How much do you love that feeling you get when, after spending a few days trying to complete a puzzle, you finally get down to the last few pieces?! You are left with that excitement of near completion but also that pending sense of void as your task nears completion. You ask yourself if you should start a new puzzle right away or simply sit and savour that sense of pride of realizing the final objective of the task at hand. This was somewhat how iheartthemusic felt when they were approached by Toronto based band Oh No Forest Fires. Why, you ask? Well, if you have been following our ongoing Toronto music scene coverage you might have noticed that we mentioned several times the “band affair” between Dinosaur Bones, Great Bloomers, Arietta and Oh No Forest Fires, and having already interviewed the first three bands, it really did feel like they were the missing piece to the puzzle. This band is made up of several members of previous (and fairly popular) bands, they have been known to call their sound “guitarded”, and they have managed to maintain a great reputation amongst music critics and fans alike. We spoke with all four members – Rajiv Thavanathan (guitar/vocals), Matt Del Buono (vocals/bass), Brock Swanek (guitar) and Adam Nimmo (drums) – about their “guitardedness” and how we are now finally realizing that the puzzle is complete… so what is next?

iheartthemusic: Firstly, I want to thank you for being the missing link!

Rajiv: We kiss each other on the mouth! [laughs]

iheartthemusic: [laughs] That’s far too much information for me! Let’s talk about your album The War on Geometry, which was apparently was named after a video game?

Adam: We had the biggest bonding night playing Xbox in my apartment and Brock had told us about The War on Geometry so we played it and were like, “this should be the name of the record”- badda bing, badda boom!

iheartthemusic: When did it drop?

Adam: November 11^th, 2008.

Brock: I dropped it this morning, but then I picked it back up!

iheartthemusic: [laughs]  So you guys are a relatively new band?

Adam: Yeah our first show was September 20^th, 2007, but everybody in this band has been playing for the last 10 years.

iheartthemusic: Yeah, you guys seem to all come from totally different backgrounds, having previously played in some big name bands. Was it difficult to create an identity separate from your past ones?

Adam: I left The Most Serene Republic and then Matt and I played in another band together. Rajiv and I had wanted to just jam for years before I forced him to move to Toronto. So when Rajiv and I started playing [like that] we brought Matt in and then Brock joined. There was absolutely no real direction or goal as to where we wanted to be; we just wanted to make something and now it’s turning into music that we feel really proud of and isn’t the token thing that you hear everywhere. It came from us just being like, “hey, play a riff and let’s make that” and then it turned into a song that we really love playing.

iheartthemusic: You do have a bit of a Moneen influence in your band though, as I read that you recorded the record in Kenny Bridges’ place?

Adam: We recorded the vocals at Kenny’s house because we are all really good friends with him. Really it was just the vocals that we recorded there, which is funny because we read all these reviews where they are like, “oh, the long song titles are from Moneen” when in reality we had those song titles before we even talked to Kenny. You know people will think what they want to.

iheartthemusic: It’s not a bad reference to have, though!

Adam: Exactly! Every band that comes out of this city seems to have one member of thier band who only plays music because they went to a Moneen show back in the day. It was really good and to tie in with such an incredible band; that’s absolutely fine with me!

Rajiv: One hundred percent on the record, the only reason that I moved to Toronto was because I went to a show in 2003 and I saw Moneen play in St. Johns, Newfoundland and the opening band was Fallen Year, which was Adam and Matt’s band back then. It was amazing! I watched Kenny play and Adam and Matt play and, at the time being like a young impressionable, emotional kid in Newfoundland, the only thing I could do was want to play in a band and I thought that the most luck that I could ever have in my life would be playing with people that loved music. I mean the fact that I am playing with guys in Fallen Year, which 10 years ago was my favourite band, is incredible. I watched these guys play and it was a moving moment in my life!

iheartthemusic: I love that! 

Brock: I used to live with Adam’s tour manager when The Most Serene Republic was around and I remember standing beside my girlfriend at the time, who was a major babe, and seeing Adam play and thinking, “I want to be in a band with that guy.”

iheartthemusic: Have you guys done a full cross-Canada tour yet?

Brock: No, but we are going to.

iheartthemusic: You are an unsigned band, so would remedying that be the next step for you?

Rajiv: The next step is that we can afford a rehearsal space! [laughs]

Adam: I feel like if the right thing were to come along then we would listen, but it’s not like we are bombarded by labels. We are having too much fun and too much luck somehow being a DIY band! What’s better than four guys that play in a band where there are no managers, no agents, no labels no one telling us what to do or where to go; it’s working out so far. Obviously if someone were to say we want to tell you where to go and what to do, then we might listen, but we’re happy.

Rajiv: We are really lucky that we are at a point where all the deadlines that we make are because of us and its not because of any label or any management. If we want to put a record out every four years or one a year we could.

iheartthemusic: Tell me about your show at the Horseshoe on June 10th.

Rajiv: It’s with two amazing bands. One band from the US called Telekinesis who is on Merge Records,which is the same label as Arcade Fire and Spoon. The other band is called An Horse from Australia, but they have toured with Tegan and Sara and played Letterman, like, two months ago. All the bands are really huge, but I feel like in Toronto they might not be as known, so the opportunity to play this show is awesome.

Oh No Forest Fires play the Horseshoe June 10th at 9PM.