Do the Rheos go to the States often?

DK: No, but we might with this record. It’s almost pointless without radio play or the kind of money you need. Or you really have to want to do it, like the Barenaked Ladies. They went down year after year and lost money every time. Tyler Stewart once told me, after they went down there the first couple of times, ³We might as well have driven up and down Broadway throwing hundred dollar bills out the window with our names written on them.² But it eventually worked. They’re such a hard working band, they just go, go, go. Not like us, we’d rather stay home [laughs] and make another record. We’re lucky we can afford to do that.

How did that happen?

DK: Before I joined the band, they were on Sire Records and were getting big label advances. They made Introducing Happinessin the Bahamas. But when I joined on, all of that was over. Then we did a record with Cargo, The Blue Hysteria,and they just vanished with all our money. We lost our shirt with that record. But we got rid of our management and we manage ourselves now, we’re all more aware of how the business works, and we’re making more money too. Things have worked out really well. And being on a smaller label with good distribution is O.K. because our fans go looking for our records, they don’t need a lot of promo stuff that the major labels can do. We actually make money on record sales where Ron (Sexsmith) doesn’t. So much is spent on his videos and promotions that he doesn’t make a nickel on record sales. Ron makes his living off advances and publishing. When Ron goes to Japan he makes tons of money, but he loses money when he tours the States because it’s so expensive to tour there. In Canada he probably breaks even. Ron lives the major label life where he lives for a year on a big advance until the next one when he makes a new record. The Rheos went through all that with Sire but I’d never want to be in that boat.

What did you do before joining the band?

DK: I’d been playing with Ron for 12 years in Toronto. Ron and I both worked as bicycle couriers and I run the Gas Station recording studio. I also used to play with Bob Wiseman.

How did you become a part of the Rheostatics?

DK: The Rheos did some recording at the Gas Station so they knew me from there and I produced a Bob Snider record and Dave Bidini played guitar on it. Tim was the only one who had ever heard me play drums before and he asked me to join just because we got along so well. And the rest is history.

What ever happened to the song "Desert Island Discs" [where audience members would list their three favourite records in the middle of the song that’s about people's favourite records] in your live repertoire? I heard it once in '94 and haven’t heard it since.

Well, we have so many songs, this is our 10th record coming out. But that song finally made it onto a record — the Double Livealbum. And since it got on there, we’ve stopped doing it. We tend to do that one when we play all-ages matinee shows, we just turn off the P.A. and do it right in the audience.

So what are your desert island discs, Don?

DK: Randy Newman’s first record, Randy Newman Creates Something New Under The Sun,I think is one of the greatest records ever made. Joni Mitchell’s Blue,I never go anywhere without that with me. Two Canadian records have stood out lately — the latest Local Rabbits album and the Rufus Wainwright album. It’s so old-fashioned, like music of the '20s meets opera.