The Singing Lamb: So, first of all, how’s the reaction to the new EP treating you?

The reactions have been extremely positive so far, which is great because when you take your art and put it out there to be judged you never know how people are going to react to it. Releasing Fathers has been very different from the experience we had after the first EP came out exactly a year prior. When we finished the first EP we had no idea what the response was going to be, or if there was going to be anyone listening at all, we just wanted something to sell at our shows. This time around we knew that there were going to be some people paying attention to the album. There is this whole new world out there where everyone is a critic with an opinion, and a place to permanently etch that opinion in stone. So far the carvings in the gravestone ofFathers have been very kind, but who knows, that might change. We recorded Fathers to document the transformation that we had undertaken in the time period from the first recordings. We think that we accomplished that, and I guess that is all one can ask for.

You’re playing NxNE in a few days – is this the first time you’ve played there? And are you reasonably excited for it?

No, we played NxNE last year but under very different circumstances. Last year was our first time playing NxNE so we understandably got tossed onto a random bill. We played at Neutral on the Thursday, I’m not even sure who with, and it was pretty sparse in the club. We only found out about our acceptance to NxNE about 3 weeks before the show and had just had our EP release the week before. As per any of our shows, we had a great time. If you give us some booze we would be content playing in the alley behind The Waverly.

We are really stoked this year because of all of the cool shows going on in the city but because we have to awesome shows to play ourselves. Thursday we are on a great bill at The Drake on with our good friends Oh No Forest Fires, The Balconies who played our release party for Fathers and Amos The Transparent who we have played with a couple of times now, once at CMW and once at Pop Montreal.

We also get to play Friday at Young and Dundas Square on the Mill Street Brewery side stage – can you say free beer?

What artists are you excited to see here during NxNE?

I think that we are going to be taking full advantage of our passes this year. I got the plague after our show last year and couldn’t go to any shows. We’re starting the festival off Wednesday with the Vice Party where The Almighty Defenders (King Khan and members of the Black Lips) are going to be getting down. After that there’s a bunch so I am just going to list off the shows that we are going to try to attend. Slashes indicate shows are at same time so we’ll have to make a game time decision. Timber Timbre, No Age,/D’urbervilles, DD/MM/YYYY, Crystal Antlers, Japanther, Parlovr, The Darcys, Dinosaur Bones, King Khan & BBQ Show, Black Lips.

On your MySpace, your profile says that your music may stem from “partying in the bowels of dead-end suburban cul-de-sacs.” Is this a reflection of Brampton? I mean, Brampton can’t really be that dead and boring…can it?

Oh it can. Adam, Rob and I lived it. I’m sure Bryan and Dan had the same experiences when they were growing up in their respective towns of Pickering and Burlington. There isn’t much to do on weekends when you’re underage in the burbs, other than finding a house party to crash or burning fire logs by a creek for warmth during January; drinking it can be a very sterile environment to find inspiration in. Interestingly enough I didn’t start playing music until I moved away from Brampton to University in Guelph. So maybe creativity is a symptom of the withdrawal experienced when taken away from the gates of suburban hell.

So, I must know: how much of an interest do you guys have a with ‘monster movie’ culture? Since you have songs called “Lost Boys” and “Castlevania”? And they do seem to have a dark undercurrent in them, lyrically and rhythmically – does the band regularly get together to watch Sam Raimi movies?

We are all very big monster/horror movie fans but I don’t think that it was a conscious decision to have those themes in our songs, it kind of just happened. It’s funny because while Castlevania was named due to the imagery within the lyrics, Lost Boys’ was named because, as always, I couldn’t come up with a name for the song, it has nothing to do with vampires. We were about to play a show one night at Rancho Relaxo and the rest of the guys were bothering me to name the song because we had already played it a couple of times and been calling it ‘New One’. As anyone who knows Rancho, there are always old VHS movies being played behind the bar and at that very moment of harassment ‘Lost Boys’ was on so I just said ‘Fine, how about Lost Boys?’ and it stuck. That probably had to do with the lyrics talking about floating and being lost eh. We are currently working on a song called ‘Do The C.H.U.D Twist’

Oh, and don’t forgot about ‘Zombie City Shake’ ..we really do like monsters don’t we.

Do you guys do a lot of improvising in your sets, or do you stay strict to the EP recordings? The EP songs seem like they could be altered a lot onstage.

Most of the improvising done on stage has to do with us maneuvering around each other so one of us doesn’t get their teeth knocked out. We do a lot of switching of instruments during our live show so that can also be tricky when it comes to making stuff flow well. As for the songs themselves, we have been toying with throwing vocals over our one song ‘Pictorial History’ and making it somewhat of a mash-up. We also sometimes like to throw a cover song into the middle of ‘Swords’, if you come to our show at Young and Dundas you might just hear one.

Has Toronto been kind to the musical process with you? As in, do you find significant enough influence in the city and its musical scene to inspire you?

Toronto has been an amazing city to us. Although we all grew up outside the city, as a band it is where we first started playing shows.. Four of us now call it home and probably will for a while to come. I think it is a great city for inspiration, especially musically. There are so many great bands spread across a bunch of different genres and on any given night you might see three or more of these styles crossing bridges and playing on the same bill. I think that is why there is such good music coming from the city these days, everyone draws inspiration from one and other and takes it to their own place.

And finally, as per tradition: if you were a singing animal, what would you be?

As per Black Hat Brigade style we would have to be the Werewolf in ‘Monster Squad’ after he got kicked in the nards, the man can hit some high ass notes.

For more Black Hat Brigade,
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/blackhatbrigade

Missed Black Hat Brigade at NXNE? Well do not fear, the band will be back in town on July 11th, 17th and 30th! Click on the MySpace link for more details!