There is beauty in destruction

Thebleedingalarm, a band from Kelowna BC, is on the verge of breaking into the mainstream. After being picked up by Immortal Records, their debut album “Beauty In Destruction” will hit shelves on June 13^th. When the high-potential band came into town with Adair, Band of the Day interviewed lead guitarist and vocalist Jens of thebleedingalarm in the return of…

10 Questions with thebleedingalarm

- by Mattias and Dave-Os -

1. How’d you come up with the name thebleedingalarm?

J: Thebleedingalarm is from Shakespeare’s MacBeth. The actual meaning of the word or phrase is war, which doesn’t really hold much ground. The literal meaning doesn’t mean anything to us, really. Basically, we just love the way it sounds – phonetically it’s pleasing and [we like] the imagery that it brings to our minds. People who talk to us about the name have always been saying it’s really cool, so we just stuck with it.

Mattias: Has it always been “thebleedingalarm,” as one word using all small caps?

J: Yup - or all capitals. It just depends on who’s doing it. In some logos, it’s all capitals. Basically, if you look at the name separate and say it like “the bleeding alarm,” it just doesn’t feel right. When it flows like “thebleedingalarm” - that’s when I think it’s so phonetically pleasing in my mouth to say it.

Dave-os: Amen.

2. What’s your take on the Canadian punk scene and how do you think it has evolved over the past decades?

J: It’s great. Right now we’re getting into a higher percentage of Canadian bands being noticed. It seems to be that everyone looks towards American success, and then it sort of translates into Canadian success. So if you look at it from that perspective, it’s just getting bigger and bigger. The more Canadian bands are getting noticed, the more attention is being drawn to these little areas (like Kelowna BC). After we signed with Immortal [Records], there were all these labels always checking out bands from Kelowna. It’s almost like “Seattle Syndrome” – with Nirvana, Pearl Jam and all that back in the 90’s. I don’t think that’s particular to us; that’s everywhere throughout North America. It’s natural to draw attention.

3. What’s the deal with “Man Night” and what kinds of things happen on those nights?

J: Man Night…well that’s my little thing. That’s something I created when we were just working regular jobs before we recorded the album and started touring really heavily. All these guys would just want to go out and they’d say “Let’s go out for a men’s night!” Then they’d say “We’re going to go to Earl’s for dinner. We’re going to have margaritas!” So I went to one of these with all these guys in Kelowna and I was like “This sucks. I’m taking this thing over.” They’ve been doing it for five years and I was like “This is now officially called “Man Night” and here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to drink until we can’t think anymore, and then we’re going to do stupid shit all night.” So it just kind of went on and it got to the point where lots and lots of guys were going and just partying as hard as they possibly could. We actually haven’t had one “Man Night” without either a broken limb or a cut that has left a scar in the skin forever.

Dave-Os: What are some examples of stuff that would go on during “Man Night”?

J: Well this one night we started out and we went to a bunch of clubs. And there’s rules: If you pick a fight with a cop you get all your drinks on the next “Man Night” for free. Stuff like that – ridiculous things like kill a hobo and you get free drinks forever. Just funny stuff like that. We broke into an apartment building once because we knew they had a pool way around back and everyone was jumping the fence. One guy jumped over but at the top there were spikes and he just ripped his leg really bad. Then we went to the city park in Kelowna and there’s this huge Winnie the Pooh that’s about 15 feet tall at this kids water park - I was trying to cut off its head. Then the police started coming so we got out of there fast. It just gets to be ridiculous.

4. Living in a small town like Kelowna, how did you guys get noticed by Immortal Records or even by all the other labels for that matter?

J: We had a lot of different interest from a lot of different labels – major and indie. It was all from our PureVolume and MySpace sites. It’s just amazing how much attention you can get from that. It all seemed to happen all at once. We had a great manager from Boston, who’s our manager now (Sylvia), and she wanted to work with us right away. We just started getting so much attention from all these labels once we finished our CD. They just heard us on PureVolume and then they wanted to release our demo. Our CD is actually our demo that we recorded completely independently. We sold about 1000 copies and now we’re just waiting to release it on June 13^th.

Mattias: Stutterfly is another band that was discovered in Kelowna. Are you guys close at all?

J: They’re actually our closest friends. When we’re all in Kelowna, we’re the two bands that hang out, watch movies, and play videogames. We’re all best friends.

5. If you ever saw the Ogopogo (British Columbia’s Loch Ness Monster) how would you go about capturing it?

J: I DID see the Ogopogo. I’m not lying in any way. I know I saw it, and all these people that live in Kelowna are like “You actually saw it!?” I had never known what it was when I went to Charles’ (the lead singer) wedding two years before we started the band. I was just sitting there, playing guitar, and writing a song on this dock that goes up pretty far into the lake. I saw this huge rock, and then a smaller rock, and then a bunch of little stuff that I thought was coral or something – even though it was a lake. It was twisted out and I had never heard of the Ogopogo, I swear. I was just sitting there and thought “I think I’m going to swim out to that rock.” It was dusk and it was gorgeous so I took my clothes off and was about to jump in. Then the biggest bump just disappeared and then there were ripples. I got creeped out so I ran inside and was like “What the hell just happened!?” and everyone was like “You saw Ogopogo! You saw Ogopogo!” I said “What the hell’s an Ogopogo?”

Dave-Os: How big was it?

J: It’s pretty big. I thought it was a substantial sized rock that I could swim out to and sit on. From the water surface, the very top of the rock would be like 2 feet. It was weird. What was the second part of the question?

Dave-Os: How would you capture it?

J: Oh jeez, I have no idea. I guess I’d lure it in with Nibs or something. Maybe Reese’s Pieces like E.T.

6. “Beauty in Destruction” has a pretty cool cover. What’s the symbolism or story behind that?

J: We were having some troubles figuring out exactly what we wanted on our cover, what we wanted to portray, and what we felt we were about. Album art is always very important to us no matter what CD we buy. We were looking online at some photos and stuff trying to spark some imaginative thinking and then we came across these pictures of this girl. Right away we were just like “Oh my goodness!” We were going to get someone to design it and do the photos, but we thought, “These are perfect! Anything other than these exact photos will not do.”

Dave-Os: Oh, so they were already made then?

J: Yeah, they were already shot. We got hold of the photographer and the model and paid them for the photos and everything. Portland from Sons of Nero, who also owns Ferret Records, designed the cover. He just added things and twisted things a little bit to turn it into what it is. We didn’t want it to be literal. You can look at it literally and say, “Beauty in Destruction - she’s tangled in a web.” I would never take it to the place of her [actually] being in the situation. It cues up thoughts of rape and that is definitely not what we wanted to go for. We just thought the image was so gorgeous.

7: If you could be any article of clothing, what would you be?

J: Nose plugs… well I guess that’s not clothing. I think I’d be a scarf because it serves a purpose and it can look rad.

Mattias: I could never rock the scarf.

8. You guys just finished playing at SXSW, how was that?

J: It was great. We were lucky enough to play two nights there. We put a lot of energy into our live show – it was really tough. We ended up having a great time. We met some great people and ended up working with a lot of the people we met. South by Southwest is just great for making connections. We were hanging out with the owner’s of PureVolume, just hanging out having drinks – it was really cool. Not to mention all the other bands you hang out with. Great experience.

9. Monkeys: Friends or pets?

J: Both! Seriously, I wish I could describe to you how badly I really want to own a monkey. It actually sometimes aches my heart thinking about having a monkey to hang out with me - no joke. Both.

10. Who would you like to see next on Band of the Day?

J: Oh, this is confusing. You meet so many people on tour that you love… Ten Second Epic – they’re a great band out of Edmonton [AB, Canada] and they haven’t been signed yet, but they’re definitely going to be.

Mattias: What do they sound like?

J: They’ve got a pretty unique sound. They’re one of those bands that are going to fit right into the sound that’s been developing over the years with the Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco genre. They’ll fit into that crowd but they definitely have a different sound that I appreciate more.

Thanks to Jens for the interview and for sharing his encounter with the unstoppable Ogopogo. After reading this interview, maybe YOU might want to go out and have a “Man Night,” but please think of the children. More interviews will be up soon. Until then

Don’t you stop,

The BotD Team