Hostage Life

Before hitting the stage opening for Only Crime, Hostage Life took twenty minutes to sit (well stand) and talk to me and answers some question. The main stays of the interview are Paul and Colin with the other three members coming and going throughout the interview. They were extremely nice guys, which made for a very comfortable and informative interview. I learnt more and became a bigger fan and hope the best for these guys. If you don’t know them yet, I highly suggest you remedy that ASAP. Most of the pictures were stolen from the band’s MySpace.

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Bobby: Starting with the basics, you guys have been on this tour with Only Crime and Bionic for a few days now, how’s that going so far?

Shamus: Good.

Colin: It’s kind of weird because they’re like nineteen plus shows and we were expecting them to be all ages for the most part. So I think the draws are being hurt a bit. I mean, this one’s all ages but Vancouver was a licensed show and we were playing at 7:45 on a Friday night. What nineteen year old crowd comes out at 7:45 on a Friday night?

Paul: A good show was Whistler, which was really unexpected. We’ve never been there before and the town looks like… Like the downtown, it’s not what we’re used to when we say downtown. It’s kind of like Disneyland – it’s very touristy. Anyway, there was like Punk Night there and we didn’t know what that meant but yeah, there were a ton of people there. I’m not sure exactly how many people actually knew the bands or the music but there was a lot of people so it was good.

Bobby: Is it intimidating opening for Only Crime? Bill Stevenson, Russ Rankin, they know what they’re doing. They’ve been around forever.

Shamus: Yeah, they pretty much just keep to themselves.

Colin: We’ve never really hung out or talk to them very much, so it’s not really that much intimidation. It’s intimidating musicianship wise for sure, Russ Rankin’s an incredible singer. Bill Stevenson’s a great drummer.

Paul: Bill Stevenson was in Black Flag. Yeah, I don’t know if he’s seen any of our sets or whatever, but in the back of my mind it’s like “oh shit, this guy’s skilled.” It’s pretty amazing. So yeah, yeah, I guess it is sometimes; but when we’re playing we forget about all that shit.

Bobby: I know last time you guys crossed Canada you had three flat tires, two empty gas tanks, and one busted compressor; I know that before this tour your air condition was shot – were you able to fix it before?

All three: No.

Paul: It has been hot as hell.

Shamus: It’s horrible.

Paul: Sweltering hell is how I describe driving through the cities. Usually we just leave these windows open *pointing at the side windows on the van* when we’re driving through the highway so it’s like blaring white noise in your ear the entire time; but it’s better than sweating through all your clothes.

Bobby: Yeah, especially on days like today.

Paul: Yeah, but we haven’t had, like the track record from last time has been improved this time. We didn’t run out of gas, although we had two close calls – which is fucking unbelievable. Just fill up the God damn gas tank, it’s not really rocket science, but yet we continue to push the boundaries. The biggest problem that we had was that our bumper was being pulled out by our old trailer hitch and the trailer hitch and the trailer were both facing downwards so every time we drove an incline there was this horrible screeching noise from hell. Yeah, hell is a word often used to describe the band. But we got that fixed and it cost us like three hundred and fifty nine bucks and we got a speeding ticket on the way to wherever we were and that was another two hundred dollars. We’re going home in the hole but we haven’t gotten stuck anywhere where there’s dangerous wildlife around – that’s been good.

Bobby: I read last time you guys broke down you were playing Frisbee across the highway. What’s the worst time the van has ever broken down on you?

Shamus: That one.

Paul: Because we thought we were going to get saved because some guy came around and was like “hey, do you guys need help” and “um yeah!” because we had no cell phone reception there. So he was going to drive to the next town, get help and come back and we were playing Frisbee across the highway because we were like “hooray! This guy is Jesus!” So anyway, after that not working out, after a couple hours we realized we were fucked; and then there was the grizzly bear sighting a few minutes before that. It was a little tense, but none of us got eaten so it worked out.

Bobby: Throughout your career you guys have played a variety of shows. Some with legends like D.O.A., some at frat parties and keggers and once even at a Toronto Argonauts game.

Paul: Oh no, we didn’t play that.

Shamus: We were supposed to but it didn’t work out.

Bobby: Why not?

Colin: They asked us to do it and we were like “yeah, let’s totally do it. It’ll be really, really funny;” and then somebody within the Argonauts association actually listened to our CD and realized that we weren’t exactly family fare and decided that we would tarnish the family image of the Toronto Argonauts organization and possibly the CFL as a whole.

Shamus: Cause grown men ripping each other’s heads off is a nice family image.

Paul: One thing I remember them saying was that if an Argonauts fan bought a CD for their child they did not want to be responsible for the content contained on the record. There was supposed to be forty thousand people there – it would have been really fucking weird, but we’ll do whatever we think is funny.

Bobby: I read you guys once did a 50th birthday party with a whole bunch of seven year olds, how did the seven year olds react to guys?

Paul: They were having a blast. The adults – one of them took us aside and told us we were too fat to make it. She was like “Steven Tyler, now he’s a sexy guy. That’s why Aerosmith are so popular because he goes to the gym and he knows how to be a sex symbol. You guys, you need to lose a bit of your pudginess.” So yeah, that was a new criticism that we’ve never had before; at least to our faces.

Bobby: You guys also opened for Lifetime in their only Canadian tour date. How was that?

Colin: That was cool man. I’d never seen them before. I’ve liked them for a very long time; I got into them after they broke up. We’ve played before with Paint It Black and Kid Dynamite before so it’s “hey, it’s Dr. Dan again.” Lifetime, it was cool.

Bobby: Were you happy that Lifetime reunited after their break?

Colin: Yeah, because the record’s pretty good. If it had have sucked it would have been like “awww… that’s unfortunate.” But it’s a pretty good album, the first song’s amazing.

Bobby: Monday Morning Airport?

Colin: Yeah, something like that.

Bobby: Let’s talk a bit about Walking Papers, I read online that the first pressing had the liner notes improperly inserted leaving the cover art on another page. Is that true?

Colin: Honest to God truth.

Paul: This was after like three or four delays of the album supposed to be coming out and after a while we were just like “it’s in the hands of Satan; we’re never going to see it again.” I’ve been invoking Satan and hell a lot in this conversation.

Shamus: It’s all the God delusion.

Paul: Yeah, it’s all the God delusion. But anyway, what eventually happened after all those delays is that some idiot at the manufacturing turned the liner notes backwards so it said “Burn These Sheets” – which is the lyrics from one of our songs – that was now the front cover and that was utterly confusing.

Colin: Yeah, my step brother told me he bought the CD in our hometown in Ontario. “Oh yeah, I bought your new record ‘Burn These Sheets’” I was like “what?”

Paul: It’s not even a cool mistake, it’s not like it’s some limited edition – they just put it in backwards.

Bobby: Why did you give every song two names and only put one name on the back cover?

Colin: Well, the alternate titles happened because I think it’s really funny and we only put one on the back because of space. *laughs* Because some of them gets a little long.

Bobby: The record was supposed to be called “All day, Everyday” right?

Colin: Man, you did your fucking homework dude. You know fucking everything.

Paul: That was a stupid idea that we thought was funny.

Colin: We had t-shirts that said “Hostage Life: All Day, Everyday” and that become a short catchphrase for us that we fit between every song; and then we were like “yeah, we’ll call it that” because it fit in with the actual meaning of the band name. But it was a poor idea. Then actually, the guy who did the artwork for Walking Papers actually named it. He was like “you should call it ‘Walking Papers’” and we were like “shit dude, that’s a great idea. It sounds perfect.”

Paul: In all the panels that have segments of lyrics, that was the only one that he came up with, for some reason, I don’t know, that wasn’t actually referencing a song. So I don’t know where he got it from or why. We were also fooling around with another titled called “Pink Slip” or something but we just didn’t like that either. It sounded dumb.

Colin: Oh, and “God Hates Hostage Life” was floating around for a while.

Paul: “Walking Papers” was just a more concise and nice sounding title.

Bobby: In an interview you did back in April you (Paul) said you were “struggling in vain to put the album out on vinyl.” Any updates on that?

Shamus: Still a struggle.

Paul: We have the test pressings done and that’s pretty much as far as it’s gotten. It’s tough right now. It’s gone out of the realm of vanity into otherworldliness of improbability.

Colin: It’s pretty much our own thing. None of the labels we’re associated with want to deal with vinyl and none of them want to sink their money into it. So it’s gotta be our own money and we’re thousands of dollars in debt so it’s a slow process.

Paul: If anyone wants to put that out, this is a public call.

Colin: Got any money man?

Bobby: Unfortunately, no.

Paul: *laughs* Yeah, yeah! You put it out!

Colin: Please.

Shamus: We’re at the point where we’re soliciting people to put out the record.

Paul: Everyone we talk to, we ask.

Bobby: With CDs slowly going down in popularity, do you think vinyl will always have that niche market?

Paul: Absolutely. Actually, I run a place called Samo Media and we press vinyl and CDs; and more and more people are coming to us for vinyl. I’m seeing it over the years, and vinyl – first of all, in the face of downloading and all of that, it really provides an alternative where it’s like tactile and special. You can do cool things with it like color and picture and splatter. Apart from that, something that I’ve always noticed is that in certain cultures – like musical cultures – it’s always been a big part of the growth of the music; like punk rock and rap and indie rock especially. So I think instead of it being just like commodity or a new form of buying music, it’s just something that’s sort of entrenched in the way the music as always been around. So yeah, I think for those reasons it will always be strong.

Shamus: I gotta go to the bathroom, that alright?

Patrick: *Who had just wandered back to the van a few minutes prior and was sitting near by* I can take over! This is Patrick, I play guitar in Hostage Life.

Bobby: *shakes hand* Hi, I’m Bobby.

Paul: He’s gonna put out our record on vinyl.

Patrick: Yeah? Nice. *looks at my Briggs tshirt* Nice shirt.

Bobby: Thanks. Okay, what makes Hostage Life want to always refer to themselves in the third person?

Colin: Again, I find that funny. The alternate titles and the third person references I find amusing. It almost implies that the band has a personality onto itself rather than a group of personalities. It’s like Hostage Life is this.

Patrick: We’re not even individual people once we get together as a group.

Bobby: Walking Papers was released in May 2006, I read that you guys had already started work on new material. Have you?

Colin: Yeah yeah, we started doing demos before we went on tour in May. Actually, we were doing demos in April. We were doing them with Jesse Colburn, he’s from Closet Monster; and unfortunately after doing guitars and bass and drums for a few tracks, his hard drive crashed. We just recently found out that the tracks that we did had been saved, but it was brought to a screeching halt for a while.

Paul: Also, at the risk of repeating past failures and announcing them publicly, we are really trying to work on releasing a seven inch in between albums; and yeah, I hope it happens.

Patrick: We plan on doing that before the actual record comes out. We’re going to demo a few songs, some of the demos that we worked on we’re gonna put them out on a seven inch and they might not even come out on the record. We’re not sure yet; but we do want to put out a seven inch before the next record, hopefully we can do that within the next three or four months.

Colin: We like to deal with the hypothetical as opposed to the concrete. We talk about shit, but never do it.

Bobby: I read that the topics for the next record will be religious history and evolution – is that true?

Colin: For some of the songs, yeah, there’s definitely a strong atheist overtone to a lot of the songs.

Paul: In the back of the van right now, two out of the three of us today are ready the same book by a guy called Christopher Hitchens and it seems like we, I especially, have been influenced by that and also a book that Colin and I also read, which I strongly recommend, called the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Some of those thoughts are making their way into the lyrics from what I can tell.

Colin: Oh yeah, for sure.

Bobby: I love going to concerts, I try to go to as many as I can, but of course some concerts are always a bit more memorable than others. Thinking back, what are some concerts that you went to or played at that were really memorable for you?

Colin: Stiff Little Fingers last June in Toronto. We opened for Stiff Little Fingers in a small little pub called the Horseshoe Tavern, well, the legendary Horseshoe Tavern, in Toronto and it was fucking amazing. It was like “hey, that’s Stiff Little Fingers playing up there” and we were the only band opening for them actually. The Tossers were supposed to play but they had a family emergency, two of them are brothers and they couldn’t make it. So there we were, in direct support for one of my favorite bands of all time, it was fucking amazing.

Paul: And in terms of shows that I’ve been to that have been really memorable, I think Patrick will probably agree, a show that we went to recently that really left its mark on me was Jay Reatard…

Patrick: That was a lot of fun!

Paul: … in Toronto which was incredible because he was playing a show with the Ponies and Dear Hunter and I didn’t want to go because it was seventeen bucks and I’ve seen those bands play. But it was one of those things where some friends convinced Jay – have you heard the Jay Reatard record “Blood Visions?”

Bobby: Nope.

Patrick: It’s really good.

Paul: They convinced him to play at this local skate park and it happened like an hour and a half later and it was just a big party. It was so random, and it just felt like that’s what shows are meant to be like.

Patrick: It’s also funny because our friend Kyle Boison was trying to get a hold of us to get his hands on our PA from our space because he thought it was ours – but it turned out it was the band Anagram’s who we share a space with – they’re like an indie rock band. But they couldn’t get a hold of them. Black Lips, who put on the show, I think helped out and it’s also cool because lately there haven’t been that many bands coming to town and stuff like that that I get really excited about anymore. I mean, a lot of my favorite bands don’t really tour anymore; except for bands like Rancid and we got to play with them in December – that was pretty memorable. But now, bands like Jay Reatard and Black Lips, they’re like the new wave of bands with that old seventies, early eighties sound that are coming back. So I’m sure that there’s going to be a lot of shows coming up that I’ll be going to that will be really memorable for me. So I’m excited about that, to be getting to go to shows again not to play, just to go see bands that I’m excited about.

Bobby: Now onto a bit more unusual questions that I just like to end most interviews with…

Paul: Our merch girl jumped through camp fires, naked, with gay, retarded children. That’s a true story. I don’t know if that was one of your questions…

Bobby: It was actually!

Merch Girl: *laughing* I stole their lighter. *everyone laughs*

Paul: It’s a cowboy boot lighter.

Bobby: Okay, when you guys were growing up, whose poster did you have on your wall?

Colin: When I was fifteen, I shoplifted a Club International from the Max Milk by my house and somehow convinced my dad that I could put up a centerfold picture of Maria Whittaker who was an infamous page 2 girl from Britain at the time with large memory glands. So that was on my wall. When I was younger *starts laughing* I had a picture of Hulk Hogan on my wall. *everyone laughs* He was in like a garden.

Paul: A garden?

Colin: And he was wearing a really, really skimpy, not even wrestling trunks – just like a bikini bottom….

Paul: What does that even mean?

Colin: … with no boots going like this *poses as if he was Hulk Hogan* and my brother ripped me to no ends. He was like “hey, you like that big, huge, half naked man on your wall?” So maybe, the Maria Whittaker was the compensation for that.

Patrick: We can’t top that.

Paul: We’ll just leave it at that. I had those two posters as well…

Bobby: If you guys were members of the opposite sex for a day, week, month, however long you wanted, what would you do and why?

Colin: I would try desperately to stop menstruating.

Paul: *laughs* Yeah, try to avoid my period. Probably have a hysterectomy. Patrick?

Patrick: umm… masturbate?

Paul: Yeah, someone had to say that. *seeing Hai walking by* Hey, Hai Vu, what would you do if you were a girl for a day?

Hai: I don’t know, play with myself?

*everyone laughs* Paul: Look at himself in the mirror.

Bobby: If you guys, as a band, were stranded on a desert island with no food and nothing to eat, which one of the band members would you eat to survive?

Hai: Oh great, I’m out of here.

Colin/Paul/Patrick: Hai!

Patrick: We’ve discussed this before.

Paul: We’ve made so many jokes about this, how much we love Asian cuisine.

Colin: He’s also really lean; he’d probably be pretty good, might be a little stringy.

Hai: But if we’re gonna put in the effort to eat one of us, we should eat the biggest one. no?

Patrick: Nah man, I’d be all fat. It’s no good. One thing is if anyone chooses to start being a cannibal, to adopt cannibalism, the most tasty part of the human body *grabs Hai’s hand* is right here *pointing at the lower part of Hai’s palm* where your thumb connects to your hand. It’s the most tender part and you can eat it like a drumstick *takes a fake bite out of Hai’s hand*.

Bobby: And how do you know that?

Patrick: I read it in a book.

Colin: He was a junior cadet.

Patrick: No, that’s where I learnt you can eat your own combat boots if you had to.

Paul: Yeah, you could. Maybe that’s what happened to Hulk Hogan.

Hai: But if you eat me, you’d be hungry in an hour.

Patrick: Yeah, exactly, Chinese food does that to you. You’re hungry in like an hour.

Bobby: Okay, one last question: why wouldn’t you ever trust a pregnant virgin?

Colin: Why wouldn’t you? Because they’re lying, *everyone laughs* they are. “I’ve never had sex, I’m just pregnant.” It would be a lie.

Paul: A lot of people buy into that lie.

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

Paul: We’re missing our friend’s band called On The Brink, but I do not regret it, we had a fine time – but we recommend them.

Hai: Can we start the interview over again? Because I just got here. *laughs*