Zeus: CMW 2011 Special Feature

Mar 08, 2011

by CHARTattack Robot

Toronto’s Zeus are in the studio hammering out some tunes for their follow-up to last year’s Say Us.

They’re releasing seven-inch singles until that next as-yet-untitled LP comes out. Carlin Nicholson says you can expect that next single to be out sometime in August, with the album to hopefully follow in the fall.

In case you’re curious, yes, that does mean the boys will play some new tunes at the CHARTattack/Horseshoe Tavern Canadian Music Week showcase.

We gave Nicholson and Neil Quin a ring to chat.

Hometown: Toronto, Ont.

Members:
Rob Drake
Carlin Nicholson
Mike O’Brien
Neil Quin

Official Website: www.arts-crafts.ca/zeus

So, you’re about to play the big industry event that is Canadian Music Week. What’s the most shameless thing you’ve ever done to promote your band?
Neil Quin: On our very first tour together with Jason Collett, we had these little placards made up with a picture of what we thought our record was going to look like and what we thought the name was going to be of the record. We were very sure of ourselves that we were going to have a record in a year’s time and it was called Something Awesome.

Every bar we played at, Jason would take a handful of them before people showed up, during the soundcheck, and he would line the bar with them. So, people would be showing up and seeing these little handbills of Zeus.

What’s the hardest part about being in an up-and-coming band?
Carlin Nicholson: There’s no hard part. Not really. I mean, there’s parts that require some work, but we expect to have to work to get to where we want to be. It’s part of what you do.

How important is it for your band members to circulate and flirt with the audience before or after the show?
Carlin Nicholson: It’s important to us. We like to make an appearance for sure. It all depends on the scale of the show.

If it’s our own headlining show and we’re doing southern Ontario stuff or stuff through Europe where we’re building that market, then definitely. We’re on the scene anyway doing what we do with our gear or whatever, so we always end up chitchatting, which is great.

Then for the higher scale ones, where you’re out doing opening slots — like the last BSS tour or the Metric one — those are a similar thing because you can really drum up some serious business if you have a good guy working the merch table. But if the band shows up just to say “Hey, how are you?” it’s good. It draws a lot of people over. It’s good to find out where the pulse is at.

Have you ever stolen from someone else’s rider? If so, who was it and what did you take?
Carlin Nicholson: We didn’t steal. The best rider score was with Metric. They gave it to us. They were like, “Dudes, we’re not going to eat this stuff,” but it was just like, all these cheeses, all these sausages, tasty meats, all the rest. We were just slicing cheese with our Metric lanyards. That’s the way it went down.

We basically all at the hugest salami, most expensive cheese sandwiches and got to the point where we felt terrible, ate more, too, and then the next day we were just feeling so terrible. But at the time we were like, “Whoa! What a score!” All this great stuff. Boy, you should see their rider. It’s really something else.

Have you ever been graded before according to ChartAttack.com’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Report Cards?
Carlin Nicholson: [asks bandmates] I don’t know, have we?

You guys got an 83 at NXNE 2009.
We’re shooting for an A this year, though. We won’t accept any less. You let us know if it’s not going in the right direction.

Have you done anything new or interesting this week?
I made pancakes from scratch this morning.

Sweet. For pancake Tuesday?
You know what? That’s the best part of the story, is that I had no idea that it was pancake Tuesday. Maybe subliminally I must have known somehow, but I found out later when I got to the studio and Mike was like, “Oh, yeah, it’s pancake Tuesday.” I was like, “Really?” For some reason I just woke up with this craving for blueberry-wildberry pancakes cooked on the George Foreman flat grill.

[to Neil Quin] What about you, Neily? Anything new and exciting this week?

Neil Quin: I got a new guitar. First one in eight years. I got the most screamin’ deal. I got an Epiphone Casino, and it’s like the blonde, natural wood colour. Looks kind of like John Lennon’s guitar from the later days.

The interesting thing was, the last guitar I bought, I walked into the store and I saw it and I was just like, “Oh, my God! This is it!” The exact same thing happened with this guitar. I wasn’t planning on buying a guitar; I went in to buy strings and it was on the rack. I don’t usually have the money to do such a thing, but I did it, and it’s the best decision I ever made.

Zeus play the CMW 2011 CHARTattack/Horseshoe Tavern showcase on Thursday, March 10 at 12:20 a.m.

Zeus: CMW 2011 Special Feature

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