Band: Planet Smashers, The Members: Neil And Dave Label: STOMP Records Location: Edmonton, Alberta Date: March 5th 2005 Interviewer: Bobby Gorman

On their second date of the annual cross-Canadian Frostbite Tour with Guttermouth and Ghost Of Modern Man, Neil (saxophone) and Dave (guitar) of the Planet Smashers were nice enough to sit down with me and tell me a bit about what’s been happening with them lately. Since we were right behind the drum kit as Ghost Of Modern Man started to play, some of the interview was difficult to make out, so the words may not be 100% exact, but they are as close as possible. There were also a few interjections by Matt throughout the interview as he walked by. Thanks a lot to the guys for doing it and to Nina for setting it all up. If the Planet Smashers ever come by your town, check it out because it’s a show you won’t soon forget.

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Bobby: Tonight’s the second night of the Frostbite Tour, are you guys excited to see what happens with it?

Neil: Yeah, super excited!

Dave: We just got over the big hard part.

Neil: The drive.

Bobby: How long was the drive?

Dave: Forty-four hours straight.

Neil: Yeah, forty-four.

Bobby: How do you do that? Forty-four hours in a car, isn’t that annoying?

Dave: We have “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, we have “South Park”…

Neil: Lots of TV! And movies!

Dave: Yeah, lots of TV, “Arrested Development”…

Neil: That’s a wicked recorder! Holy crap. That like a hard-drive recorder or something?

Bobby: Yeah it is… *here one of the opening band members came in to grab some wine from behind Dave and they started talking about wine for a bit before carrying on with the interview*. What do you think the crown reaction will be on this tour? There’s you guys, the ska band, Guttermouth who is more punk and then Ghost Of Modern Man which is yet another genre, how do you think the crowd will react to them all?

Dave: I think everybody here goes to all the shows from each band individually.

Neil: Yeah, we’re used to touring with bands with different kinds of music you know, and somehow it seems to work out. You get out there and you get our fans and you get their fans and it kind of mixes you know. A lot of people like a lot of different kinds of music.

Dave: And you get to see more choices of bands in one night, like you could see us all individually when we come around ourselves but in one night you get to see all three of us.

Bobby: Last time you guys were here you were on the Ska Is Dead And Your Next! Tour, an all ska- tour, who came up with that idea?

Dave: Oh, that was actually Dave from Mustard Plug wasn’t it?

Neil: Matt actually came up with it and then he told Dave and Dave goes “wow” and made it happen.

Dave: Yeah, he was like “You want me to run with that?” And he went with it. He made the logo and the banner and he got all the artwork done. Dave Mustard Plug booked the whole tour, he’s been booking that for a while, and he’s like the guy in charge of it all.

Neil: Yeah, he’s booked everything.

Dave: Now it’s going to be like part three soon and the line-ups changing. I think Fishbone is going to be on it, so that’s awesome.

Bobby: In February, you guys posted that you were in the studio with Chris Murray recording a new record. How is that going? Are you done it?

Neil: We just finished like a day before we drove here. Actually, the day before we were still in the studio, so we drove straight here.

Dave: On January 1st we started recording, we had zero tunes. Then we did like pre-production for a month and then in like February we said “Hey, let’s spend a month in the studio!” But it’s like the shortest month of the year.

Neil: Yeah, we sure know how to pick them!

Dave: So it like totally caught us off guard and we were like “oooooo man! The month’s gone by already?!”

Neil: “Oh shit! It’s the twentieth!”

Dave: So we did that and then we hoped into the van right after finishing. And the record’s not even finished yet. Rod, our engineer back in Montreal, is still mixing it.

Bobby: When do you think we’re going to see it?

Neil: Probably early June, late May.

Dave: This summer. It’ll probably trickle out this way this summer.

Matt: Quote! Want a quote?! Quote!

Bobby: Why did you guys pick Chris Murray to produce your new album?

Matt: Because he did Life Of The Party, our biggest record.

Neil: And Attack.

Matt: And Attack, but Life was good and we were like let’s bring that energy back and like fucking synergize it. I don’t know.

Neil: Synergy! Synergy!

Matt: Synergize it and… What was the word from last night?

Neil: Umm…Definating!

Matt: Definating the best producer!

Neil: *laughing* Definating! That’s not even a word!

Bobby: Okay, I’ll have a hard time typing that but I’ll try. Ska is a slowly dying out trend, your last tour even said that, and emo is taking over. Why do you think that is?

Dave: Emo hasn’t taken over and ska has never really been really big. Whatever is big now is big, but ska has always been a niche franchise and just the fact that a couple of bands got a huge hit like the Bosstones and No Doubt, and their not necessarily like traditional ska. So, they did something different and people liked it so they got big and then came the flood of imitators and other bands and its just now starting to level out. If you were a good band and you were touring, it didn’t matter what you played but you were being undersold by a high school marching band. Like everybody was going in different directions making sound guys have headaches with eleven member bands with accordions and shit. It was weird, it was like “Boom!” and ska got really big and now its dying out because the people who are really doing it for real are the ones still here and the rest are leftovers. But who am I to talk?

Bobby: Okay, you guys are from Montreal and speak French pretty well I’m guessing, I know Matt does from the interviews I’ve seen. What do you guys do in Montreal? Do you speak French to the crowd and sing in English or what?

Neil: Yeah. It’s a pretty bilingual town.

Dave: When we speak French, we’re English guys speaking French, we’re not going to hide it.

Neil: You can’t fake it in Montreal because there’s so many real French speakers and they know right away if you can speak it or not. So we get by, like we have fans that are totally francophone that just like the band.

Bobby: Yeah, like I was in Montreal a few years ago with my French class and we were all supposed to speak French but then we’d go into a McDonald’s or something and try to order in French and they were like “excuse me?”.

Neil: That’s the thing, there’s a lot of people that work in Montreal that are bilingual and you can’t tell if they’re French or English.

Dave: A lot of time English people will be speaking French with each other and…

Neil: And then they realize.

Dave: It’s like “Dude you speak French?” “Yeah, would you rather speak in English?” “Oh God yes! Thank God”

Neil: There’s a lot of variety in Montreal, I love it.

Dave: It’s unbelievable, like in Quebec, you’re always trying to make new friends on tour and you have to be honest.

Bobby: I also know you guys have a love of Tiki drinks, how did that all start?

Dave: From my love of drinking. It’s not hard to figure out, when you like a drink and you want to go somewhere good, that’s where.

Neil: There’s this place in Trois Riveres that’s called the Coconut Lounge, and that’s the favourite bar of ours. It’s a Tiki bar and the quality’s good with fucking island drinks you know, pineapple, coconut, all that stuff.

Dave: Mai Tai. Pretty much the song “Missionary’s Downfall” we just read the menu from that place.

Bobby: This question comes from a friend of mine called Justin, he wanted to know which one of you skanks the best.

Neil: I’d pick you.

Dave: Out of our band?

Neil: Maybe Scottie.

Dave: Yeah, Scottie.

Neil: Scott, our drummer. He skanked in the studio actually, it was great. He was playing a cowbell part and he skanked the whole time while playing the cowbell. It was hilarious. You had to be there

Bobby: If you guys could tour with one band, dead or alive, who would you choose to tour with and why?

Neil: Elvis Presley.

Bobby: Why?

Dave: He’s the king!

Neil: Because he’s the greatest fucking entertainer ever. Plus, we would get to play in front of Elvis’s crowd every night. How great would that be?!

Bobby: Now a days you can find MP3s all over the internet, whats your opinion on that? Is it good, bad, or no affect?

Dave: I have no opinion on it…

Matt: LET’S PARTY!!!!

Dave: There’s a lot of people losing money because of it, but the quality of MP3s and all that stuff is really bad and I think people always want to buy it. And besides, a record for a band is basically an expensive business card. You make all your money selling t-shirts and playing concerts, CDs are pretty much a break even market. Don’t even worry about that, just throw your money at it and do it. Its just a thing to be happy with that you have a diary of what you’ve written. Which is more important then being able to sell it.

Bobby: Now onto some more unusual questions, if you guys were trapped on a desert island with no food and nothing to eat, which one of you would you eat to survive and why?

Neil: Which band member would we eat?

Dave: They’d eat me because I’m the big guy, I have meat on me.

Neil: I don’t know… no comment.

Bobby: How about this one, if you were a girl for a day, what would you do and why?

Dave: I’d go out and fuck everybody, as many people as I could.

Neil: I would go to as many women’s rest rooms as I could. I don’t know, maybe not everyone would do that, but that’s just me.

Bobby: Can you tell us something about the band or one of its members that most people don’t know? Like a hidden secret or little obsession that they have.

Dave: Hidden secrets… I know my life is an open book, I have no secrets.

Neil: We could dig up a secret of somebody that’s not here right now, that’s not doing the interview. What could we say? Ummm… O yeah, one of our members is losing a very vital organ pretty soon.

Dave: Oh yeah, he’s losing a kidney. Our *beeped out* player is donating his kidney.

Neil: No, you can’t say that, it has to anonymous.

Dave: I mean… this guy…

Neil: One of our band members… Yeah, his brother is missing an organ so he’s gong to donate one this summer. It’s crazy.

Bobby: If you could have one thing at this moment, anything at all, what would you have and why?

Dave: Anything right now? I’d rather be home on my couch watching TV eating ice cream.

Bobby: Ice cream’s always good, what’s your favourite type of ice cream?

Neil: Chocolate.

Dave: Yeah, chocolate chip. Ben And Jerry’s chocolate chip.

Bobby: I guess that’s about it, thanks a lot, do you have any shout outs before we end?

Neil: Shout outs!

Dave: Shout outs to my homies!

Bobby: Okay, thanks a lot!

Neil: Yeah, no problem.