Protest The Hero

After more than a three hour delay thanks to horrible weather that decided to attack Protest The Hero‘s bus and not let it start up, I finally had the chance to sit and talk to the charismatic front man, Rody Walker. We talked about their mass promotional push for their brand new album, Fortress, the album itself, the fall of the record label and The Sillies‘ hit single, We’re Too Excited To Sleep. Thanks a lot to Rody for doing it and to Megan for setting it up.

---

Bobby: Okay, starting with the basics, you guys are just starting this Western Canadian tour with Silverstein, IllScarlett and The Devil Wears Prada, are you excited to see how it turns out?

Rody: Yeah. You know, I’ve been more excited about tours in the past but we released the album yesterday. So I’m pretty excited to see how that goes in respect to the tour.

Bobby: This is a pretty eclectic merger of bands, going from Silverstein to IllScarlett to you guys. Who came up with this combination and do you think it’s good to mix up the genres every once in a while?

Rody: I’m not sure who came up with it, I’m pretty sure it was the Silverstein guys. It’s good to some degree. Personally, if I was going to make an eclectic group of music I’d make it extremely eclectic. I wouldn’t hide within the same sort of genre. It’s a very difficult situation, if I was going to make it truly eclectic I’d put on a hip-hop band on, I’d put a folk band, I’d put a lot of different shit on there. I’d put whiny aggressive bands like ourselves.

Bobby: This is, of course, more than just a regular tour. Like you were just saying, Fortress was released yesterday. With the release you guys are doing a lot of promotion. Tons of interviews, after parties after each show, you guys are even doing Guitar Hero parties and you’re teaching people how to play guitar and drums with drum clinics in certain towns. Who came up with all these different promotional ideas and are you excited to see how they all come through?

Rody: Yeah, it was definitely a combination of people. We’ve had our input, then a good friend of ours works for Jeggermeister so he threw in the Jaggermeister card and all their support with it. Obviously Rob Dire, we’re friends with him and we had his support. He’s friends with Silverstein so he got them included. I don’t know who came up with the idea for the guitar clinics or the drum clinics. To tell you the truth, the guys aren’t really overly excited about doing it. They’re just worried they’re gonna look like idiots the whole time because they’ve never taught anything in their lives. But I am, to some degree, excited to see how it comes together. We had our first after party the other day. I got drunk as shit.

Bobby: Do you think this is going to make it a bit more memorable tour? Doing all these extra features instead of just playing the show every night, you’re actually going out meeting all your fans afterwards and teaching them – or attempting to teach them – how to play guitar.

Rody: I think, actually, it will be less memorable because the amount of booze has greatly increased with these after parties. So as opposed to just getting pretty drunk every night, we’re just getting kind of fucked up every night. Not that it shouldn’t be memorable, I just think we will be lacking memories from it.

Bobby: With the release you also had the site enterthefortress.com which had you reacting to everybody’s different inputs and orders. Was that fun? Being able to film you just messing around, banging on drums and stuff?

Rody: Yeah, that was a lot of fun actually. I just went into the Universal office. We had a budget in order to buy a certain amount of costumes. I love theatrical nonsense like that, so it’s kind of fun just spending the day in Universal and causing shit. Like we ran through and had this huge sword fight without telling anyone. The President was going crazy. It was fun.

Bobby: How hard was it to come up with all the different possible orders you did?

Rody: That was actually really difficult. It was weird. They left me responsible for doing that. I got a call one night when I was just at home. I just got back from the bar, I was fucking wasted, and our manager’s like “I need you to write out a list of 500 things that can happen in that situation.” I just woke up in the morning and it was kind of done and I just sent it away. I got there and they just made me do all the shit. It was really weird. Still, at the end of it, we did 500 options and it’s not enough. There’s so much stuff that people are just like “why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?” I think the subservient chicken, we did that really well.

Bobby: Last Thursday, you guys did a listening party in Toronto where you also did a guitar hero contest between the band and the fans. Who won? The band or the fans?

Rody: I don’t know man; I was in the back drinking the whole time.

Bobby: I was also reading an interview with you this morning where you said that Luke was actually really bad at doing Buried The Hatchet on Guitar Hero II. Has he ever got the hang of it yet?

Rody: Actually, by now he has. I don’t know if he’s gotten a hang of that song but we received these Xboxes at some point and Guitar Hero III for playing some video game convention so we’ve actually become quite proficient at it. As much as I hate the game myself, it’s just addictive.

Bobby: Tomorrow you are doing an acoustic set at The Nest at Nait and you’re supposed to be doing acoustic sets at a lot of these after parties. For some reason, I can’t imagine a lot of the Protest songs being stripped down acoustically. How hard was it to strip it down to acoustics?

Rody: Well, the funny thing about that is it’s not. It’s not the songs. *Grabs a beer*. You want a beer?

Bobby: No thanks, I’m good.

Rody: It’s all these weird little ditties that I’ve just written. Just a bunch of stupid songs about smoking cigarettes and getting drunk, and doing terrible things to people. Basically, what I do is just get really drunk and then go on stage with an acoustic guitar and talk for like forty-five minutes and play a couple songs. It’s really quite an event with its illegitimacy.

Bobby: Let’s talk a bit about the album that you’re so heavily promoting that came out yesterday. Starting with the easy question first, Fortress, what’s with the name? Where did you get it?

Rody: For me, it’s more just the idea of building walls around yourself. Being so emotional and keeping everyone out of this impenetrable fortress that is the self. That’s sort of what the name means to me.

Bobby: What was it like working with Julius “Juice” Butty again?

Rody: Great. Love the guy to death. He’s very much like father figure to us. We love his family and also he’s a very excellent singer. So for myself it helps a lot because he knows everything about harmonies, he knows everything about melodies, any trouble that I had laying things down he helped me re-work it, he helped figure out the harmony for it. Plus, he’s a friend of ours; we’ve known him for a couple of years now. So it makes the process a lot easier having an engineer that you’re comfortable with and you can say whatever the fuck you want around him.

Bobby: How did you first start working with him? What made you pick working with him when you were recording Kezia?

Rody: Well, we had a couple of different producers in mind and I don’t know, it just… Personally, it was the financially best choice. He was willing to offer a good deal, at that time we didn’t have any money whatsoever. He did it for what our labels would provide for us. Secondly, we heard the work he did with Alexisonfire and though we’re not exactly musically the same as Alexisonfire, the tones of that record that he got just from his own studio on the farm in Stony Creek are astounding. We were all very impressed with it.

Bobby: This album includes two, three song movements called “On Conquest and Capture” and “Isosceles.” What made you decide to separate it into the three song movements kind of like you did with Kezia and the three parts there?

Rody: It’s just about pushing the artistic movements. A lot of records come out and it’s just completely in cohesive and the songs are irrelevant to the next. We wanted to just make a point of saying “this is an album. This isn’t just a handful of songs thrown at you. These songs are categorized, they’re stuck together and this album can be listened to as song for song or listened to in it’s entirety and still be one cohesive package.”

Bobby: One thing I noticed even before I heard the CD was that the artwork was phenomenal. The cover is so vivid. You have the woman’s face with the hat and horns sticking out. You have the hair flowing through and in the hair there are all these hidden animals like snakes, mountain goats, even a skull and an eye. What’s the story behind that? Who came up with it and what the all the hidden symbols mean?

Rody: Well, the guy who did that – his name is Portland and he works for Ferret. We got in contact with him… With the artwork in our previous works, we’ve been really disappointed with it and it’s definitely a flawed point in something that we’ve done. So with this we put a specific effort into make it aesthetically very pleasing. The girl on the cover represents Flidais, who in Irish mythology is the Goddess of the Forest. So that’s why there are all those creatures around her. And also, we have some sick fascination with animals. I don’t know exactly what it is. Like in the thank yous, there’s a section of about fifteen names that are strictly house pets. They’re the only people I actually really wanted to thank on the record. That’s sort of how it all came together.

Bobby: Like you just said the woman on the cover is a Goddess from Irish mythology. You’ve also said before that the album is about Goddess worship, repressed femininity, Irish mythology and the erosion of faith in the scientific process. What leads you towards this more intellectual type of lyrics instead of just the generic love songs?

Rody: Well, I think it’s because it is generic. I think it’s generic because it’s being over done. When something’s been done, there’s no point in regurgitating the same kind of nonsense that’s coming out. So when we sit down to write an album we want something that is just a brutal as that generic stuff, some of that can be very violent and very aggressive. We want something that portrays that in a more intelligent light that’s not necessarily just talking about ripping people to shreds for the shake of being gratuitously violent. We’re talking about historical events that were brutal and sadistic and still hold a relevance situation in today and obviously in the future it will also still be relevant. That’s sort of where that comes from.

Bobby: It’s quite drastic change from your politically driven EP, The Calculated Use of Sound. Why do you think you’ve had such a drastic progression from the politically charged music to the more mythology based, history based lyrics?

Rody: What’s that phrase that they constantly say? When you’re sixteen you’ll be communist, when you’re twenty you’ll be liberal and when you’re forty you’ll be conservative. It kind of rings true with us. Politically speaking, we’re still very left wing. First of all, we got to the point where we were preaching to the choir. The kids that were coming to the shows were kids that were just left wing activists and they knew everything we were going to say to them. Secondly, to progress beyond that point you have to constantly keep up with current events, you have to constantly keep up with global politics; and that’s not something that we’re capable of doing at this point. Living in a bus or living in a van, we can’t be watching the news every night. We can’t be doing that stuff. So in order to still be producing a political message would really be flawed for us because it would be a very uninformed message and it’s not right to promote a message that you don’t know what the fuck is going on. Right?

Bobby: Yeah, very true. The album was originally supposed to be released on November 13th but got pushed back because while you were flying over to London, your plane got attacked by Amazon warriors and in the battle that ensued, Cam, your light guy, ended up being fatally wounded. Which, of course, no album can be released without a light guy. That was the reason you guys gave out, what was the real reason for the delay?

Rody: I just fabricated some bull shit. Because at least it’s more interesting to read as opposed to me just saying “well, you know, it took a little longer to mix and we couldn’t get the advance money in time, blah, blah, blah, blah.” The actual reasons are just not fun and I don’t know why anyone would want to hear them. Truth be told, we just wanted to freeze our ass off in Edmonton so we held it for a little longer.

Bobby: Otherwise you would have been touring in December and it’s like minus fifteen in December, that’s warm.

Rody: Yeah, that’s fucking t-shirt weather dude. Who wants to be touring in t-shirt weather?

Bobby: Completely overrated.

Rody: I don’t know why people are fucking touring Florida for it. That’s bull shit.

Bobby: With the album already done and recorded, how annoying was it being delayed like that? Especially since you’re last CD was released in 2005.

Rody: It was really annoying. *Someone enters the bus* that’s Cam there by the way, who died fatally in the crashed.

Cam: What’d I do? Oh yeah, the crash.

Rody: But it was kind of daunting because records leak so early now. So the earlier you record it and the longer you hold onto them, the earlier they’re going to leak. Then the longer they’re going to be out there and then your record sales are going to fucking drop. It’s kind of a scary thing to do, to know we have this record complete and a lot of smarmy little industry fucks are getting our record and that’s what leaks. Industry douche bags who are just like internet pirates that are very proficient. But it was kind of a very daunting task and it was a little scary for a while. But it leaked seven days before we released it, so eight days ago now, and we’re pretty proud of that. Somehow we kept that ship so tight that it didn’t fucking leak for that long.

Bobby: Were you happy that this time it was released both in Canada and in the US on the same day where as Kezia was released almost a full year apart? Were you happy to be able to release it in both countries on the same day this time?

Rody: That’s such a relieving feeling. We’ve released it pretty much international. I think it comes out in the UK within a week from now; it came out in Japan last week. Kezia, was so bad. We had to go to the US and they wanted us to tour two years on that shit when we’ve already toured on it for a year in Canada. So it was just like “you want us to tour three years straight on this same fucking material?” Obviously, we had a little complication at the border which prevented us from doing so and gave us the opportunity to record the new record.

Bobby: On Friday, you guys had the entire album up for streaming on MySpace, what made you guys decide to give MySpace the entire album stream?

Rody: I think it was mainly due to the leak. It leaked, kids were downloading it, kids were leaving messages on MySpace just being like “oh, the new record’s awesome! Blah blah blah blah!” It was kind of a slap in the face to us, so we’re just like “we’re just going to fucking put it up.” If you like it, buy it, if you don’t whatever. It was just sort of a bit of a lash back at the kids who downloaded it and have no intention of every purchasing it.

Bobby: At the same time, all albums leak now before they’re released and everyone always blames leaking for the decline in CD sales. And yet, so many bands and labels still give the full album so stream to sites like MySpace, AOL, Spinner. Even I just recently added album streaming on my website. Why do you think so many bands are doing it? Is it like you said, make it so that you’re actually giving it to them?

Rody: Well, personally, I think the internet is just an unstoppable force. It’s going to keep growing and it’s going to keep growing and it’s going to destroy the record label; and I think that’s an amazing thing. For bands like us or bands like the Dillinger Escape Plan, bands that have built themselves based entirely on artistic integrity. It’s going to do away with all the Avril Lavignes out there, all the bull shit college radio rock. They’re making money some how off of record sales. We don’t make money from record sales. I’ve never seen a cent from record sales. We make money from playing shows; kids coming to the shows and buying t-shirts off us or kids paying money at the door to come see us. I think it would be kind of an interesting situation if nobody made money off of record sales; just strictly made money off of live shows. It would be strictly based on integrity and music for the sake of music. None of these fucking labels shoving all this Nickelback shit down thirteen year old throats.

Bobby: It will be more the active music listeners who are willing to go out and buy it instead of just the spur of the moment listeners who “I heard a single on the radio and want to get it.” It’ll be the active listeners that will be supporting the music.

Rody: Granted, it might be a bad thing because I think a lot of people will stop listening to music because a lot of people in that mainstream commercial rock area will be forced to stop making music because there won’t be any money in it and that’s the only reason they exist.

Bobby: Of course, going back to the album Fortress, that wasn’t the only release you guys had this month. You also released an iTunes EP called the Sequia Throne EP with that song and two instrumentals – Sequia Throne and Bloodmeat. What made you decide to release the itunes EP?

Rody: I just found out about it a couple of days ago to tell you the truth. I think it’s just to generate interest, a general promotional tactic that Universal uses or something like that.

Bobby: Lately a lot of bands from the suburbs of Toronto have been getting pretty big, especially across Canada. There’s you guys from Whitby, Alexisonfire from Saint Catherines, Billy Talent and IllScarlett from Mississauga, Sum41 from Ajax, Attack In Black from Welland. Why do you think all these bands are coming out from the suburbs of Toronto and making a name for themselves across Canada and even North America.

Rody: I think it’s because Toronto is the industry hot spot. As shitty as it is, this industry functions on who you know and how much they like you. With the majority of major labels and booking agencies and things like that, it’s just within Toronto and having their headquarters in Toronto. It’s a very important place for being a slime ball in the industry. Personally, I hate it. I hate all the industry nonsense but my opinion on it is these are people that don’t give a shit about you and are going to exploit the fuck out of you so why not try and absolutely exploit them for what they’re worth and get what you want out of them too? We do our best to be little bitches at all times. We basically annoy and piss off everyone who works for us. Which kind of sucks because these people are working hard and they are working for us, but some of them aren’t working for us, they’re working for themselves. And you can pick them out, it’s very easy.

Bobby: Who’s there because they love the music? Who’s there because they love the money?

Rody: Exactly.

Bobby: I was reading on article that was saying that was back in the day you guys were originally called Happy Go Lucky. Is that true?

Rody: Yep, that’s one hundred percent true. Although we like to claim that we were called the Sillies. Because some guy once approached me and asked “were you guys once called the Sillies?” and it struck me as very funny.

Bobby: So now if anybody asks, you were.

Rody: We were the Sillies and our first single was called “We’re Too Excited To Sleep.”

Bobby: Well, for me, Protest The Hero has drastic different connotations to it compared to Happy Go Lucky. Why such a drastic change?

Rody: Well, we met our manager when we were fourteen years old. The name, Happy Go Lucky, we originated that when we were twelve. We were just little juveniles, bald in the underwear kind of pricks and we were just like “Hey! Let’s be Happy Go Lucky, we’ll be like a ska band! It’ll be fun.” We all played trombone at the time which is weird because we all have a rudimentary knowledge of trombone. But it was just a very juvenile thing for a bunch of children to be doing. I think it’s a very natural progression as we got more serious and we stopped playing so many NOFX covers. So we realized that a change of names was absolutely necessarily.

Bobby: I guess just one final easy question, when you were growing up, whose poster did you have on your wall?

Rody: I listened to a lot of Green Day, NOFX, Blink182, Lagwagon, Propaghandi, and then a little later on it became Pantera, Judas Priest, and all the good, classic metal. But personally, I was more partial to grunge punk like GG Allin, Sham 69, the Sex Pistols, Anal Cunt. I don’t know, I was a loser. A big loser and I liked listening to bad punk rock but also I liked listening to pop-punk-rock because they were fun.

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

Rody: I’ve got nothing man, I’m drawing a blank.