to do. Those songs were written, whereas now it's this situation where it's "I've got this part and you've got this part so let's throw 'em together." So [the new album] is a bit more of a band record as opposed to a bunch of ideas that are already done. It's more representative of how we write songs together.

N: Yeah, all of it sounds more jammed out.


How is the writing process compared to past projects you guys have been involved in?

R: The communication is really open. It's the best situation I've ever been in for "how do you feel about this? What should we do? What should it be like?"

Connor: And more often than not, we're totally on the same wavelength so often there's not a lot of discussion needed.


How old are you all, thirty-ish? I guess at this stage are you all comfortable with what you like in terms of playing?

C: That plays into it.

R: Before we even started a record, we had this idea for an album called Manly Tough - we were thinking "we've already got four classic rock tunes in the bag" and the name just stuck with us like "this is fucking hilarious, we gotta run with it." So we just said OK, we'll write however we write, but in the back of my mind I was writing to that idea.


Classic rock?

R: Yeah. Driving tunes, that kind of ridiculousness.


Rad.

R: It's not thematic in anyway, but...

C: And it's a bit less classic rock than we think.

N: It's got some classic rock, but mainly it's the tough portion of the Manly Tough and by tough I mean loud.

R: It's taking the piss out of everything.
 

There's a bit of prog on Python Octagon, shortened measure & time signature stuff...?

R: There's definitely a bunch of that on Manly Tough. In the back of my mind I'm thinking AC/DC but also a bunch of Yes in there. Early Yes. Close To The Edge Yes.


Manly Tough indeed. That's middle-aged man tough...

N: Well you cant really be manly tough in your twenties.

R: The cover art is something that we've thought about a lot. Neil will describe it...

N: It's gonna be Connor & I arm-wrestling, maybe with a scorpion in a petri dish on either side of us and Rob will be reffing us, his hands on our fists. He'll be wearing aviator shades and be holding up an ace of hearts.