YM:Do you guys have plans for a full-length album in the near future?
Dusty: Yes.
YM:Are you in the studio now?
Dusty: We’re done.
YM:Is there a release date?
Dusty: It will definitely be out by our fall tour though in September and October, all across Canada, and it’ll be in support of the album, but the actual date that it comes out, we don’t know.
YM:How is it in this day and age with social media to be a band? Do you think it’s more work than it was a generation ago?
Mar: I think it’s different, not that it’s more or less difficult. Even 10 years ago, you would have to do everything in person, but that wasn’t difficult because you were doing things in person anyway. You just do it more at home and word spreads faster, that’s for sure, so in that sense it is easier.
Pynner: It’s a good time to be a band. I think we’re lucky to be at this time with the Internet still being a new medium, less than 20 years old kind of thing.
Dusty: It’s sort of a blessing and a curse because I know that back in the day when I was a young lass, you heard about a band and you got so excited to go see them and you’d go over to your friend’s house with the CD and listen to it, but these days it’s almost so easy that it’s harder to get people really interested; it’s easy to get people a little interested, but it’s harder to get them to that level where they really care about you because they can just see you on Facebook or MySpace. Before I think there was a mystique that’s been raped by the Internet, but then it’s a lot better for being able to spread the word far and wide and to do a lot more of your own work.
Mar: It’s stimulus overload for both us as a band and fans because for us there’s so much more to do and for the fans there’s so much more that they can look at. Does it provide a competitive advantage for us? Yes and no. No because everyone else can do it because it’s accessible, but yes because we have those options out there.
Mykel: I really do think for an independent band who wants to be independent, the time is now because of Facebook, YouTube, and stuff. You can really get out there and reach more people faster than I think you were able to do 10 or 20 years ago or even because I can go and post a video by Kill Matilda–I can make a video, I can make content for people–put it out there without three or four editors over my shoulder telling me what I can or cannot do. We can mold our own future and destiny, which is really great because we have a pretty descent following on Facebook and it’s growing. It’s real active encouragement at the same time to see that growth.
Kill Matilda “She’s A Killer” Video
YM:With songs like “The Many Faces of the Apocalypse,” which is about zombies, and “She’s a Killer” with its video in which you’re burying somebody, we wonder how important horror is to you guys. And who are your favorite directors, actors, and movies in the horror genre?
Dusty: I was thinking about that the other day and when I was younger I was really into B-movies, Evil Dead was my favorite movie, I really liked splatter-core movies, Dead Alive by Peter Jackson and that kind of thing, but I’ve always been lyrically inspired to write by things that are really biological. A lot of my songs have visual imagery of bone, muscle, blood, skin, shit, whatever, like anything tactile and biological I find really juicy. I’m not so much worried about, oh, let’s make everybody think like, I mean we’re not the Horror Pops…
Mar: And her anecdotes represent that as well.
Dusty: I think the Horror Pops are awesome, but I’m saying the macabre is something that inspires us rather than [something] we are trying to push as our image.
Pynner: I never met anyone before with an actual phobia of zombies until I met Myk; I think it’s a clinical phobia.
Mykel: Romero movies, I watched a lot of those when I was young and they’ve had a major impact on my life. I have to say when we moved to Montreal and we were looking at places, I was thinking about if can we escape? If zombies come, is this a good area?
Mar: This is true; I vouch for him.
Pynner: We’re the only band that travels with a zombie survival kit.
Dusty: I guess the main thing here is that it’s not our goal to appear very horror or macabre, that’s just who we are.
Mar: It’s just us independent of the band.
What is Dusty’s opinion about Courtney Love and the impact of Hole…
