Besnard Lakes, May 13th

Whelans, Dublin

Interviewed by Gareth Williamson

Transcribed and Edited by Shannon Duvall

The Besnard Lakes are: Nicky Lizee (keyboards), Steve Raegele (guitar, vocals)

Jace Lasek (vocals, guitar), Richard White (guitar), Kevin Laing (drums, vocals)

Olga Goreas (bass, vocals)

PART I

In which our interviewer gets the scoop on the theft of the Brown Mansion, and learns a new word for fish-eating vegetarians.

You’re from Canada! (mutual laughter)

Jay: Yeah, Montreal.

I hear it’s a terrible place.

J: Yep. Long drives. If you don’t own a car you can’t get anywhere.

Really?

J: Unless…if you live in Montreal you don’t need a car. We don’t have a vehicle. Actually, our van was stolen over Christmas time. Somebody put it on a tow truck and drove it away. It was the biggest piece of shit van you’ve ever seen, and they fucking drove it away. The back had a…the doors, like, the hinges were falling off, they’d been rusted out…you guys don’t get rust over here because you don’t get fucking ice and snow, so they fill the streets with salt over the wintertime to clear the streets. So the cars get super corroded! So when we first got this van it was rusting out, so the only way we could keep the hinges on the back, ‘cause we were using the back doors all the time…it was kind of a camper, you know, it had, like, a fridge, and a stove, and a sink in it…um…we actually put in some rebar, and attached a metal bracket to the inside of the hinge, and then filled the back of the van with concrete to keep the door on! (laughs) And it actually worked really well! But a couple of times, we crossed the American border, and I was like, people are gonna think there’s, like, cocaine in the back of the van, or something, embedded in this concrete! But we never got…we got caught for other reasons at the border, but not…that’s not why. So, long story short, you know, it was a big, disgusting brown van, made in 1983, AND SOMEBODY FUCKING STOLE IT!

With a pickup truck?!

J: Yeah with a fucking…put in on a flatbed truck and drove it away!

That’s the best fucking ROB ever!

J: I know! Unbelievable, man! So, it’s kind of like…we didn’t want to sell it…we were like, we can’t really sell this to anybody ‘cause it’s a piece of shit. I mean, we’d feel really bad selling it to somebody, so we were like, “well, we’ll keep it, we’ll drive it into the ground, we can’t tour with it anymore because it’s, like, completely useless and it’s dangerous to drive, and we’re scared to take it anywhere. So we were driving it around the city, and I have a studio, and we’re always expanding the studio, so we’re, like, loading it (the van) full of drywall, and putting building supplies into it, and using it to move amps around and do local show, and stuff, so we were like, okay, it’s fine, we have it, and over Christmastime we went away, and somebody took it away from us! (laughs) At least we didn’t have to sell it or take it to a scrap yard, so you know, all in all it kinda worked out.

You didn’t have to deal with that yourself; it was stolen!

J: (laughs) Good riddance!

Olga: Totally, fucking, the weirdest thing ever.

(sarcastically) It’s like, fucking assholes, they stole our van. Oh, damn.

J: Yeah!

Very mature!

J: I know. And no insurance.

O: No insurance. Couldn’t get it.

J: In order to get it insured, we would have had to…it would have had to pass Aircare, which is, like, air quality control there. So in order for it to pass Aircare, we would have had to spend 1,000 - 2,000 dollars to make it work and pass. So we were like “fuck that”. So we had it for two years without any fucking insurance on it, and then it got stolen and we were like, “Okay. See ya later.”

O: It was a pretty unmistakable looking van, you know. We call it the Brown Mansion, actually. (laughing) It’s this big huge camper van, and it’s got this big roof on it…ohhhhh, my god.

Oh, was it a Volkswagen?

J: No, it was like a….

O: …a Dodge.

J: Imagine, like, a  Volkswagen, but GI-GANTIC. It was one of the biggest vans I’ve ever seen in my life. But it was “camperised”, like, with a fridge and stove and sink. And our drummer, Kevin, is a cook, so he used to do…on one of our first tours, we wanted to save money, so we wouldn’t eat out, so he would cook. We would stop at a grocery store, buy some food, and then while we were driving he would cook. And then we’d stop on the highway somewhere and eat. So we were always eating really well, and it was really cheap, and now we have to buy food, I guess.

O: Or just deal with whatever we get on the rider here, which, today were these little apple tartlets, and, uh…candy bars. Which was quite enjoyable. Oh, and two apples, one with a bite taken out of it.

Are you serious?

O: Can you maybe suggest to us someplace where we can go eat?

Which is cheap?

O: Yeah, which is cheap.

(stumped) Uhhhhmm…

O: Like, what sort of special cuisine is there in this neighborhood?

Well, there’s always Chinese takeaways, or kebab places and shit like that…burger joints. There’s a great place called Manhattan, up that way down by Crawdaddy, where you can get a full Irish breakfast at 2, 3 o’clock in the morning, which you can’t get anywhere else.

O: Right, what I want to know is this: In Montreal we have a dish called Poutine which is french fries drenched in gravy and cheese curd. And it’s the most delicious…no, no, don’t look at me like that! It’s delicious!

Cheese curd??

O: Cheese curd.

J: Good when you’re hungover.

O: And you won’t be hungover if you have Poutine. You’ll be fine the next day! Everything’s good, everything’s good.

Food for Irish people is a full fry-up, which is sausage, bacon, black and white pudding, eggs & toast.

O: Holy crap! Black and what pudding?

Black and white pudding.

O: What’s that?

It’s pretty much the leftovers of the pig. And the black pudding has more blood in it.

O: Oh, my god! Black and white pudding, let’s do it! Yeah, we’re doing it. Oh, man, that’s amazing. There’s only one vegetarian in the group, (joking) so screw him! He’s right over there.

J: Jesus Christ, what a nightmare that is, when you’ve got one fucking vegetarian going “Oh, no, I can’t eat meat, we’ve gotta stop at a fish place!”

Fish place?

J: Oh, he eats fish. But at that point, fuck, you might as well just eat fucking meat, you know? Fucking pussy.

O: Oh, come on. (to our intrepid interviewer, Gareth) Have another beer!

Ah, no, I’ve had enough already.

(Jay laughs a hearty pirate laugh, not the last of the evening.)

But don’t actual, hardcore vegetarians avoid fish as well as other meat?

O: Pescatarians.

What?

O: There’s actually a name for that: Pescatarians. They’re like, fish-a-I’ve never heard of a pescatarian.

O: I don’t know, someone once said it to me…like Pisces, fish: Pescatarians. So you eat fish, but not any other red meat.

But vegetarians….fuck ‘em.

J: (pirate laugh again)

My ex is a vegetarian.

J: FUCK HER! It’s bullshit! (maniacal laughter again)

(laughs) She’s actually nice.

J: Oh, well, okay, forget that then.

O: You can edit this out on your little machine.

PART II

In which Jay finally gets his, and the Rip Off Republic takes a tongue-lashing.

So how’s the tour been going?

Jay: Great! It’s been amazing. There are more people showing up here for shows than have been showing up so far in other towns in North America! And people have been coming to these shows and are pretty excited about it. So it’s amazing. France was…unbelievable. The UK has been awesome. Dublin…amazing. I’m kinda shocked, actually.

Olga: (incredulous) There are people coming to our shows and we’ve never been here!

Oh, this is your first time in Dublin?

J & O: (in unison) Oh, yeah!

J: Our first time overseas. We were in Paris in February doing press, and it was the first time I’d ever been. See, all my friends were going over in high school, and I thought, “No, I’m not gonna go over. I’m gonna wait until I tour with a rock band.” And they were all like, “Yeah, whatever, you loser!” And I was like, “No, I’m gonna do this.” And…here I am! So FUCK YOU!

(everybody laughs)

We’ll send them a copy of this interview.

J: Yeah, send them a copy and say “Thanks a lot, friends!”

So when did you start the tour?

J: Uhhh…15th of May. That was the first date, in Strasbourg France. And Paris was our second date. Then we went over to Brighton. Then we played Nottingham, and….here, so far. So this is our fourth or fifth show. We played two days in Brighton for the Great Escape festival. So next we’re going to Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, London, Bristol, Brussels, Amsterdam, and then back.

When do you play Bristol?

J: Couldn’t tell ya.

Right. So any tour highlights?

J: Our tour manager: the amazing Remco.

Ah, tour manager/sound engineer!

J: Yeah, man, he’s amazing. The wickedest dude we’ve ever met. He totally takes care of us. I can finally sit in the back of the van and just stare out the window. We even have a Playstation in there now.

Really? Is it a van?

J: No, it’s not that big…

O: It’s a Mercedes Benz. We don’t see these things in North America.

J: Yeah, we were like, “Holy shit! Playstation!”

O: And videos!

J: Yeah, we watched the Led Zeppelin DVD, (The Who’s) The Kids Are Alright, there’s a Flaming Lips one we can’t get to work.

O: Apparently, if the DVD’s from a different country it won’t play.

That’s right. So how was the flight from England?

J: Actually, we took the ferry. Fucking 400 euros for a goddamn ferry ride!

Four hundred?

J: 400 euros for us to get over here! And we were delayed by an hour and a half! So we were sitting on the fucking ferry going “We just paid 400 euros to get to Dublin on time, and we arrive, and the promoter was like “We didn’t think you were going to show up!” I mean, FUCK! We were on the ferry for FIVE HOURS!

Was that price for all of you?

J: Yeah. And the ferry was full of old people!

I have to say that price is pretty good.

O: (in disbelief) Really?! That wasn’t even round-trip! That was one way…and…oh, god, we have to do this again!!

J: We go to Glasgow, and then….some other fucking UK city I’ve never heard of….I don’t know…(laughing)

O: (laughing, then to Jay) Have another one!

PART III

Aliens, acid, and absolutely no music discussed! Woo-hoo!

Have you guys ever read Cometbus?

O: Actually, yeah!

J: I read some of the new stuff. Olga’s into the philosophy of Grant Morrison.

O: Yeah, a friend of ours gave us this DVD of Grant Morrison doing a lecture…

J: Disinformation.com. It’s like a conspiracy theory website.

( A fan interrupts to compliment the band on their gig. It’s her birthday.)

J & O: (together) HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Fan: I’ve really enjoyed this night, thank you.

J: Thanks very much! (continuing on to Gareth) So it’s disinformation.com. It’s all about conspiracy theories and, like, taking acid to find enlightenment, and seeing little green men who are aliens who are controlling the consciousness of the earth. But you are actually able to control your own destiny and consciousness if you tap into what their (the aliens, we presume) wavelength is.

Yeah…

J: And Grant Morrison talks about this. And so does Robert Anton Wilson, and he sort of championed Timothy Leary’s theories, like the Smile movement from the 60’s. But it’s great! You can download this wicked video on disinformation.com of Grant Morrison talking about drawing sigils and you can, like, choose your destiny by writing out what you want and then taking out all the vowels, and taking out all the double letters, and then making a drawing out of it. And then you focus on the drawing, which becomes an icon which he calls a sigil. But the whole time he’s talking about this he’s on acid! (Olga laughs) And at the start of the talk, he gets up on stage and he’s like, “Okay, you guys, this is going to be a crazy talk,” and he’s like, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. You’re going to watch me come up in about a half an hour, forty-five minutes.

I’m going to, you know, come up on drugs!” So he starts talking, and it gets weirder and weirder, and then there’s one point where he’s, well, he’s drinking white russians, and at one point he goes to take a sip, and he totally misses his mouth, and it just spills down all over his shirt, and he goes, “Holy fuck! Whatever.” He just brushes it off and keeps talking! It’s fucking hilarious! (Olga and Jay both have a good laugh)

O: Anyway, Grant Morrison is, like, an indie comic guy, but I think he kinda went to the majors, like he was writing for Marvel comics. Like, basically, he got on the big side. I can’t even remember right now exactly what the names of his comics were, but I remember just looking through some and just…he had talked about weird things that happened to him, like when…what Jason was talking about before with the sigils …he was encoding them in his comics, and it kind of signified him as a character in his comics. And all this weird shit started coming true for him in his life. Like, it was pretty weird stuff, like really kinda creepy!

J: Yeah, like, he was talking about (how) he wanted a new girlfriend, and he started drawing this perfect woman that he wanted into his comic book. And then suddenly he was walking down the street and all these women who looked like the woman that he was drawing were appearing, and, like, coming to him. And he just kept saying, “It works! It works! You gotta try it ‘cause it works!” But do you know Rusty Brown?

No.

J: I can’t remember the guy’s name, but there’s a whole book, this beautiful book, that’s a collection of the comics this guy has done. I can’t remember his name…Chris…Chris Thomas, maybe, I’m not sure. But he does this one series called Rusty Brown, which is about this total geek, video game, like, doll collector. Like, he collects toys and paraphernalia. He lives in his parents’ basement, and he’s kinda portly, and it’s the most hilarious series. My other favorite is Daniel Clowes, like Eight Ball, or I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Ghostworld? It’s one of my all-time favorite movies, I just love it. Then there’s Waking Life, which just happened to be on TV last night.

I haven’t seen Waking Life, I hear it’s really good.

J: Oh, man, it’s incredible. You gotta smoke a joint and watch Waking Life. It’ll blow your mind.

O: Yeah, fucking watch that!

J: It’s amazing!

(jokingly) Okay, let’s go to recommendations!

PART IV

In which our interviewer narrowly escapes certain death, Jay breaks the law, and a famous sex-offender is fondly remembered.

So do you guys take care of your Myspace page yourselves?

J: Yeah!

Awesome, I’ll be spamming it!

J: (laughs) Definitely.

O: Oh, fuck you! Don’t! We’ll have to block you!

Is that The Bear over there?

J: Yeah, our drummer’s named The Bear, ‘cause he’s one tough son of a bitch. When we went to Nottingham, I was like, “Kevin, we’re going to Nottingham, and you’re going to stand beside me the whole time. And I ain’t saying shit, just in case someone wants to beat the shit out of me.”

O: You know, we’d been told Nottingham’s a really tough city, and we didn’t know really what to expect, so it’s good to have a person like Kevin in your band, because you don’t want to fuck with Kev!

J: He’s Scottish.

I could take him.

(laughter)

O: Wait a minute, I don’t know, man.

If I took a piss I could take him.

(more laughter)

You know, not on a full bladder.

O: Well, I don’t fuck with Kev, and I can fuck with anyone, basically.

(Jay shouts to Kev the Bear)

J: Hey! He wants to fight you!

(riotous laughter and shouts)

So I was wondering, I lived in Queens a couple summers ago. Saw some good bands. What do you think of New York?

J: I like New York. I wouldn’t ever want to live there, but I like going there. It’s very big, and the cool thing about it is that you can turn a corner and there’s something happening. New Yorkers are very vibrant, and they like to yell and scream. New York is very….

Staff: I’m afraid you are doing something illegal.

J: Smoking a cigarette??

Staff: Yep.

J: (disbelief) Really??

O: I’m afraid what?

(filling her in) You’re not allowed to smoke inside.

O: Oh.

Staff: You’ll have to put it out.

J: Sorry, I didn’t know. I thought I saw people smoking in here.

Staff: No problem.

J: (back to Gareth) They could have thrown us out! In America, they would have been like, “Get the fuck out of here! Fuck you! Get out of my country, you fucking terrorist!” (everyone laughs) “You got a problem with freedom?! You’re smoking cigarettes where you’re not supposed to be!” (in a sing-song voice) NIGHT-MARE!

O: Feels like we’ve been sitting here for a fucking hour!

Forty minutes.

(laughter)

I think most of what I have is just chat. No interview, just chat.

J: Yeah. That’s good, though.

Have you heard the Williamsburg band Au Revoir Simone?

J: Oh, yeah, actually! We toured with Dirty On Purpose, and the drummer’s girlfriend is in Au Revoir Simone, and she came out with us, so we met her. Sorry, I think it’s the drummer’s wife. I actually couldn’t remember the name of her band, and I asked the bass player for Dirty On Purpose, and he was like, “Do you remember PeeWee’s Big Adventure?” One of my favorite movies of all time. But he said, “Do you remember when he meets the French girl? When he goes to say goodbye to her he (in PeeWee Herman gurgly-growly shout) goes: AU REVOIR, SIMONE!” I will never fucking forget that! (laughs)

That’s not where they got the name from?

J: I think that’s where they got the name.

That is just heart-breaking.

J: I don’t know where else they would get that from. When we were kids that was one of the things we used to say. We loved PeeWee’s Big Adventure. (sees Gareth’s forlorn expression) Oh, come on!

You broke my heart.

J: Hey, he may be a chronic masturbator, but he’s a good comedian!

Anyway, moving on!

O: Moving on…next question!

So what influences your music the most?

J: David Lynch.

(a few seconds of silence)

J: David Lynch, Roy Orbison, Beach Boys, Bee Gees, Fleetwood Mac, and, um, Gerry Rafferty.

Why?

J: Why the fuck not? (laughs) I grew up on all that stuff. My dad used to play it all the time. He had an 8-track of Bee Gees Greatest Hits of the 70s, pre-disco shit, very vocal heavy. Also The Beach Boys Endless Summer. I love that, it’s one of my all-time favorites. (It’s) just a compilation of Beach Boys songs, but great record. And then David Lynch hit me in the 90’s and I was totally just changed - Julee Cruise: love Julee Cruise’s music. You’re shaking, dude.

I do that. It’s a leg thing.

J: I shake, too.

And I’ll shake at the most awkward of times.

J: That’s a good lyric for a song. “I shake at the most awkward of times.”

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Tags: interview, ptsil 4, the besnard lakes, whelans
Current Location: Dublin, Ireland