by Matt Dixon, April '08

1. Please introduce Eviction Party and give a bit of background info about the band.
Blar: I am Blar, I am from kitchener, I am not a good drummer.

Todi: I'm Todi Stronghands. I do the guitar, the driving, and pretty much everything except for the drums and bass.

Brad: My name is Brad Religion, and I am the only Marxist I know in a pop-punk band. I do a bit of the song-writing here and there, but I have my own masturbatory project that takes up most of my creative energy, so I mostly just play bass, and do bad impressions of Todi's singing.

Starla!: I'm not really even in this band... more of, like, a silent partner.

2. How would you describe your music to someone that has yet to hear it?
Blar: If Screeching Weasel fucked Blink 182 and tried playing their songs while being fucked but with not such fucked up lyrics.

Todi: Depending on who was asking, I would probably name a couple of other bands that they probably hadn't heard, then maybe I would say that it's like poppy punk, but not polished, and that it's kind of rough sounding and dirty or something. They'd probably have no idea what I was trying to convey, and end up thinking we sounded like Saves the Day (we don't), (or whatever emo pop band is hot this week) but with raspier vocals.

Brad: Somebody at work asked me this question, and I asked if they'd heard of Dillinger Four or Crimpshrine, and they said, "No," so I told them we sounded like Greenday living in a gutter.

3 . What does Eviction Party mean to you?
Brad: An indefinate period of poverty. Moderate college-hipster credibility.

Blar: Todi, Brad, and Sam wrote sweet songs and I'm trying to learn them.

Todi: It means I have the microphone most of the time, so people have to listen to me. Ha ha, um, can you be more specific?

Starla!: It means living in Calgary for 6 months (gross), buyng a van, helping with layouts and album art and posters and booking and mixing/mastering an album... and getting no punk cred' for it cause I'm not in the band. Although, I do get in to all the shows for free...

4. What politics and/or ethics, if any, play a role in the band, the lyrics, and the way the group goes about its business?
Brad: Eviction Party's first show was the first time I'd ever been to a show at a punk house. I was super stoked on them (though, on the other hand, I was also totally hammered). A couple days later, I asked Todi if I could play rythmn guitar, but he ended up getting Sam to do it instead (I was/am a shitty guitarist anyway). Anywhom, I month later, I moved into said house, and a little while later, ended up taking over playing bass (an instrument I didn't/don't own and had never played) after "Big Dan" disapeared, or decided to focus on hip-hop, or something. So really, Eviction Party represents this sort of phase of personal discovery and transition for me - living in filth, doing house shows, and generally distancing myself from my "former life" as a bourgie wannabe University Anarchist. It's the first time I ever played in a band where the songs were more in the personal vien (I'd been in a political hardcore band for a while), and it kinda reflected a change in the way I looked at my life, in terms of living my politics, and not just sloganeering.

Starla!: All of us, and most of our friends just try to do the best we can with what we've got for ourselves, our friends and our communities.

5. Based upon your experiences traveling, what is your take on the current state of the punk rock/DIY community within Eastern Canada?
Brad: We're still losing the class war, but, everytime I go to Halifax, more people know how to screenprint.

Starla!: When I was in California this January, I had someone ask me the same question... except they just said "Canada" no mention of the east or west... It's pretty much the same everywhere... It's a hard thing to define, especially when you are in our position. We all travel constantly (both together and seperatly). Each town and city and province has it's unique attractions or gimmicks or whatever... but when it all boils down, it's relitively the same thing everywhere with different variables. Maybe it all just seems the same after you've been everywhere too many times.

Blar: No comment.

Todi: Yeah, it could be better. I think what it comes down to is that people don't really like good things. We've tried to start our own scenes here and there, sometimes we've even been sort of successfull, but for the most part people don't go to house shows, and even our venue shows are empy sometimes. D.I.Y. punk won't be popular until the mainstream catches onto it, ruins it, makes it marketable, etc, then it won't really be d.i.y. anymore. My reasoning for this is not that something being popular necessarily makes it bad, just that people in our society are bred on crap, so people aren't going to like something unless it's watered down. People are going to have a hard time getting anywhere or getting through to anyone with honest music in a society that's so completely fucked, and full of bullshit, lies, and capitlaism.

6. Any interesting road/tour stories you'd like to share?
Todi: One time when traveling in the Tabervan (van owned by the Taberfucks, which we oh so cleverly named for them), there was this Peanut Butter in a grocery store in Dryden, Ontario, and it rang in wrong when they scanned it. Turns out it's their policy that you get it free when that happens. Brad had the guts to go into the store after I told him this, and purposely choose the same peanut butter so he'd get it free. It was totally obvious that I had told him about it, he went through the same checkout as me in this tiny town, and was probably only the second funny looking dirty punk kid to go in that store all day, week, month, perhaps year. I thought that was pretty funny.

7 . What are some of the things you try to communicate through your music?
Todi: Heartbreak, angst (ha ha). Stories, changing, traveling, moving, leaving shitty stuff behind. If it doesn't work, fuck it, do something else, go somewhere else, don't stay for something that's not going to work, and really, just don't waste your life away.

Brad: I like to think that we show people how to overcome post-modern angst by being a filthy drop-out.

Blar: Hard-core.

8. You're planning an extensive Canadian tour from April to June. How do you approach touring? Is it difficult for everyone to take two months off and put life on hold?
Todi: Music and Traveling are my life, so really when I'm not doing them is when things are actually on hold. It usually is for a few months or more each winter, when I run out of money and warm places to go. Especially this winter, I've been doing nothing but working, Starla! and I finally bought a van, so we can all bring our equipment on tour, instead of acoustic guitars.

Brad: Exactly - being on "the road" is life - wage slavery and all that bullshit in between is the dead time.
Starla!: If you're doing anything that requires you to "put your life on hold" then you're not really living.

9. Which do you prefer: bar show or house show, why?
Brad: House shows, because they can be such a powerful way to bring people into a community - to bring people into a physical space were "punk" isn't a one-night-a-week money-grab where 19+ fashion-punk assholes go to have cocksize competitions.

Blar: House shows, because bars are the breeding grounds for everything inherintly evil.

10. When do you think is the best time/situation to listen to an Eviction Party record?
Todi: I don't really know on that one. It always sounds the same to me. Maybe when you're drinking coffee and stitching your clothes with dental floss?

Blar: After meeting Brad and getting him stoned.

Brad: When CRASS aren't meeting yr emotional needs, and listening to Nation Of Ulyses makes you feel pretentious.
Starla!: At 2 in the morning when Todi is trying to get your oppinion on what may or may not have to be adjusted on the rough mix of the new album, and all you want to do is sleep.

11. The end of civilization will be caused by:
Brad: A bunch of white male suburban primitivists blowing up bridges, 'cos they think Derek Jensen is some sort of brilliant intellectual. Gag.

Blar: Me, or lizards.

Starla!: Probably Blar.

12. What's up next for Eviction Party?
Todi: After the next full length ("Foward, Always - released April 6), and 2 month tour?

Brad: Indefinate hiatus. Going for coffee, and drinking free refills until we're asked to leave. Lawn darts.

Todi: Probably nothing.

13. How can ppl contact you?
Blar: Todi.

Todi: P.O. Box 31224 Halifax, NS B3K 5Y1 evictionparty@hotmail.com

Brad: Come to our shows! Pick us up hitch-hiking!

14. Any final remarks?
Todi: No.

Blar: Can dead people take the bus? Get on my back.