DM) If you could sum up Moist's style in a couple of words--jazz,
rock, whatever--what would you sum it up as?
JP) A couple words is hard...I would totally describe it as...uh...
post-grunge...um...hard to say. We're basically a rock band,
but we draw a lot of influences from a lot of different places--everything
from pop music to post-punk music. I'd call it "heavy melodic..."
I don't know. How would you describe it?
DM) How would I describe it? You're the one doing the music!
(laughs) Maybe I'll phrase it a little easier...Each person in
the band has their own style and influence. What's yours?
JP) My influences are kind of the American post-punk thing.
I grew up listening to bands like Jane's Addiction and the Pixies.
That's the kind of music I really dig a lot.
DM) How about the rest of the guys?
JP) Dave is more into dance music and pop music and he also
likes basic rock stuff, as well. Mark is very much a 70's guitar
guy whose main influences are probably Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix,
and Kevin--the stuff he grew up listening to--is kinda like the
West Coast punk scene... Paul's musical tastes kind of go everywhere:
from Air Supply to D.O.A. (Daguire, Paul says from across the
room).
DM) How is it working with the band where everyone's styles
are so contrasting?
JP) It works great for song writing, because if someone comes
in with an idea, you know a melody line or a guitar riff or a
bass line or whatever, we all just start throwing things on top
of it and the end product is usually drastically different than
what we started with. It works really well. It makes it so no
one really knows what kind of song we're going to write.
DM) Yes, I noticed it said 'all songs written by Moist.' I
see a lot of bands of today, the lead singer is given all the
credit and is considered the "band leader." Is that
the case with Moist?
JP) No, no, not at all. We all write equally, we all share
equal credit in the writing. Dave writes a lot of the lyrics
now, more than he was doing when the band started. As well there's
lyrics on the album that were written by other members of the
band, as well. You know, if we're jammin' through a riff, we're
all kind of throwing out the ideas and he kind of picks the melody
idea that fits the best and then shapes it into his own. So we
all take equal credit for that. We have this general theory that
a song doesn't become a song until it's actually at the performance
stage. That's why it's really important to us that everyone is
into this thing equally and everyone gets equal credit for equal
work. So much of what we do is... it might take five minutes
or four hours to work the song into shape where you can perform
it then to go on the road for eighty years trying to get it just
right! By the end of that time everybody's put in a lot of work,
so we believe in sharing the credit equally.
DM) In today's music industry there seems to be a revival
of tribute albums. There has been the Elton John, the Grateful
Dead, and the Carpenters album. Is there any particular artist
whose tribute album--made, not made, or possibly made in the
future--you'd like to work on?
JP) Oh, that's a hard question, because I'm probably the cheesiest
guy in the band. I'd love to be on the Carpenters' album, I really
would. I think there's certain albums we'd all like to do. We'd
love to be on a [Rolling] Stones tribute album, probably, because
we do a cover of 'Miss You' that's been part of our live show
for a while. And we'd all get a kick out of being on that Carpenters'
album, actually, because the kind of bands that are on that album...we
all grew up with that music...it's all part of our collective
unconscious. I can remember listening to the Carpenters on my
parents' radio. When you're first discovering music you rely
on your parents' record collection...probably a Beatles tribute
album, too. We've all been influenced by them, as well...and
Supertramp. If there was ever a Supertramp tribute album we'd
all be there.
DM) How did everyone in the band meet?
JP) We all met at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario.
All with the exception of Paul. We met him through friends of
his who were going to Queens University at the time. He was living
on the West Coast, so we met up with him when we moved out there.
DM) How does it feel to be a Canadian band in America?
JP) For the band to get where we are in Canada it was a very
tangible thing. We started touring last summer for eight months.
When you're touring in Canada you go right across the country
and come right back and then you rehearse, or whatever, and take
four weeks off, and by the time you're ready to go out again
the country's ready to see you again. You basically hit all the
major cities. Highway 1 from Vancouver to Montreal. It's way
different in America. There's so many more people. There's so
many places to be in at various times. You can't do that. You
have to work really hard to cover all the cities. We were able
to come back to the same cities in Canada every six weeks or
so and watch our progress, and having our videos on the nation's
video's channel helped as well. Every cities and every little
town doesn't have an alternative rock station, or even a classic
rock station but everybody gets Much Music [Canada's version
of MTV]. That's where kids look for new music. Here in America
it's such a big place we haven't even started yet. Socially we
get along pretty good here, it's different, way different from
any other city in Canada but it's not that hard for is to get
used to.
DM) What is the typical 'Moist' fan?
JP) It kind of changed actually, when we were touring, we
started touring last summer, we were playing all bars so are
fan base was mostly university students and young working people
who would be in a mood to see live music. But because of the
power of video, we kinda hit different demographics then we expected,
so now more of our fans 16-26 I guess. And I think they're kind
of people who listen to Pearl Jam and Nirvana, but I think that
in many ways Moist is an antidote to that. It's lyrically depressing
as any Seattle band but I think there's a certain kind of musicality
to it.
DM) Is there any particular area which has more of your fans?
JP) It's kind of everywhere. Our last Canadian tour was sold
out coast to coast. I think that we have our best time in Montreal.
I think that's where our fans are the most Manic. It's really
great playing in front of 2,000 French Canadians and they're
all singing along with their french accents. They don't necessarily
know what the words mean, but they know them all by heart anyway.
It's really, really fun for us.
DM) It seems like you found a small 'Beatlemania' reaction
in your small microcosm of the world.
JP) Yeah, to sum extent, they line up and they scream like
crazy. Especially in Montreal. The rest of the country, they're
a little bit more reserved, but not much more.
DM) If you were in my position, interviewing musicians, which
musician would you love to interview?
JP) I would love to interview either Michael Stipe or Perry
Farrel. I'd like to interview Michael Stipe, or even Bob Mould,
because they were doing what is now pop music before it became
pop music. They are the pioneers of College Rock and what is
now Alternative Rock in many ways as well. They stuck it out
for a long time, watched their fan base grow an grow, and I think
that they are both VERY creative beings more so then just in
terms of music, they have very good political ideas. They've
managed to change their careers as they go and they can write
different kinds of songs for very different periods of their
life, and still stay true to themselves.
DM) Well, I always wanted to know what was the picture on
the cover of the album? [referring to the silver, modern art
looking picture]
JP) It's a rib cage. A friend of ours from Vancouver, whose
very skinny. We painted her silver and photographed her ribs.
We wanted to just make and interesting record cover. it was kind
of a striking image that we had an idea of. There's no rational
for it at all, we just thought it would be an interesting cover.
If we had called the album gold then we would have painted her
gold. We were looking through the songs that were on the album,
and we saw we had a song called 'Silver' on the album. We thought
it was a very interesting song because the song says what the
whole album says in one song.
DM) How is this tour going with Collective Soul?
JP) Well we haven't started yet. We start living it permanently
tomorrow. We haven't met them yet, but we played a show with
them in Cleveland. It was Collective Soul and Green Day and us,
and a pile of other bands. A couple of guys in the band met a
couple of them, but it was very brief.
DM) Are you nervous about playing for a band that you've never
heard more then the cd of?
JP) I think we can hold our own. We've opened for some pretty
heavy bands. We've opened for the 'peppers' a couple of months
ago. Opening for the Peppers is probably one of the hardest bands
to open for, because they have one of the best live shows of
any band. Playing with Collective Soul, I'm really curious to
see them live and anxious to see them. I think we'll do fine
with their crowd.
DM) Any band that you'd never want to open for at all?
JP) I don't know... peppers was pretty tough, but we'd probably
anybody. We've done some odd gigs, but we'd play anywhere any
time as long as people are there to see us.
DM) What's the oddest gig you've ever did?
JP) We did a show in Vancouver where we were scheduled between
two comedy acts. That was very weird. We did this strange show
in Lansing on Saturday that was part of an Octoberfest celebration.
It actually ended up being really cool, but when we got there,
it was weird. They shut off part of the street. It was kind of
like a street party kind of thing. We were playing on this very
small stage that was 6 inches off the crowd. The kids who were
there, we get some radio play there, and the kids who were there
really dug it. I know we've done some weirder shows around, but
I can't think of them now.
DM) Out of all the tracks, which one would you consider your
favorite piece?
JP) It fluctuates between three songs. I think Silver is a
really cool song. Lyrically, I like it thematically. I really
like that song. It really has a good vibe. Things really came
together with that song. I like Picture Elvis a lot, that song
has a lot of meaning to me. And F????? was the other one I really
like a lot.
DM) Now just looking from a bass guitarist's perspective.
If I wanted to be a better bass guitarist, which one of these
songs, might be something to listen to?
JP) My influence, bass playing wise are people like Mike Mills
from REM and Eric Avery from Jane's Addiction. They're not flashy
players. They write lines that work well within the song. I would
pick Silver in that sense. F???? but beautiful is flashier but
I think there's something really nice about how simple the bass
line of Silver is.
DM) If you could choose one song to be a hit, which would
you choose to appeal to the masses?
JP) I would say Push probably. Silver gets a really good response
in Canada because the video has done really well there. It's
the second video in Canada which has done really well there.
But Push is a really good song to introducing people to the band,
it gives a really good cross-section and overview.
DM) You said 'Picture Elvis' has a lot of meaning to you,
why?
JP) Because I wrote it. I wrote the song in Toronto before
the band started.
DM) The song mentions a woman named Barbara. How does she
relate?
JP) Barbara is my grade 11 girlfriend. That was many years
ago, but she is somebody I think about quite a bit. Just because
I wonder what the hell she's doing these days.
DM) Did she ever hear the song? Why don't you send her a copy?
JP) I haven't spoken to her in many years, and I don't know
where she is, either. I would be to shy about sending her it.
I'm not sure how she'd react about a song dedicated on the album
to her. I think I'd like her to know but I'd like her to discover
on her own.
DM) I'm very impressed at the story behind Picture Elvis,
but why Elvis?
JP) I picked Elvis as being an archetype of a media figure.
The whole song is about the way two different people look at
the world. So much of what comes to us, especially what we look
at every day, is constructed by mass media. Elvis is the archetypical
figure of that. Nobody has any idea of who Elvis is, or was.
He's this figure that has been totally mediated and totally constructed.
It's just taking that as an example. It's not necessarily the
most apt title for the song, but it kind of stuck The song is
generally all about coming to terms of your own existence in
a world that is very mediated and very constructed. The one character
in the song believes that they can get everything they need to
out of the world through reading, watching television and looking
at pictures and that kind of stuff. And the other person is...
perhaps it's the same person, it's a transition the person has
gone through as somebody who wants to get out there and the ways
he experiences it.
DM) The last question I normally would ask is, "Is there
any question you wished I asked you?"
JP) No, you've done real well actually. A very entertaining
interview. I can't think of anything.
