Before the tour even started, as By Divine Right were mixing their new album at The Hip's Bathouse Studio - a converted farmhouse outside Kingston - they ended up recording the first casualty. Not quite road kill, but… Studio kill?

Contreras: We finished mixing our record at three in the morning, and Ken had gotten us drinking at midnight, 'cause he wanted us to get loaded for the last night. Christian goes downstairs to start packing up everything, to pack up the basement - we were sending a feed cable to a bass amp in the basement - and there was a dead rabbit right next to the bass amp. And we'd been down there every day, checking out the mic and stuff. There was a span of maybe ten hours where no one had looked at it. And it was rigor mortis, it was dead, and its eyes were open."

Downie: What were they reflecting, the last thing…?

Contreras: It actually looked really alive, to the point where, when I put my hand on it, I thought it was breathing, [that] it was gonna jump up and run away. So I freaked out, and my most paranoid thoughts came up immediately. Which were, like, "Someone's out to get me." So we had this old dictionary there, and it had all these crazy definitions for words that aren't used anymore. And we looked up "rabbit‚" and it had "rodent," and then there was this other definition that was like a verb: You could "rabbit" someone. And so we looked up that term and it was "to cast a curse or bring upon an evil spell." So I fuckin' freaked! I was gonna pack up my shit right then, at five o'clock in the morning, all loaded: "I'm leaving right now!" Christian's immediate reaction was that the rabbit had gone to fall asleep next to the music. But then the next day Deb called her mom, who is Wiccan, and her immediate thing was that the rabbit was a sign of new birth and added responsibility."

Downie: [Ponders] New birth and added responsibility. That's good!

Contreras: Right after a record, yeah, for sure.

Downie: No curse! Did you bury it?

Contreras: We took it to the top of the hill and just left it under a tree. We didn't bury it.

Downie: Nice. It's a good view up there.

Contreras: The craziest thing was the fur. I saw it and then I asked [co-producer Brendan] McGuire "What does it look like on its fur?" But I swear, it was a "J" on the rabbit's fur.

Downie: Jesus! Like blood?

Contreras: It looked like that's how its fur was combed, and it just got dark. But there was a very definite "J." So I tried to rub it with my foot, tried to comb its hair in different directions, but no matter which way I combed its hair, it said "J." I'm pretty out-there if I want to be, so I was ready to leave. But then I calmed down.

Downie: [in mock sleuth voice] What killed that rabbit, though? We should be asking ourselves that question.

Contreras: At one point we were worried about that bass tone. It was a horrible bass tone.

The bass player dunnit?

Contreras: "But I hate skepticism. I think it's important, but I'm finding so much skepticism in people around. No one believes in anyone, ultimately. They're always ready to second-guess someone.

Downie: "Healthy skepticism is good. I define unhealthy and healthy. And ultimately you have to face unhealthy skepticism by taking it on and then deciding whether it's time to be healthy about that, or that your unhealthy opinion about it was actually intact and right.

Recently downsized by the cruel corporate world, Jim Kelly has risen from the ashes to become a Chart writer extraordinaire. He's written music reviews for the past several years, motivated purely by the joy of writing and the love of music. He also did the bulk of online writing for the final stop of The Hip's 1997 Another Roadside Attraction tour in Barrie, and his work has appeared in the Elvis Costello newsletter, Beyond Belief. This is his first cover story and major website piece but certainly not his last for Chart Communications Inc.

To order this issue of CHART Magazine, send $5 to Chart Communications Inc, #200-41 Britain St., Toronto, Ontario M5A 1R7 Canada. Orders outside Canada, please pay in U.S. dollars. Cheque, money order or VISA payments accepted. For faster service with other payment options, email your order to nadal@chartnet.com