Sights and Sounds

Dwayne: First off,  what are your names and what you do with the band?

Andrew: My name is Andrew and I sing and play guitar.

Adrian: My name is Adrian and I play guitar and occasionally sing.

Dwayne: How is the tour going so far?

Andrew: It has had its ups and downs. Essentially it has been ups besides the fact that we got our van and trailer stolen while on stage in Vancouver. They literally must have stolen the van while we were playing and like 15 meters behind us. The only thing separating us was a wall and we went on a wild goose chase trying to figure out if it was towed and then realized there was broken glass on the ground. So about an hour later we realized our van was stolen, so that sucked.

Living with Lions, they are kick ass dudes and got home from tour that night and lent us their van. We found the van and trailer but the vans all fucked up so we just took the trailer and we only had to miss one show after that in Kelowna; but the shows have been great since then and fun for us. This is a tour we have been waiting to happen for a while.

Dwayne: This is a question more for Andrew. You are playing full time in Comeback Kid and Sights and Sounds. Why the decision to add Sights and Sounds to your already full plate?

Andrew: I want to play music and I want to create music that’s just something that is more important to my life then say like relationships and it just makes me feel fulfilled to be creating music. I love doing Comeback Kid and there is just so much more that I want to be playing. I stopped playing guitar in Comeback Kid and started singing. Playing guitar has always been one of my passions and I just wanted to play in a band with my brother and my bros

Dwayne: So the new album “Monolith” on Smallman Records has a kind of ebb and flow of softer songs as well as harder hitting songs. Is this something you did to try and keep the balance of the album constant?

Adrian: We wrote so much material for the record, kind of growing our songs, so everytime we got together we would show everyone what we had been working on. All of us coming from different places and listening to different things it just gave us another kind of sound we wanted to create. So we had the softer more mellower songs as well as the hard hitting songs and the guy that produced our record I think did a really good job of balancing the record as well.

Andrew: We wanted to put out different groups of songs that have different themes and will have a different vibe then the next release. So even though some listeners might frown upon that I think it just allows us to do our thing and kind of go any direction that we wanted. So we wanted to release a record that doesn’t have one sound; so hopefully it will allow us to continue in a different direction and have different releases.

Adrian: The first record was kind of our upchuck of what we had been working on as a band. Some of the songs on there are just demos. From there, people will understand what direction we want to go.

Dwayne: I know the EP was demos and an assortment of other recordings. How did you approach recording the full length that was different from the EP?

Andrew: Well the biggest thing is we actually just had time to spend in the same room together. We were writing here and there but then when we were recording we had six weeks in the studio with our producer Devin. We spent a week there just making the songs as tight as possible; stuff like making sure how fast everything was supposed to be with click tracks and tempos. Just paying attention to the little things –  it was kind of when we did the meat and potatoes of everything. While we were in the studio we were able to talk about and try out different things that Devin would call the candy. Like stuff that we had only imagined. Say I had this idea for some crazy screaming metal sound in the background with some kind of weird delay that I don’t know how to physically do, he would put it in there.

Adrian: He has a way of adding really cool textures I guess you could call it.

Dwayne; Would you guys go towards trying some kind of alternative things like bringing in string quartets or cellists on a new record?

Adrian: We have all been wanting to do that. We want to incorporate all these wild and ambitious ideas; maybe not onto our next record but on to something that we are going to produce or write or put out – but yeah, definitely. Actually we used strings on this record because we didn’t want any kind of crappy computer bullshit plug in strings.

Dwayne: Is that something you want to do? Keep progressing and keep going? Like with each Thrice record, they don’t sound the same they just keep rapidly progressing as a band.

Andrew: Yeah, we are always going to keep progressing and never following trends. I guess what we dream of is we want to do this band for years and years to come. Bands like us collaborating with other bands like so and so with Sights and Sounds or so and so by Sights and Sounds not necessarily put out our own records but put out collaborations. Just do different things. But its done by us just bring in different people we have so many friends that we would love to collaborate with and just be a open forum for us to express everyones ideas.

Dwayne: How does writing for Comeback Kid differ from writing for Sights and Sounds?

Andrew: Kind of similar. We just all get together and show each other a riff or sometimes it’s more. Maybe it might be the majority of a song. I always find it better to get together with the other people and that’s when it really becomes a structured song.

Dwayne: You had Devin Townsend produced the new album. How did he make Sights and Sounds better than you were before?

Adrian: It was really cool. He is a phenomenal guitar player so being around him all the time was very inspiring. He brought a lot of new things out in us as musicians and performers. I mean he has so much focus that it was almost like he was running at full speed and we were forced to keep up with him. He was feeding off of what we were doing and we were feeding of him. Everything was really intense like that but in a really great way.

Dwayne: So I was checking around and I had seen that you guys have signed with a bunch of different labels throughout the world. Why go through all the different labels rather than just working with one or two?

Andrew: We couldn’t find a solid label with the ability to distribute worldwide. Lets say a major indie X decides to sign us and they reimburse us say a little bit of money for the record and say we can distro this really well in say Europe, US and Canada that would be really cool but that was not really the case so we had to make sure our record had attention in every place that it was released. So we kind of just waited for awhile after trying to get our record out on something that could do more worldwide when that didn’t look like that was going to be a option, we started looking at other options. It was cool because we ended up hooking up with really cool labels and now we have been able to tour all those places and meet everyone. If one label isn’t doing what you think they should be doing there is always another label doing way more then you thought they would do. So its been really cool not being locked down to one specific company and having a lot of people working for your band rather then just one or two and if something gets fucked up, it’s seriously fucked up. Rather you have a little more room for mistakes (laughs).

Dwayne: Is it difficult having band members scattered all throughout Canada and tying to find time to get together and write and tour?

Andrew: The hardest part is just scheduling touring and practices and everything really.

Dwayne: Growing up in the same scene as say a band like Propagandhi and seeing them make it as big as they have did that give you some inspiration to make it as well?

Andrew: (laughs) No one is ever going to reach Propagandhi’s level in skill and awesomeness and just being the best band ever. It is cool that they came from Portage La Prairie and Winnipeg and are this crazy legendary band. I have always had the drive to tour and ever since I was allowed to leave Winnipeg for acouple days I was planning to make that happen. I met some people when I was young that were able to help me out and that has allowed me to go from there and make tours happen. I’m really happy that I have the ability to play with my bands and make music.

Dwayne: You being from Toronto do you notice a different kind of, let’s call it a vibe, in the scene from the east to the west?

Adrian: Yeah. Every city is different. I have been living in Vancouver for the last year and a half and even there it’s just like a completely different place when it comes to punk rock. I think Winnipeg has been the coolest… but Toronto is a really hard city so when I came out here and met these guys and hung with them I was totally blown away at how cool and awesome everyone was and is. Fuck this is a very supportive community it’s just been overwhelming and positive.

Dwayne: I have heard from certain people that it is very clicky and you have to kind of walk that political line in order to get say the good shows or whatever.

Adrian: Yeah, it can be; but if you’re from a different city then they are just like yea that was amazing. A lot of people out there just don’t take talent for talent its more of who you know.

Dwayne: You had said the overall plan for Sights and Sounds is to eventually incorporate some visual effects as well. Have you been able to do this?

Adrian: Well esticically we are trying to do a very different show sometime. That takes money and time to develop it as well as techs to help you on stage. That kind of stuff when there is a 15 minute change over and you are the first of five bands there is no way you can bring an elaborate live show. That’s not gonna happen. Maybe when we are headlining larger venues we will be able to do that. We would also like to do a tour that is acoustic and we have strings along with some other art forms trying to get through our message.

Dwayne: After this what is the plan?

Andrew: We are going to dispurse for a little while then in the New Year do some acoustic stuff for a little while and maybe record some stuff in Toronto. Just getting really solid songs not neccisarily for a next record but just getting it. Rehashed the ideas we left the studio with. There were tons of songs that were starting to come up so I think focusing on recording stuff and preparing it and getting them solidified until we can go on tour again.

Dwayne: Any other final words?

Adrian: First Act Guitar Rules.

Andrew: Yeah, thanks for checkin out the band and check out the record whenever you get a chance!