Cold Warps by Matt Dixon, January '09

You wanted it, you got it: An interview with the garage/pop/punk sensation out of Halifax that has everybody talking; an exclusive with Cold Warps. You can see Cold Warps kickin out the newly coined "cold jams" on the 30th of January 2010 at the legendary House of Rock located at 361 Kent St in downtown Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Hang Up On You from s/t cassette

1. Please introduce Cold Warps and tell us how you guys all decided to get together and play music?
DOM: It began with Lance, Charlie Adams’ understudy, wanting to start the perfect band. His requirements were simple: (a) 0% body fat, (b) toned to the bone, (c) tanned, (d) vibe. Paul was the first to be roped in. Lance found him destroying the opposition at the National MC competition (Men's Singles) in Kamloops, BC.

Baby (A.K.A. Ryan) was the next to join the Cold Warps roster. On his yearly shopping trip to Toronto, Lance, a Nike AF1 aficionado, happened upon an 8th-grade talent show in the lobby of the Bata Shoe Museum. At the time, Baby was on stage playing a bass-only rendition of "My Adidas" using a unique special-issue Gibson/Adidas Shoe Bass donated to the museum by Darryl Matthews McDaniels during his 1997 fall into depression and spasmodic dysphonia. Combining the skill of Jaco Pastorius, the sexual charisma and energy of Gene Simmons and the psychedelic insight of Roger Waters into the body of a 13 year old, Baby would be the ultimate addition to the band. After a long custody battle, Lance became Baby's legal guardian.

I (Dom) was the last and most expensive addition to the band. I was purchased at the 2001 Montreal Jazz Fest Silent Auction (Guitarist Pavilion) as the result of a bidding war between Lance and the Halifax-based Paris-Jazz conglomerate known as Gypsophilia. Soon after this, we searched the internet for "unused, but cool band names"---Cold Warps was at the top of the list. The rest is history.

PAUL: In other words, Dom Taylor plays guitar, Ryan Allan plays bass, Lance Purcell plays drums, and I (Paul Hammond) sing. Dom and I had been talking about starting something together for a few months, and we'd both been on a steady diet of 60's garage, power pop and punk for a very long time. We wanted to do something fun, simple and catchy. Something undeniably pop-based and something none of us had ever done before. .

2. You guys have a tape out, or well you did until everyone snatched them up, but I hear you may be making more of them at some point. Now it seems that tapes are coming back in a big way within the DIY community. I'm wondering about your decision to make the effort and go with a tape release for your first recordings. What drove you to the good ol' cassette tape?
PAUL: We're doing another 50 tapes right now, and that will probably be the last batch of those.. we may re-release the material in another format some other time, but who knows. The original idea for these songs was to just have a digital download that was free.. which we did, but then we wanted to do a physical release as well.. and cassettes just seemed like a good idea. It's only 11minutes long, and cds are really losing their appeal to most people under 40 so we didn't want to go that way. Cassettes were basically a great way to make a nice little physical object for people who collect music, or appreciate format/objects.

DOM: I think it’s pronounced CASS—ETT.

3. You'll be playing the legendary House of Rock in Charlottetown PEI on the 30th of January alongside Windom Earle. Now I'm not sure about the other members but I know you, Dom have a history with the House of rock, playing there as well as going to shows on occasion. Could you share with us a memorable moment or two from the House of Rock?
PAUL: I have seen a few shows at the house of rock, but I will let Dom field this one.

DOM: Thanks for being so generous, Paul. The first show I played at the HOR definitely holds the most meaning for me. Stephan and I met after my first show with my first band on PEI (Beefwolf…) and he asked me to play a show at HOR the next day with YAMAMOTOYAMA (one of their last shows). I had no idea what HOR was. In fact, since moving to Charlottetown from Ottawa a year or so earlier, I had made no real effort to participate in the all-ages community. Anyway, I played the show and it really changed my view of music in PEI. That being said, there have been way more ACTUALLY memorable moments at HOR like the last Tastes Like Burning show (when Ryan shattered the front living-room window via his amazingly intense drumming) or the time when Ger. from Oh God got a volunteer from the audience to take a hit from a sock full of dimes. The first show I played there is memorable to me because it introduced me to a wicked bunch of local bands, people and an amazing community. Thanks Jamie!

4. House shows are the lifeblood of a DIY music community; would you agree with this statement? Generally speaking what do you think house shows mean a music community and what has been your wildest experience at a house show?
PAUL: I love house shows. I've been going to shows in basements for nearly 17 years, and without question if I had to name my top 10 shows I've ever attended, I think most if not all would be house shows, held in basements, livingrooms, hallways.. There is something so grass-roots and human about playing music in someone's home. The setting completely removes any pretense of the artist/fan divide, or anything like that. It's a totally level experience. Probably my favourite house show would have been Buried Inside in a livingroom on Hunter Street in Halifax NS. There were literally kids climbing walls, and pushed against the ceiling in order to see that show. It was fantastic.

DOM: One of my wildest house show experiences involved one of my least favourite condiments. The show was around five (?) years ago at Nick’s House in Rice Point(?). I was playing there with Operation Impact (I don’t remember who else was playing---I think Kevin Arnold---I remember having a ton of fun and that the bands were wicked). A friend of mine had given me a giant container of Miracle Whip as the result of a strange inside-joke a few months earlier---it sat in the corner of my room for a long time (staring back at me). Brasdt (also in Operation Impact) and I decided that we would put this topping to good use by having a Miracle Whip sandwich eating contest with whoever was at Nick’s place. In truth, this was simply a desperate attempt to draw out our set and rival Bruce Springsteen’s endurance and/or gain cred as bona fide performance artists.

Anyway, the contest went well. Everyone was a winner despite there being some greasy sloppiness involved. The true wildness happened at the end of our set when Brasdt noticed that the rest of the band seemed malnourished. Like any good doctor or band mate, Brasdt attempted to fill our mouths with the only food available: the life-giving Whip. Unfortunately, Brasdt could not get a secure grasp of the globs of miracle whip and soon enough we found ourselves rolling on the floor covered in the stuff. Although this resulted in many shoes being destroyed and instruments needing repair, we all left Nick’s place with a nice sheen on our skin.

I love house shows. I love playing shows that don’t exclude people because of their age.

5. Picking up on a point Paul made earlier about starting the band in the hopes of doing something none of you had done before musically; one of the things that strikes me about your band is the diverse musical backgrounds of your members. You have members who have played screamo (Paul, Prisoners), youth crew hardcore (Ryan, XEnvisionX), post-punk (Lance, A History Of) and in Dom's case I'm not entirely sure how to classify Juan Love. Could you elaborate on the challenges you face as you explore new directions in your music?
LANCE: I think the biggest challenge we have right now is to find our "sound". We wrote a bunch of songs in a two week span that were really well received but I don't think we've hit our peak in songwriting by any means, I wouldn't be to happy if our next ten jams turned out like the first batch. This is where I think our diverse backgrounds will be one of our strongest attributes in furthering our current "sound" compared to what we have already written.

PAUL: I'm incredibly optimistic when it comes to this band. I think the diversity in all of our backgrounds allows us to be pretty open with what we're doing, and it really helps us to write songs that I think.. escape genre-rules to some degree.. We're trying to write garage/pop/punk songs with a bunch of people who's main songwriting experiences are all pretty different. I think that helps us write stuff that fits what we're going for, but still manages to be unique and interesting within the genre. I also feel very lucky that this band works really well together on a personal level. Lance and I played together in the hardcore punk band Prisoners, and we know that we understand each other. I think a big reason this band works so well together and is doing so much, reasonably quickly is because we just really enjoy hanging out together, and we seem to have pretty similar ideas about where we want to go, and what we want to do as a band. So those parts that can sometimes be challenging, aren't presenting themselves as obstacles in this project. Which is an awesome feeling.

DOM: We actually have weekly challenges. Most of them involve Lance trying to max out the number of reps he can do. He says he’s only competing with himself, but every time he does over 100 one-handed push-ups he slaps Baby on the ear and tells him to go to his room.

6. What are your immediate goals? Is there a possible Cold Warps tour on the horizon?
LANCE: I'd say our main goal right now is to continue writing sweet cold jams to build up our catolog and proceed to record said jams in the not to distant future. We've had a surprising amount of interest from a few bands and even a couple labels about doing some releases/splits. There is a small tour in the works for april but I wont elaborate on that right now, and I suspect a larger tour will be happening later this summer/fall.

PAUL: Yeah, Lance pretty much summed it up. Write awesome music that's fun to play. Play awesome shows with bands/people we love. Release awesome records as often as possible. Tour whenever we have the chance. In that order.

DOM: Make people think that wearing stupid old-timey hats is cool. Convince people that I am in a documentary featuring the Edge and Jimmy Page. In that order.

7. Favourite science fiction movie:
LANCE: HItchhikers guide to the galaxy (srsly)
PAUL: Return Of The Jedi. Or Star Trek III
DOM: Patch Adams and Stroke of Genius. They’ve got famous juggalos.

8. Thanks again for the interview & we look forward to seeing you at the House of Rock on the 30th! Do you have any final words?
LANCE: ROCK OR DIE!

PAUL: I would like to congratulate Lance on coining the term "cold jams" with respect to our songs. I would also like to insist that this term goes into immediate use, specifically when describing any song that Cold Warps writes, performs, or hints at in the future. Every jam from now on shall be cold, or shall not be jammed at all.

DOM: Cold cuts.

COLD WARPS: Thanks Matt!

Listen & Download the Cold Warps Tape For Free:
myspace.com/coldwarps

COLD WARPS WILL ROCK OUT OR DIE ON THE 30TH. GET INTO IT!
TAKE A LOOK AT PAST JUNNNKTANK INTERVIEWS HERE