Photo by Megan Willows

Have you played the Bovine before? If so, what is it you like about it that’s bringing you back?

I think I’ve personally played the Bovine more times than any other club (except maybe Call The Office in London)! Darryl is a fantastic supporter of the Toronto rock scene, so we’re always happy to come play.  Friday’s bill is so stacked with friends and colleagues that it was a no brainer for us to be a part of it!

I heard from Ian Blurton that you put on a hell of a show. What can people expect to see from you guys when you perform?

Oh man, that’s a heavy compliment. Ian himself is an amazing performer so to hear that he thinks we put on a good show is a compliment indeed. People can expect all our name implies: BIBLICAL.

You have no manager, booking agent or label. What benefits and challenges do you face being such an independent act?

Certainly, we’d like to have all those things, it just hasn’t worked out that way.  You just have to decide if those things are necessary for you to make music or not.  Some people wouldn’t get out of bed without one or all of those things in place. Would we like to have to people helping us get our music in front of more people? Absolutely. But so far we’ve been really lucky. We have a lot of friends who play in bigger bands that are into us. So we’ve been able to travel and play great shows supporting bands that would normally require someone making moves on your behalf.   In general terms, I’d say the main plus is that we’ve been able to develop at our own pace. Operating under expectations can be hard, especially when you’re starting out and want to experiment with your sound. One can only hope that that by the time you do start partnering with people, you’re that much better at your craft.

The musicianship on a lot of your tracks is exceptional — which is no surprise — seeing that all of you come from a lot of other great bands. How do you approach songwriting and recording sessions as a group? What is the creative process, and where does it come from?

Thank you for saying so, that’s mighty kind of you.  In terms of the writing process, I don’t know that we’ve established a pattern yet. The 10″ came about in a rather unexpected fashion. We had originally set out to make some demos. Nothing fancy, just document the tunes because we were playing to record them again ‘for real’.  So we went to our jam space and recorded bass and drums into a cassette 8 track. Super simple: kick, snare, a single over head mic and a direct input bass — no click track or anything just me and Jay playing the songs. We then dumped it all to ProTools and over dubbed everything else at my brother’s project studio Twenty Eyes Tracking.  During that process we reviewed what each of the instruments was doing and really fine-tuned the guitar parts. Same with the vocals — we had total freedom to try stuff off the clock and arrive what best served the song at hand. But as we moved along, we realized that we were in fact making the record we wanted to make and there was no need to go back and do it again.

Interestingly enough, we’re now finalizing the material that we plan to record for the new record.  We have four new tunes that are currently in our live set, but there are a bunch of others as well. This time out, I’ve been working on demos at home to try to work out some of the kinks. Some songs start with a handful of riffs and we cobble it together in the space, sometimes it’s all thought out before hand. So really, there’s no set recipe.

What do you think of Canadian Music Week and the artists you will be aharing the Friday night bill with?

As I said before, one of the main reasons we’re stoked to play this show is that we’ll be sharing the bill with so many of our friends. I’m really excited to see Starvin Hungry play. In fact, for a brief couple of months back in 2000, I played bass in a three piece incarnation of the band!

I was reading that you’re expanding your sound for your new album, based on [what you felt] was strongest about the 10”. What is it that you find of importance and value with ‘tension, dynamics and atmosphere’? Is there anything new that will be introduced?

One of the things we’re exploring on the new record is to really take advantage of the two guitars. There are moments on the 10″ where the guitars break away from playing the same thing and move into either harmonies or just complimentary lines. It’s definitely something we’re going to delve into further on the new batch of tunes. As well, we’re going to be using the keys more.

In terms of tension and atmosphere, we’re just really trying to be aware of how we lead the listener down a given path.  Sometimes that’s starting with a big bang and then settling on something delicate, sometimes it’s a build where you keep adding successive layers until reaching a crescendo.  We’re really trying to take stock of the sonic devices at our disposal and how we can combine and recombine them: loud vs. quiet, distorted vs. clean, full vs. sparse etc.  Modern rock records have a tendency to fill up every ounce of the mix all the time. Our view is that if you contrast that with moments of intimacy, you’ll have a much greater appreciation for when things are going crazy. This is something we’ve really tried to pursue live as well.