Snowdogs

Bobby: OK, First off can you please state your name and what you do in Snowdogs?

Ville: My name is Ville and I’m the singer and I play guitar.

Bobby: All right, how did you and Mat meet Benjy?

Ville: We were feeding elephants at the zoo. And then the real answer is: we met Benjy through a mutual producer in London. We had a drummer, another drummer originally and then he decided to pack it in and I just knew this guy, Phil Brown, who’s a producer and I asked him if he knew of anyone who could be suitable for this band and he said “I’ve got the perfect guy for you”. And gave me Benjy’s phone number. I phoned Benjy and we had a good chat on the phone, he’s from Atlanta, Georgia, like a good old boy, you know. Went to jam, played some of the songs through, it just felt really really good. So when Benjy joined it was like ya, now this is a proper rock and roll band.

Bobby: Ya, that’s good. Snowdogs, how did you guys come up with that name?

Ville: You’re from Canada right?

Bobby: Yep.

Ville: Well, you are very familiar with Canada’s finest, the band Rush. My brother Mat, who’s the bass player in Snowdogs is a big Rush fan. He’s a fan of Getty Lee, he thinks he’s just the best, and he is. Anyway, I was looking for a birthday present for my brother and I thought, “Well, I’ll buy him some old Rush CD”. And I found this old Rush CD from the seventies, and it had a song called “Mitor And The Snowdog” I just looked at Snowdog and thought “umm, that good really work well as a name for our band”. Because it sort’ve reminded me of a dirty bunch of animals, hungry and willing to go places. The kind who brings you your favorite drink just when you need it the most. I said to the other guys “Why don’t we call the band Snowdogs?” And they said “That’s a good name, let’s stick with it”. Obviously, 2, 3 years later, Disney brings out this idiotic movie with Cuba Gooding Jr. in it, and were like “awww, do we have to chance our name now?” Because you know, the movie was so different to how we see Snowdogs. And then we just thought no, fuck it, we’re not gonna change the name. Disney movies comes and goes, but we’re still here.

Bobby: All right, “Deep Cuts, Fast Remedies” how did you get that name?

Ville: We have our own studio, and every morning I walk to our studio to do the things we do. It takes me about an hour to get there, so that’s my thinking time. When I walk through the suburbs of south London, I think. And I saw this one morning, and we were recording the album and we still didn’t have a name for it. I was walking down and this double decker London bus comes by, and it had an add for constipation and it was like “Fast Remedy”. You know the way those adds works on a bus. Fast Remedies. Now whenever something goes wrong, if life gives you, you know, life gives you deep cuts, what you need is a fast remedy. I just thought “Deep Cuts, Fast Remedies” works well because it is about music. A “Cut” on an album is like a song on a album and I think our music is fairly deep, at least it is to me. So we thought deep music, fast remedies. Music is the best kind of remedy that I know off. Every time I feel low about something I listen to music or every time I feel really good about something I put on some good music, so that’s the philosophy behind the name.

Bobby: Well, the album dropped last Tuesday.

Ville: Ya.

Bobby: How does it feel to finally have it out there?

Ville: O, it’s excellent. This is what we do. We make this music, and then the point of it; well first off all you make music to please yourself. Obviously, that has to be the most important that, you have got to be proud of what you do. But part of that is, if your proud of something you want other people to hear it, and so getting a release in North America last week is the thing that you’ve worked towards. And we are hearing from Victory that we are picking up loads of college radio with it. Like it has jumped 99 places within 2 weeks, and it’s in the Top 100 on the CMJ radio charts. So we are really pleased and I hope it goes well and I hope we can go over there and tour really soon and all those things.

Bobby: So, how has the reaction been generally? Like have you hear any good feedback.

Ville: Pretty good I guess. I mean, I’ve done loads of interviews and I’ve see loads of reviews of where people like what we’re doing. Obviously, there are going to be people, who don’t like what we’re doing, who hate it. But hey, that’s life, I don’t care about people who don’t like it. The most important thing it to find friends where you can get them and then, you know, that’s your audience. I’m amazed every time, everyday I get the Snowdogs’ e-mail via our website and we get e-mails from all over the world and people are into what we are doing. It’s not a big crowd yet but you know if we are lucky and we do our things well then I am sure it will increase in size in years to come. I think it’s amazing; it’s such a buzz when people dig what you’re doing, that it makes up for a whole bunch of bad shit that you have to put up with in life.

Bobby: What’s your favorite song on the album?

Ville: Umm, at the moment, probably the song Drive, which is the second song on there. It’s probably my favorite song because it’s about something and it’s about someone that was close to me, and it’s a personal story. All the songs I like but at this moment in time, Drive is my favorite one, because it’s about someone I cared about deeply in the past and it’s nice to have that personal stuff in there.

Bobby: Why did you decide to cover Paul Simon’s “Boy In The Bubble”?

Ville: I’m a big Paul Simon fan; he is one of the greatest songwriters that ever lived. When we were making the album we wanted to do one cover, and we were looking at all sorts of different possibilities and then I was just, you know, what’s an unusual thing to do? Something that no one expects from a band like us? I guess Paul Simon fits the bill pretty well. My seventh grade English teacher, a guy from New York, a guy called Stanley Rublonsky turned me onto Paul Simon when I was in seventh grade. And he said “By the way, I used to work with Paul Simon in the sixties cause I was an A&R guy producer at Columbia Records”. Of course I’m like seventh grade, 10,11,12 years old and I think like “ya, sure, of course you were”. But it’s true, he e-mailed me maybe 6 months ago because he saw the story on our website where I sort of relived that memory. And he said “ya, that’s absolutely true, I used to work for Paul Simon back then and I work for the organization for a few years”. It’s just one of those things that you got into when you were a kid and you try to give it your own spin when you have the chance. That’s the reason you know.

Bobby: Awesome. How do you normally write all your material?

Ville: I think its fair to say that my brother, Mat, and myself write most of it. Usually what will happen is I’ll come up with an idea on an acoustic guitar, bring it to Mat and he’ll say “Ya, that’s great. How about you add this to it?” We pretty much write on acoustic guitar to begin with, I just think of the melodies and think of the words and as soon as we have the song, the bare bones of the songs written, then the 3 of us just jam the arrangements together and the Sonic Soundscape together at the studio. We do it all live because that’s the way I think a band like us should play. It’s about live playing. And it kind of processes from a very organic acoustic sound to a very organic full band sound. I always think of it in terms of could we play it live, just the three of us, and would it sound the same? And if that happens, then its working.

Bobby: How do you like being on Victory Records?

Ville: So far, so good. Is this a loaded question?

Bobby: No, not really.

Ville: I guess a lot of people think we don’t really belong on Victory records because most of the other bands on there are so sort of hardcore, much less melodic then we are. You know, I’ve never really thought about it in those terms. I mean, they contacted us; we didn’t contact them to begin with. They heard of us and heard about our music and said “We really want to put it out I the states, do you want to do it?” And luckily for them and luckily for us, the label that we were with here in England had just gone bankrupt, so we were free agents. It all kind of happened kind of naturally without anyone trying to force the issue. They heard of the band and they loved the music and they said, “Listen, we really want to put this out”. And we only heard good things about them so we said ya, let’s do it.

Bobby: What have they done to promote this new album so far?

Ville: There has been a lot of PR, press stuff in the United States, we’ve been doing loads of interviews with different people. And right now there’s a big radio campaign going, as I said earlier, it’s picking up a load of college radio. And I guess they do the usual things. Try to get it into magazines and try to get people to notice it. I think the next thing that we are going to do is that we are going to go over there and tour, and the sooner that happens the better, because we are itching to go.

Bobby: Do you have any plans on making a music video soon?

Ville: Yes, yes. We’ve been talking to a couple of directors already and I think we’ve made up our minds as to which one we are going to use. And I think it will happen over the next when ever. I think they will try and make it coincide the making of the video with coming over there to tour. So it will be like a tour and a video and all the rest of it.

Bobby: What song are your planning on making the video for?

Ville: I think right now they are thinking about doing it for Drive, for the song Drive. Because that’s the one that is getting a load of radio play. But you know, that may change if they decide to go in with another song for the radio track. But right now we are taking about making one for drive.

Bobby: Do you have any ideas for it, like what it’s going to look like?

Ville: Well first we thought we’d get these cages and fill them with girls in bikinis and have these surfer dudes come and have this sort of circus type of thing. But then we realized that Motley Crue and David Lee Roth have already made those videos so we thought; let’s not go there. Just Kidding. I think it’s going to be a very straight forward video that shows the band the way we are, performing it with loads of energy and attitudes just the way we do our lives shows. I don’t think there’s going to be any weird trickery or computer wizardry involved. It will just be a straight forward rock and roll video, so when you see it for the first time it will be like alright, there’s the music, that’s what the band looks like, that’s their attitude. And you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it. If you hate it, we don’t care, if you like it, great. You know, one of those affairs.

Bobby: Being in Snowdogs, you must tour a lot, what do you usually do to prepare yourself for a show?

Ville: I play scales on my guitar; I spend about half an hour just doing scales on the guitar, I think for 2 reasons. Obviously, warms up your fingers so you’ll be able to play. You know your doing the “da,de,da,de,da,de,da,dee,dee,deee,deee,dee,dee” drone thing, it’s kind of a chant and it gets you into a frame of mind. I also warm up my voice and sing scales and parts of songs. Benjy, he’ll have his sticks and he’ll be drumming against a chair or something, pretty much just to get the muscle lose and everything ready. Just before we go on, we do a little group… we go into a huddle and we kind of say, “Let’s give it some tonight”, and then it’s on. You walk onto the stage and bump into the microphone and go “hey, hello” then it’s anyone’s game.

Bobby: Cool, what’s the one thing you like most about touring?

Ville: Umm, I like going to different cities and meeting all the different people there. I like coming into a venue where they are expecting you and they kinda go “O, you’re the Snowdogs” and we go “Ya, we are”. And everyone is sort of excited to have you there and we’re excited to be there to meet all these people who put on this thing for us. Its kind’ve a social thing. I like touring with other bands because its like a community spirit to go on a good tour, with all sort of pranks being pulled and stories and parties and what ever. It’s a social thing, that’s what I like about it, you met lots of different people. Most of them are nice; some of them are ass holes. But that’s part of the job I guess. I also like when you get to go to different countries, then you get to try out all the different foods. Although I’m not a, what do you call it, a kilennarist ****I’m positive that I spelt this word wrong **** by any stretch of the imagination. I like eating different types of food and just trying stuff out.

Bobby: Well, what’s the one thing you hate the most?

Ville: About touring?

Bobby: Ya.

Ville: O, it’s being away from home. It’s the flipside of the coin, having to get up every morning in a different bed. And falling asleep every night in a different bed, that tires you out. But you know, we haven’t done that much touring to be bored by it. I read this interview some time ago with the drummer from Mettalica, Lars Olrik from Mettalica. And he said that when they were at their most popular, they went around the world 3 times in a year or a year and a half. During that time they never stopped. So you know, that could be a bit tiresome. So the little bit of touring that we’ve done it’s kind have been fun to go out there and fun to come back.

Bobby: Ya.

Ville: There’s very little to complain about really.

Bobby: OK, if you could pick one person, dead or alive, to tour with, who would it be and why?

Ville: Well, I would NOT like to meet any of my musical heroes, because if they turned out to be nasty people, sort of unpleasant people, then I’d let myself down. I wouldn’t want to spoil it for myself. It wouldn’t be anyone famous or anything like that. I’d probably want to met my great-grandfather, you know, because he lived in 1800 to the begging of the 20th century and he went through some weird times and I bet he’d have a lot of good stories to tell. So I’d probably want to met him.

Bobby: Alright, if you weren’t in a band, what do you think you would be doing for a job?

Ville: You know, I’d have some boring job in a boring office somewhere. I’d try hard to ignore the fact that I wasn’t doing what I liked the most. Everyone, I think everyone… All the people that I know, who are in bands, who make music for a living, at one stage they’ve had that moment, where they had to make a decision. You know, “Do I do this or do I give up?” Because making a living as a musician is really hard work. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to make a living out of musician, for some years now and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I mean, it’s just the best. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do, so I cant even think about what I would need to do if I didn’t get to do this, I cant bear thinking about it. But I bet it would be very, very boring, so next question!

Bobby: *laughs* Alright, your grandfather told you not to be a musician because it’s a crappy job, what other advice did he give you?

Ville: He actually said, “Don’t become a musician because it’s a shit job”. Word for word. He didn’t say “crap”. He said things like he meant them. The other great piece of advice that he always used to say is “Keep being a man”. You know, he was a lumberjack; he was a guy who went out there and chopped wood for a living. And hunted, hunted for moose and for bear and you know, all sorts of things. So he was a very macho manly type of man. In fact, his life is great. He died; he literally died with his boots on. He went ice fishing on a lake once and got a heart attack and died with his boots on. Doing the thing that he loved doing the most. So, you know, that’s something to inspire to. I wish I could keep doing what I love doing for as long as I live.

Bobby: You also used to play the classical piano when you were younger, right?

Ville: Yep.

Bobby: Why did you quit that?

Ville: Well, you know it was one of those things when you are like 5 years old when mom and dad said “The kid’s got a piece of talent in music, let’s get him to play the piano.” I loved it for a while; it was great because I just really really enjoyed making music, what ever it was. But you know, when you become a teen-ager, and you realize that playing classical music on the piano inst the coolest thing in the world to do, you know, and you just want to play the guitar, you want to quit. I was never that good at it; I could never have become a classical pianist because I didn’t have the motivation to rehearse that sort of stuff 3 hours a day. I know the lyrics of 100s and 100s of different songs from different idiotic heave metal bands, and Id be happy to learn them, but I wasn’t interested enough in classical music to keep perusing it. So that was the reason, you know you don’t want to do something, don’t do it. But I’m happy that I did it because it helped me, cause I know music theory and that sort of stuff. And it does help you even when your playing 3 chord punk rock, it does help you to know a little bit about music theory.

Bobby: Do you have any tips for young musicians starting out?

Ville: Well, I would say that you should stuff keep doing what you’re doing and learn to play your instrument. Because all those hours of practice and all those hours of work that you put in now, they’ll work out for you in the end. And to stay true to yourself, I think that’s the most important thing. Because if you are doing something that you absolutely have a passion for, you put up with a lot of a shit that people throw your way. But if you start doing stuff that your not 100% committed to, then once people start throwing shit in your way, then your resistance to all that stuff will be worn down. It’s important to stay true to yourself, and just to keep on going on. I have no greater words of wisdom then that.

Bobby: Cool, who would you say influenced you musically?

Ville: Umm, when I heard “Smell likes teen spirit”, I knew that being in a band is what I wanted to do with my life. So that was a really pitival band, Nirvana, I loved them. I loved Pearl Jam and Sound Garden, they were sort’ve my favorite bands in the mid 90s. I thought they just kicked ass, excellent music, excellent in every way. I think Eddie Van-halen is easily the best guitar player who ever lived. And I’ve listened to everything that he’s every done. I think he’s amazing. Paul Simon as a songwriter, I think he is beyond compare. I also listen to a lot of Bob Dylan. Just to see what these guys can do with words and lyrics, I think they are amazing. I listen to a really wide variety of stuff. You know the guy from the Bee Gees’ Morris, just died. And I’m not ashamed to say it; I am a bit of a fan of the Bee Gees. I think those guys wrote some amazing songs, I can’t stand the way they sing them, but I like some of the compositions. Umm, there’s an American author called Kurt Boniket who’s written some great books, which is a constant source of inspiration for me. John Steinback, another great writer. And I like a lot of the movies that Martin Scorchazies has made. A lot of the sort’ve stuff that he made in the 70s with Robert DeNeiro are just great films that gives you ideas. In fact, we wrote the song “Drive” after having see the movie; I think it was, “The Good Fellows”, or “Casino”. It was inspired by some scene or some moment in the movie. So you know, you get your inspiration from different sources. I don’t ever try and stick to one thing, I just like to many different styles of music and different styles of expressions and just kind’ve draw a little bit from everywhere.

Bobby: Ya, now a days, you can download music everywhere on the internet, Kazaa, Morpheus, stuff like that. How do you feel about that?

Ville: About downloading?

Bobby: Ya.

Ville: I’ve got no problem with that. I think its great. That you should be able to download your favorite song off the internet, it shouldn’t not happen. What I don’t agree with is that music should be free. You know, you don’t go to the bakery and say, “Hey man, give me your bread, I want your bread”. Or go to the liquor store and say “I want a bottle of whisky” and then not pay for it. You know.

Bobby: ya.

Ville: There’s a time and a place for everything. But well, we’ve got stuff on our website that you can download, and if anyone tried to tell me that I shouldn’t have it there, then I’ll tell them to go to hell.

Bobby: *laughs* Ya. Are there any bands out there that you like, but feel that they don’t get enough publicity?

Ville: Snowdogs is one. *laughs* But apart from them, ummm, Mercury Rev are a great band that I don’t think have had the sort of financial success, commercial success that they deserve. I think that they make some really fantastic music. I don’t know where they are from, but they are every good. Umm… there’s so many. Mercury Rev. Tonight I feel that Mercury Rev needs a special mention so I’ll leave it at that.

Bobby: Alright, thanks. What do you see in the future for Snowdogs?

Ville: Developing massive cocaine habits, rehab, second album, marriage, divorce, and all those sorts of things. *laughs* Seriously though, I just hope this album wins us some friends in places where we don’t have friends already. I hope that we get to tour a lot. And I hope by this time next year, we are going to be talking about the next Snowdogs album. And I hope it’s a bigger success then “Deep Cuts, Fast Remedies” and I hope we get to do this for a long time. We are really committed musicians, we believe in what we do and we hope that we can make a good career out of being in Snowdogs. It’s not too much to ask is it?

Bobby: Nope, of course not. What is the most important thing in your life right now?

Ville: Well I have a small baby daughter, so she would have to be the most important thing in my life right now.

Bobby: Just one last question, do you have any shout-outs you’d like to say before we end?

Ville: Well I would not be doing my duty as a human being if I didn’t speak out against this war on Iraq. I think anyone who has a sense of what is morally right and juste, will stand up against this tiny, tiny elite of American politicians and oil business men, who are driving the war towards war for their own benefits. They are going to spend billions of US tax dollars paying for a war, that no one really needs and that no one in the world wants. And what for? Only to make a little bit more money for themselves, and I think it’s wrong, So do whatever you can to build a little awareness around you and get people to think for themselves and not just buy the government line, hook line and sinker.

Bobby: Ya, I agree. I guess that’s it. Thanks a lot for doing this interview.

Ville: Hey, thank you for inviting me and to talk to me!