Trews Change Up On Record, Fight You On The Mat

10/28/09 1:03pm

by Trevor Morelli (CHARTattack)

Punchy, hard-driving rock anthems have always been The Trews' bread and butter, but the Antigonish, N.S. quartet are ready to branch out sonically.

Singer Colin MacDonald says the guys are sick of being known as the "Not Ready To Go" band and their new Friends & Total Strangers acoustic CD/DVD will show people they're musically capable of much more than producing catchy radio hits.

You also shouldn't go picking a fight with The Trews in a dark alley.

Drummer Sean Dalton has been known to dabble in mixed martial arts and, amongst other things, CHARTattack wanted to know if he's tougher than fellow Canadian MMA enthusiast Robin Black. MacDonald puts the smart money on their guy.

CHARTAttack: You guys aren't normally known for acoustic songs. Was it difficult to turn your electric songs into acoustic ones?
Colin MacDonald: It came really, really naturally. So many times, things are hard when you're trying to write new songs for a new album. It was a lot of fun to just jam for five or six hours at a time. We'd just be playing and then suddenly it's, like, "Where did the time go?" So we thought that if this felt good, we should just do it.

The DVD version of Friends & Total Strangers also includes footage from your beginnings as a band. Is it odd to look back and see how far you've come?
Other than what's out there on YouTube, this is sort of our first "official" documentary. I think all the time it's just odd for me to see myself, period. You learn as you go. When you first start, you don't have any money, so you can't buy any cool clothes or anything like that. A band like us may have looked like a fish out of water.

Speaking of YouTube, do you think websites like that are still helpful for artists or are they starting to damage bands' reputations?
It's a lot of distraction. I saw something in the paper about how more and more kids on Facebook are starting to fail at school. Or maybe it was that more humans are just failing at life (laughs).

At the heart of it, I think great music will prevail. Look at a band like Kings Of Leon. They've become big because they have great songs, not because they have some exceptional YouTube campaign. Those sites are just vehicles and the same ethics still apply as when a band first starts out. A lot of first albums are really good because the band was putting eight hours a day into making music. It's when you start to think you're big because you have 10,000 hits on YouTube that you'll let it get to your head.

So The Trews would rather win fans the old-fashioned way.
Yeah, we're always thinking 10 years ahead. It's just a matter of not always doing the same thing. Your instincts always take you to different places. It's about breaking out of the box.

Our biggest concern is always keeping it going and not spinning our wheels. I've always admired how The (Tragically) Hip did that. Each album sounded different from the last one. That's why we've never gone back to the same producer twice, and that's a way to keep yourself interested.

It's a way to keep your fans interested, too. In Canada, there's a lot of great talent and great fans, but it's always about "What have you done for me lately?"

What do guys do when you need to get away from the music for awhile? I heard one of you is into mixed martial arts.
That's our drummer Sean. He's into jiu-jitsu. The rest of us are into Heineken. That's how he keeps his zen-like focus.

And how do the rest of you keep your zen-like focus?
Well, ideally, you should be reading and listening to music and keeping in touch with people. But usually you end up hung over and talking shit and having a laugh.

It's funny how tours sort of devolve like that. You start with the best intentions — you bring [author Fyodor Dostoevsky's] Crime And Punishment to read or you plan on checking out all these neat indie bands. Then somehow you end up doing mad libs and filling in the spaces with dirty words.

So who would win in a fight: Sean or Robin Black?
I think Sean would beat Robin Black, but I've heard he's a pretty tough mofo. I know he's got cool hair, but I think Sean could beat him.

It's funny 'cause when we first started out, we played Edgefest in Barrie. There was Billy Talent and Three Days Grace playing the sort of mid-level stage and then us playing on the tiny stage. That's when we heard about Robin Black And The Intergalactic Rockstars. They had strippers and served people shots and they just looked like they were having a lot of fun.