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

Celebrating their 14^th Anniversary, Stomp Records put on an electrifying show at The Opera House on Saturday night (February 14th) featuring The Creepshow, The Snips and headliners, The Planet Smashers. For those of you who haven’t heard of The Planet Smashers shame on you – these guys are veterans in the industry having been around since the early 90’s and toured all over the world. Originating in Montreal, Quebec, this ska punk band consists of Matt Collyer (guitar/lead vocals), Neil “Lonestar” Johnson (saxophone), Andrew Lattoni (trombone), Dave Cooper (bass) and Fred Benton (drums) and together are the most-toured ska band in this country. I was lucky enough to catch Matt Collyer (who also happens to be the founder of Stomp Records) in between shows and we talked music, Stomp and how Planet Smashers came up with their unique name.

iheartthemusic: I wanted to start off by wishing you a happy anniversary!

Matt: Oh thank you that’s very nice! Yah it’s been 14 years and still going strong, so it’s been a good run.

iheartthemusic: So this anniversary kind of coincides with the band’s anniversary too, right?

Matt: It kind of does, I mean The Planet Smashers are more like 14-and-a-half right now – our real anniversary for is in October if you want to get technical.

iheartthemusic: How did you guys come up with the name for your band?

Matt: It’s a good story, basically we were stoned in October of whenever that was that we started the band, and really drunk and people were shooting names around and one guy, probably the drunkest, was talking gibberish and was like “oh, eh, spaceships and smashing planets” and we were like “oh that’s a great idea.” So that’s how it happened.

iheartthemusic: Well thank you drunken slang! You guys have had quite a few members come and go since the beginning, has this affected the band at all?

Matt: This is actually the longest running line-up we’ve ever had. It’s been like this for five years now. It’s been hardest to keep the horn players. Normally our horn players are professional, good musicians and they have other things that they want to do so they are the hardest to keep, I find. We’ve always had good turnouts though and we get along and everyone knows us. That’s what The Planet Smashers are: a good time band. We aren’t here to save the world or anything so as long as we keep that in mind everything is fine in smasher world.

iheartthemusic: So being someone who has never been to a Smasher show, what can I expect to get out of it?

Matt: Drink a lot of water because you are going to need it! You are going to be dehydrated and we’re just going to party and dance a lot. Enjoy it, have fun and it’s not a lot of moshing, it’s more dancing but there is a pit. It’s not like a punk rock show, people want to have fun, dance and get pretty loaded. It’s high-energy and we’re just going to try and play a fun set.

iheartthemusic: You’ve been fortunate to be able to be recognized internationally and toured all over the world. What has been your favourite moment while touring?

Matt: It’s hard to say because we’ve done a lot. If I had to choose between going to Moscow and going to Japan, I don’t think I could. It’s hard to judge which one was better because they are both so different. Concert wise we just played in Montreal and there were 22,000 people there. I was blown away, I was like this is ridiculous, so intense. That was the biggest show we had ever played and it was a real kick.

iheartthemusic: You’ve also been able to share the stage with some heavy hitters in the ska scene, any favourites?

Matt: Actually, a lot of our favourite bands that we’ve toured with are smaller and more unknown. In the world of ska I loved Mustard Plug who we toured with and who are such good guys. Back in the day we toured with The Flashlights who we played with a lot and were fun. There are lots of smaller bands that we also get a long with very well – Billy Talent, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – tons of great bands.

iheartthemusic: Any crazy fan moments that you care to share with us?

Matt: There isn’t one that beats them all because every show is different; something hilarious happens all the time. Most recently, though, was last night there was this girl who had a crush on our trombone player and was pretty much chasing him around on stage. It was very funny because he was like “get off, I’m married leave me alone!” Stuff like that comes up all the time, I could go on forever.

iheartthemusic: Where do you see the whole state of ska music right now?

Matt: Ska is going to remain a subculture for another good 10 years or something so right now I would say it’s pretty healthy. There’s always a good support for it within the subculture, you know. There are tons of different takes on ska styles, like the whole reggae thing, similar to what One Night Band are doing, is definitely a little bit more,  I don’t know what you want to call it, it’s more marketable. Ska punk is definitely up and down right now. We’ll see more scenes of ’ska this’ and ’ska that’ over the years.

iheartthemusic: What does the future hold for The Planet Smashers?

Matt: Some more touring, we just started again so this is the first little bit we’ve done. We did Warped Tour last summer and there is always talk of what we are going to do next. We’re going to write some songs and discuss – if they suck we will throw them in the garbage can.

iheartthemusic: So after having now officially been to a smasher show, I have to say it was well worth it. The crowd was intense, but intense in a good way and everyone seemed to know the words to all the songs. Having been the only non-tattooed person at the venue, I definitely stuck out. As soon as they hit the stage I got lost in the shuffle and heavy dancing that accompanied each new song. Matt was right, water was definitely needed! I am now a true fan and will be sure to check them out when they hit up the T.dot again!

www.myspace.com/theplanetsmashers

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