I Heart the Music: Your Online Source for Live Music Reviews and Interviews in Toronto!

Having previously seen (and been blown away) by the Whitby-born band Bury the Bully, iheartthemusic decided it was about time we featured them. If their name sounds at all familiar it might be because they played the opening night party during CMW, or perhaps you were lucky enough to stumble upon their MySpace and were equally impressed by the sound that emanated from your computer speakers. Either way, there is no denying their talent and when we sat down with lead vocalist Rich McPherson and drummer Cala, we discovered that not only are they making great music, but these guys have hearts of gold as well.

iheartthemusic: So, from what I have read, you guys met in high school about 10 years ago?

Rich: We met in high school and that was 12 or 13 years ago and we’ve had the same lineup of guys since. It’s been a very interesting stint with four guys being in a band as friends and as professionals, so it makes for a lot of good music in the end.

iheartthemusic: Definitely! I mean, being together for so long it must have been easier to grow as a band?

Rich: It’s really tough to say. In the last year we released our full-length, which is really our first full-length since all we’ve ever done is just play and demo, and as soon as we put it out that’s when we really started to become a band and really came into our own. In those 12 years prior to that we did learn a lot as musicians and people, but I think it’s just been the last year and a half that it has really come together.

iheartthemusic: So going back to grade nine, were you guys the typical band class guys or did you just decide on your own that you wanted to form a band?

Cala: It wasn’t about getting the girls or anything, it was just something to do. At that time there was no extracurricular stuff so we decided to start a band. We actually did it before high school.

iheartthemusic: How did you decide on your name?

Cala: During high school we went by a different name and then when we put out this album, that’s when we knew that we had to step it up and wanted to start it fresh and we just based the name around the songs that we were writing.

Rich: We literally had a list of stuff that we were trying because we had been one name for 10 years, so it was a huge step to change names and identities. While we were doing the album we were trying to come up with a new name and that one just resonated with all of us because it spoke to so much socially. We consider ourselves positive individuals so it was definitely the right name for us.

iheartthemusic: Speaking of being positive individuals, you guys deal with charities quite a bit, including donating all your sales once a month to a charity of your choice.

Rich: We try and donate what we can. I mean, it’s not much as an indie band, but every season we made it so that we would donate to different charities whatever money that we made at that time. We try and link our websites to a lot of positive organizations.

iheartthemusic: What has the response been like with your album in a time when the economy is so bad?

Cala: Well, it’s tough because of the times that we are in right now but really the Internet helps so much. Also, the more we play, the better it is for us.

Rich: As an indie band, and having no real support financially to do things, we try and get ourselves in every social network we can and just make friends. The response from people worldwide through connecting through places like MySpace has been great. So in that sense having no one really supporting us, we’ve done really well for ourselves in the last year and half just doing everything.

iheartthemusic: It must be nice to be able to oversee everything.

Cala: It’s more intimate that way, especially interacting with fans and people who enjoy the music through places like Facebook.

Rich: I think every little achievement that comes along is more special just because we are doing it ourselves. You feel a sense of ownership that way.

iheartthemusic: Some bands consider themselves a live band only. How do you see your band?

Cala: I would say a bit of both. Lately, with the recording process with the new album, we are learning a lot.

Rich: We record a lot. We learn something everyday as musicians, as a live band or a recording band, they are two separate things but I love being in the studio, I love writing, I love recording.

Cala: And I love gigging.

Rich: Yah, we have both sides of the spectrum.

iheartthemusic: Who does most of the writing?

Rich: We are at a point now where we all collaborate with each other. It has taken us a long time to get to that stage but that’s where we are now and, especially going into a second album, you start to approach things differently and this time around everyone is putting their piece of the pie in.

Cala: And being together for so long really helps as well.

Rich: Everyone is inspired by everybody.

iheartthemusic: So you are writing a new album, when can we expect that out?

Rich: Our aim would be for mid summer to have a record out, but everything in music is always a couple of months behind. We are working hard at it right now and hoping to get into the studio and start laying it down at the beginning of the summer.

iheartthemusic: From the first album to this new one, do you notice any differences between your sound or writing style?

Rich: Totally. Every song that comes out is always something different and I think the exciting thing about writing a new album is the fact that when we go to record we are going to have a ton of songs to pull on and bring together. With that, it gives us the freedom to really write anything and not worry about it being the “right” thing.

iheartthemusic: You got the opportunity to play the opening night party for CMW, was that your first time playing CMW?

Rich: We played that eight years ago and I think that was the last time we played it.

Cala: It was an honour to be asked to play. The booker at Tattoo asked us to play and it was a great turnout. We met a lot of great people, like you!

Rich: It was one of those things where we didn’t think we were playing at all and then we got the call a couple of weeks prior to and it turned out to be the opening night.

iheartthemusic: You have also been able to share the stage with some heavy hitters such as Simple Plan and Gob!

Rich: We played with them right when “I Hear You Calling” came out. We hooked up with Simple Plan during Warped Tour. We played a date about eight years ago with them before they blew up, so we got to form a good bond with them.

photography provided by Carl Heindl

We were lucky enough to get up close and personal with Jarek Hardy and Julian Warmé of the band The Johnstones after their show at The Sound Academy on January 29^th. When we say personal, we really do mean personal as we conducted this interview in a one person bathroom amidst constant interruptions by drunken individuals trying to go pee….just another day in the life of a Johnstone, right?

iheartthemusic: Let’s begin with how you guys came together as a band.

Jarek: Ryan (the drummer) and I started the band in our last year of high school when we had serious ambitions of music. I remember I came up to Ryan and was like, “hey you wanna start a band?” and he was like, “yeah cool we’ll try it out.” We had a crappy bass player to start with so we kicked him out but ended up naming the band after him: his name is Kevin Johnstone. Well, he wasn’t crappy, he was just different from us so we had to kick him out, but not before stealing his name! After that we added Brent. Brent was actually really reluctant about joining the band. He was like, “naw I don’t want to join a stupid punk-ska band.” But we eventually convinced him to join and it began from there.

iheartthemusic: You guys ended up going to university, so what happened with the band then?

Jarek: When we all went off to university we ended up putting the band on hiatus. Our mentality was fuck we gotta get our stupid degrees and pay all this stupid money for it. When our last year of university came along we weren’t ready to get jobs and enter the “real world” so we decided to start this band thing again and keep it going. That’s when we actually put full effort towards it and started to actually write again. It started to pick up and then we got signed to an independent label, Stomp Records, who totally hooked us up. They were actually our idols in high school because they represent bands like the Planet Smashers and we had watched so many of their shows so we were amped to be with them. Since signing with Stomp it’s been going really well. We’ve been doing a lot more recordings and are getting bigger and bigger.

iheartthemusic: How many albums do you have out right now?

Jarek: We have one actual album out called Word is Bond that came out in 2006 and is sold in stores, and one EP entitled Sex that we just released about seven months ago.

iheartthemusic: Sex, eh? May we ask why?

Jarek: Why not? I mean it’s sex. Let’s say you are walking down the aisle and you see “sex.” What most people would do is look at it and pick it up.

iheartthemusic: So it’s a kind of marketing tool then?

Jarek: Totally. It’s also totally what we are about.

iheartthemusic: Well,   you do tend to play with no shirts on!

Jarek: Exactly. I mean you take a band like Mötley Crüe, we may not be as grimy as they are but we totally have the same ideals as them. I think we are actually a little bit more educated than they are and a little bit more bad ass than they were in their early years, yet they use sex as a way of garnering attention for themselves like us.

iheartthemusic: Would they be one of your musical influences?

Jarek: No, not even fucking close. I think they play the lamest music. Actually, you know what’s funny, we are thinking of naming our next album Metallica is Lame. Our manager really doesn’t want us to do it because he’s thinking he’ll have to talk to people and see if it really works and make sure we won’t get in a lot of trouble, but he said if it all works out then 100% that is going to be the name.

iheartthemusic: Well I guess apologies may be in order for all the Metallica fans out there, but at least we now know you have an album in the works!

Jarek: Yah, we are working on one right now. Just before this tour we were in the studio for like a week and a half. Actually, the day after we are done this tour we’re heading to New York City to shoot two music videos.

iheartthemusic: Oh really? Which songs are you shooting the music videos for?

Jarek: There is one on the current EP, Sex, and the song is called “Bank Song” and it’s about robbing a bank so we are going to rob a bank in the video. The next video is off of our next album and it’s called “Can’t be Trusted” and it’s going to be us in Coney Island.

iheartthemusic: Is the title for that song indicative of the band’s personality traits?

Jarek: I guess it’s kind of self-explanatory. I mean we rock the whole sex theme and misogynistic thing, so we totally play off of it.

iheartthemusic: Well it’s good to know that you know who you are as a band. You also clearly have a sense of humour. What was up with the bologna during your set?

Jarek: I don’t know what happened. We’ve played so many shows with The Salads and then Darrin Pfeiffer always takes things over the edge [see post below]. Like we’ve pulled pranks on them and they’ve pulled pranks on us but then Darrin thought it would be cool today to pull a prank on us and it didn’t end there because he actually came on stage and started to throw bologna on us! I really don’t even know what that was about. I think I had ham on my chest for like two minutes of the show.

iheartthemusic: I’m sure you guys did “nothing” to provoke that! So what’s the best prank that has been pulled on you?

Jarek: I’m going to have to give it up to Hedley. We were on tour with them and this one time we were playing somewhere in Quebec and I was on stage about to play my guitar for sound check and every time I played all you heard was this high off pitch noise. In my mind I was thinking, “my amps broken, fuck this, it’s broken.” I was freaking out, losing my fucking mind on stage. Julian, our trombone player, started laughing at me. I then turn to him and was like, “fuck you I gotta go get a new amp now” and then he was like, “lighten up it’s gonna be alright.” I look around and the guitar tech from Hedley is sitting there playing all these stupid chords every time I play something because his amp is way bigger and louder than mine! I was there for honestly like half an hour stressing my fucking ass off thinking, “what the hell am I going to do?” and he just looks at me and smiles.

iheartthemusic: Well we have to admit that that was a pretty good one!

Jarek: That same show we get on stage and Jake from Hedley comes on with a fucking BB gun while we were in the middle of a song and he starts nailing us during our set. Everyone was watching too. It was a sold out fucking arena. Our comeback to that was we bought them really retarded presents. I think I bought Jake an axe. We ended up buying them a lot of presents because we really fucked up on that tour, we got in a lot of trouble.

iheartthemusic: Well you guys are known to be that band that likes to have fun, which sometimes involves getting into trouble.

Jarek: Yah, we get in a lot of trouble and that’s why I love this tour with GOB so much, because they are complete punk rockers and you can do anything to them and they don’t give a fuck. They’ll beat you up, which happened to me [he shows us the aftermath of a fight with a GOB member on his arm], or they’ll just fucking spit in your face and say “fuck you,” but they aren’t going to hold some sort of grudge and get their manager involved. They’re just honest guys that will tell you what’s up to your face.

iheartthemusic: Who’s been your favourite band that you’ve  shared the stage with?

Jarek: You know what, one of my favourite bands in the world was Less Than Jake. We finally did a little mini tour with them and that was incredible. I’m also not even joking when I say this, but GOB was one of my favourite bands when I was growing up so it’s pretty cool to get to play with them now.

iheartthemusic: Would you consider them one of your musical influences?

Jarek: I wouldn’t say anyone really is. If anyone is an influence for us it’s a band that has their own style, a band that is bad ass. We like bands that do their own thing and are original, bands that get in trouble. Beastie Boys are like that and are one of my favourite bands.

iheartthemusic: You’ve mentioned quite a few bands that are your favourite, any more you care to share?

Jarek: Me personally I like a lot of gay ass stuff. I like The Gorillaz and we don’t sound anything like them. I mean Ryan and I write all the songs right, so we know what our image is and we know what will and won’t work. So here I am writing all these songs – I write like a lot of songs – and 50% of them we know aren’t going to work.

[at this point we are joined in the bathroom by Julian Warmé, the trombone player, who greets us by saying "Are you guys hot boxing in here?"...for record, no we were not.]

iheartthemusic: So if you write the songs, who choreographs your onstage dance routines like the one we saw tonight?

Jarek: Actually that is a group effort. Or no, actually, I’m going to have to give complete respect to Rene for that little number. Rene, our trumpet player, is that guy that if you say something and he laughs, well then you know it must be funny. He is the guy from high school that we were all friends with, but was kind of the underdog. He didn’t really find himself, was always quiet and listened to Led Zeppelin on his headphones and wore Pink Floyd t-shirts. Then he joined our band and all of a sudden he’s like an MC rapping stuff like, “fuck you and suck my dick.” He just completely flipped, at least on stage.

Julian: He’s the most badass person I’ve ever seen.

Jarek: Rene has been one of my best friends since I met him, I’ve known him for so fucking long, but he’s the kind of guy where he gets on stage and everyone in the crowd is like “this guy is so badass.” Then you get him back stage and he’s like so timid. I think our sense of humour as a band is based on Rene’s sense of humour.

Julian: I agree because that’s exactly it.

iheartthemusic: So you where do you see The Johnstones five years from now?

Julian: To quote Oasis “bigger than Jesus”…I’ll go that far.

iheartthemusic: Let’s say in five years you are just below Jesus, what would that look like?

Julian: Well, it would mean we have to beat him and step it up. Jesus did a lot of things, he’s a big man, but I feel we can do more.

iheartthemusic: I guess we will just have to wait and see what’s next for these guys, in the mean time check them out at:

www.myspace.com/thejohnstones

www.johnstonessex.com

You know you really must heart the music when you make the trek in Canadian cold all the way out to the Sound Academy (formerly The Docks), which is nestled between lots of nothing and the lake. It was a bitch to get to, but once inside the energetic crowd and tunes (and maybe a G&T) immediately warmed us up.

The Salads were about half way through their set by the time we arrived (which meant we missed Outspoken who opened up the show, whoops). We were just in time to see the undisguising of the drummer who, after wig and glasses were removed, turned out to be Darrin Pfeiffer of Goldfinger. How Pokaroo! The boys put on a good show serving up a delicious reggae-ska-punk punch cocktail.

Next up was the band we were waiting for: The Johnstones. Yowza! They burst out in chaotic energy running around the stage and playing what looked like a game of musical instruments (the trombone player picked a tambourine before jumping on the keyboards, etc). With the amount of running about it seems like their shirtlessness may be more practical than gimmicky. Full of vigor and fun, The Johnstones played a mixture of original punky-ska tunage with rapid-rap and added their personal flavour to covers (like The President of the United States of America’s “Lump” and, Emer’s fave of the night, Moxy Früvous‘s “The King of Spain”). Another highlight was Ryan Long’s wicked drum solo full of flare and stick flips. This is a band to keep your eye on if your corneas can keep up.

When GOB finally got to the stage and we must admit we were left gobsmacked. Having never heard them before we naively expected overly loud punk metal that can be hard to digest. Instead we gobbled up their polished punk (which could be due to the age/musical maturity of a band that’s been around since 1994). Just one question, if GOB were superheros, would the everlasting gobstopper be their archenemy?

Après show iheartthemusic locked ourselves in a bathroom backstage to chat with Johnstones’ lead singer Jarek Hardy (and were later joined by trombonist Julian Warmé who joined us when he needed to come in a take a piss). Check out that interview…