Fat Tour 2009 – No Use For A Name / Pour Habit

As the yearly Fat Tour rolled through Edmonton, I once again caught up with the bands to have a combined interview. Due to some miscommunication and a malfunctioning cell phone, Only Crime weren’t able to be a part of the interview (we later did a separate interview with them after the show) but that didn’t stop Tony Sly from No Use For A Name and Steve Williams from Pour Habit from talking about the tour, being on Fat, new recordings in the work and, of course, the freezing temperatures of Edmonton.

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Bobby: Starting with the basics, this is the sixth day of the Fat Tour – how’s that going so far?

Tony: Good.

Steve: Great.

Bobby: Has there been any really memorable moments from it so far?

Tony: Not yet. I think everyone is just kind of gearing up for something major. Majorly catastrophic.

Steve: A huge hurricane.

Tony: There’s gonna be something gnarly that’s going to ruin everybody pretty soon. I can feel it.

Bobby: Next Tuesday, May 26th, when you guys are in London, Ontario is when Suiticide gets re-released on Fat Wreck Chords. Are you doing anything to celebrate other than having Strung Out come and join you?

Steve: No. Nothing. I totally forgot about that actually to tell you the God honest truth.

Tony: When is it coming out?

Bobby: Next Tuesday.

Steve: Next week I guess. Yeah, maybe we’ll have a beer or two.

Tony: You (Steve) should go buy a copy for good luck.

Steve: Yeah. You (Bobby) should buy a copy for good luck.

Bobby: I will. This is of course the Fat Tour. No Use For A Name, you guys have a very long relationship with Fat Wreck having signed to them in 92 or 93. Of course you guys (Pour Habit) are relatively new to Fat having only signed to them in March. Do you have any words of advice to give to the young Fat band? What do they have to expect from working with Fat?

Steve: Oh, look at these questions. *Laughs*

Tony: I don’t know. I think Mike’s pretty cool to these guys. You guys got to go on tour in England right? With NOFX?

Steve: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tony: So he still supports his band like he supported us when we were one of his first bands like a million years ago. I don’t know, I don’t really have any kind of advice for bands starting out because things are so kind of fucked right now. It’s really not a great time to be in a starting band. It’s really not. I have to be honest. Record sales are shitty all across the board, just because of whatever. We’re really lucky to come up when we did and all that stuff. It’s harder for bands for sure to just get into a van and go tour now because everything’s so fucking expensive.

Bobby: The big news in the Fat camp that Fat Mike just announced with the new NOFX CD Coaster, is that from now on all Fat CDs will be somewhere between eight and ten dollars in the US. What was your reaction when you heard that price drop? Do you think it’s a good thing? Do you think it’s gonna help out?

Tony: Yeah, I’m cool with it as long as it doesn’t change our royalty rate. *laughs*

Steve: In my view its good. Especially us being a beginning band, if we try to sell it for more it’s probably not going to sell as much.

Tony: It’s how much records should cost I think. Especially when iTunes is doing ten dollars, you have to undercut them. You know what I mean?

Bobby: You can’t sell the CD on iTunes and then sell the exact same thing for twenty bucks in a store. It makes no sense.

Tony: Yeah. But now you can order it through them for eight American.

Bobby: Do you think having this new price drop is going to kind of spur people to buy Fat CDs again? One thing Fat Mike kept saying was that people are more likely to drop eight, ten dollars for a CD compared to fifteen, twenty. Do you think that’s true?

Tony: It’s definitely more enticing for people to buy but people are still going to get records for free because that’s still cheaper than eight bucks.

Steve: You just download it. That’s what people do these days. If they’re actually into the band, then yeah they’ll buy it just to have it as their own. To support the band. But you know, if they just dig music I think they’ll just download it.

Tony: They should buy it. If you’re into the band and want to support the bands you should. Especially bands like us that are on Fat and everything, it’s not like they’re huge advances or anything like that or big money. Everything is do it yourself.

Steve: Always on the grind.

Tony: Yeah. You have to go out and play shows to get people to like your band, or maintain.

Bobby: And also now that is the mentality that you have to go out and play shows to get people to like your band but there’s so many bands that are constantly touring that it’s kind of spread out the touring market. So someone who would normally see your show may skip out because he’s already been to two shows that week. There’s more competition in the touring market right now.

Tony: Yeah, for sure. Everybody’s touring to make up for CD sales, it’s true.

Bobby: You guys are constantly touring. I know you guys (Pour Habit) just got back from Europe with NOFX and you guys (NUFAN) just did South America. Is there a big difference touring in all these different countries and how was touring in Europe and South America?

Tony: I think touring with NOFX in general there’s just a lot more people. But South America’s just completely different. It’s weird. I mean, us going there after so many years; which I’m sure you guys found Europe to be quite different.

Steve: Yeah, a lot of kids. They showed up early. A lot of support. I don’t know if it’s just for NOFX or whatever but it seems like a lot of kids, they support the bands a lot more. They get into it a lot more. They kind of just deal with their raw emotions and get out there on the floor. They support touring bands. They don’t come just for the headliners, they come early and they leave late. They stay in line with their Strongbow.

Chuck (From Pour Habit in the background): Strongbow!!!!

Steve: Strongbow! They just hang out.

Tony: You like Strongbow?

Steve: Yeah, we like Strongbow.

Tony: I like it too. Did you buy it in the two litre bottles?

Steve: I saw that, yeah. I couldn’t believe it. But yeah, the kids, they’re just gnarly. They have fun, they show up early, they party.

Tony: All over Europe they just like music a little bit more I think.

Bobby: And they go to see all of the bands, not just the headliners.

Steve: All bands, they support everyone.

Bobby: Which makes the show more fun for people watching and for the band too.

Steve: We need to take a lesson from Europe, fans do. You can quote me on that.

Bobby: I will. You said early that the music industry has changed a lot since you started and it is a lot harder to be in a starting band. Fat Mike was saying that now they’re not going to spend as much money on marketing. They’re not going to spend 5000 dollars to get these big chain stores to promote their CDs in the front displays anymore.

Tony: Not if its NOFX. They still spend the money then. *laughs* They do. In Target.

Steve: Yeah, I saw that around the corner from my house. I saw it.

Bobby: So if it’s his band, he’s going to.

Tony: But it’s his label, so whatever.

Bobby: Have you noticed that there’s been many changes in the way Fat operates in the past four or five years since the industry has felt the disturbing effects of the internet?

Tony: Yeah, they cut their staff by like sixty percent. They closed their office in Europe, they closed their office in Canada. You know what I mean? That was huge. They’ll still hire a publicist. Like they’ll hire the old publicist. Melanie Kaye, who you probably set up this interview with right?

Bobby: Yeah.

Tony: Yeah, she worked with Fat before but now she works independently. So things have changed a little bit; but it’s just like everything in the world economy is effected the same way. Everybody’s getting laid off. You feel it in the music industry as well, you really do.

Bobby: Fat Mike also recently said that one thing interesting about the music industry right now is that the listening habits have changed. They don’t necessarily have the patience to listen to a full album, they just download the hit single, a song or two. Have you found that? Do you think people are missing the idea of a complete album and why do you think that is?

Steve: I’m new to the game so I don’t really know.

Tony: We don’t have singles on our records first of all. We’d do a video for a song that we like but it’s not necessarily a single because it’s not being played on radio. We never even tried to add it to radio. But I think that yeah, you can see which songs people like more than others through iTunes or whatever. People aren’t really buying full records. You can’t really make a record with a concept of every song belongs to each other. Basically it’s gone back to where people used to buy seven inches. It’s gone back to that a little bit where the idea of an album concept is kind of gone.

Bobby: Why do you think that is?

Tony: Because you can download songs, single songs. If you can get a sample of each song you can go “oh, I don’t really like that” even though you just heard a little bit of the chorus and a little bit of the verse. You go “I don’t like that one” so you just buy the one that you like.

Steve: It’s all about iPods too. People just upload their favourite song to their iPods and fuck around with it.

Tony: It’s weird too. You always used to have to buy records. There was no way around it, you’d have to buy the whole CD. The songs that you didn’t like when you first bought the CD sometimes end up being your favourite song later on. You grow to like them. I think people miss out on that. They’ll just download a couple songs and just move on from that. They ask “hey, do you like Pour Habit?” “I like a couple of their songs.” That’s kind of what sucks about it. Things grow on you and I think that’s what people are missing because their attention spans are so short.

Bobby: You can miss that hidden gem in there. It may not stand out right away but after a while it’s like “wow, that chorus is great. That guitar line.”

Tony: It just grows on you.

Bobby: That’s an interesting thought, I never thought of it that way. You’re missing that chance to let it grow you. You have to give it more than just the thirty second clip that iTunes provides that may not even have the best part of the song on it.

Tony: Yeah, it’s like onto the next thing. Bands spend a lot of time making records.

Steve: Oh yeah.

Tony: Writing, rehearsing, recording. All this stuff that costs money and you do all that and then at the end of the day, people go “yeah, I like a couple of their songs.” Or “yeah, it’s okay.”

Steve: Or “it completely sucks.”

Tony: That’s all you get after doing all that shit. Some people love it, some people…

Bobby: I know in January, you announced that you finished some solo material. When do you think that’s going to come out?

Tony: I’m recording in August. That will take about a week. So probably January since it won’t come out in December.

Bobby: Of course with Suiticide, that’s a re-release of your self-released album. In your bio you mention that you’ve already written enough songs for another album. Do you have any plans to go into the studio and record them?

Steve: Yeah, we go in and July 22nd until like August 11th to record the second album but it won’t be released until next year.

Tony: Are you guys going to Motor?

Steve: Nah. We were, but we’re going to our boy TJ who did our first album. More comfortable you know?

Bobby: Are you excited to get back into the studio and record some new songs?

Steve: For sure, for sure. After this tour we go into lockout and hibernate for about a month and then we head off to record for two and a half weeks.

Bobby: Despite it actually snowing here two days ago on Tuesday, summer is supposed to be right around the corner. Do you have any plans for the summer yet?

Steve: I’m turning thirty so I’m going to Miami.

Tony: We get back from Europe – we’re doing some Europe festivals, Germany and what not and Belgium. We get back on July 5th and we’re taking July and August off. Start back up in late September with a Pacific Rim tour and a Japan tour.

Bobby: That would be fun. Japan would be a very interesting place to play or even go to a concert to.

Tony: It’s very weird. It’s never less weird every time I go.

Steve: Oh sorry. My answer was just personal. That’s all I was thinking about for the summer. *laughs* Apparently that’s all I have in my head. *laughs* I think we’ve got nine days of Warped. End of Warped right Chuck? *Asks Chuck who’s in the background* The bottom dates, Seattle to whatever.

Chuck *in the background*: You don’t know what you’re talking about!

Steve: I have no idea what I’m talking about. I know we have the last ten dates of Warped though.

Bobby: So maybe you’ll be back in Calgary then. That’s on August 12th which is pretty near to the end of it.

Tony: It’s usually one of the biggest Warped shows, Calgary is.

Bobby: Yesterday, your touring partner in Only Crime Aaron Dalbec was just nominated for Peta’s Sexiest Vegetarian of 2009. Do you think he’s worthy of the award?

Steve: Oh. *laughs* I didn’t know that.

Tony: What magazine is this?

Bobby: Peta 2.

Tony: Is he embarrassed about this because I haven’t heard anything about it. We were on tour with them in Europe too and he didn’t say one word about it.

Bobby: I just saw the announcement yesterday that he was nominated for it.

Steve: Sexiest vegetarian guitarist?

Bobby: Just sexiest vegetarian musician of 2009.

Steve: Oh wow.

Tony: Peta Magazine?

Bobby: Yeah.

Steve: I don’t even know what to say about that. *laughs*

Tony: Shouldn’t they have animals instead of humans? Be rating the sexiest animals of 2009.

Steve: Shouldn’t you be asking a girl that question? There’s a girl right behind you though.

*I turn around and Chuck is standing right behind me*

Chuck: I’m a ninja.

Bobby: I guess that’s about it, thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to add?

Steve: This tour rules. Thank you No Use For A Name. Tony rules.

Bobby: Awesome. I’m looking forward to the show tonight, it should be fun.

Tony: Yeah. It’s good to be back in Canada.

Steve: It’s cold! Is this summertime right now?

Bobby: Like I said, it snowed two days ago.

Steve: That’s ridiculous man.

Tony: I heard it was warm in the East. Is that true? The furthest East we go?

Bobby: It’s probably a bit warmer out East compared to out West.

Tony: That’s good. The California guys are fucking dying out here.

Steve: Yep. I’m black, I can’t deal with all this cold. Cold weather, we weren’t made for it. You ever see black people in cold? We just do not do good in cold. I’m having some struggles.