Interview with Trevor Hurst of Econoline Crush

The lead singer of Econoline Crush discusses drugs, Nirvana, that shitty Nickelback song, and the Canadian music industry.

O: So you have your own label?

T: Yeah it's Fatt Farmer

O: What's the inspiration behind that name?

T: That was a long time ago for publishing and stuff for a company I set up. I grew up on a farm.

O: What do you think the biggest difference being being independently signed and being signed on your own label?

T: I don't know how to describe it, it's huge. There's always decisions on labels by committee. There's board meetings about what the single will be, choosing producers, It's so slow and tedious, yet a label has money to kind of provide a safety net for when things go sideways. Being independent you've got to watch because if you go sideways there is no safety net. But the other thing is,this record we went to record in our studio, we picked our producer, we picked our songs, we wrote them, we did everything ourselves. There was no interference, so it was really a positive experience because the four guys could get in there with Sylvia Massy.

O: She worked with Prince and Red Hot Chili Peppers right?

T: She produced The Devil You Know, she did Tool, she won a Grammy for the last Johnny Cash record, she's very very talented. See back on the day on a major label, and probably still today, you send in daily progress reports and songs and then they criticize them. And the thing is, a song from the start to the finish...sometimes you have to go down a lot of different roads before you get to this point. You may end up putting a lot of bongo crap on it or something because you think that's what you want, and then you realize that at this point in the road that's not going to work so we're going to try another loop thing and then you get to here in the end. The label sometimes reacts and says "stop working on that song it's too weird."

O: What is your opinion on the Canadian music industry with independent bands. Especially since you've been around for awhile now, do you notice a lot of developments?

T: I think there's been a lot of developments. You see bands like, um...I don't want to name names...but I think you see bands that are making progress that probably would never have been signed back in the day, or would never have had any kind of support. And they've somehow managed to drum up using the Internet, using all these different means of to get fans. And when they do this, then they get the attention of a distribution company or a record company and they kind of write their own ticket. I was talking about this with someone the other day, and the music business up until just recently...it's really unfortunate because the only person that kind of stood up in the nineties and early 2000s for musicians are...and she wasn't chosen as a spokesperson but she was the only one that was kind of willing to say something, and that was Courtney Love. Which is a lousy person to pick as your spokesperson but she's right in the fact that in the old studio days of movies, somebody like Eva Gardner, or whatever, they get signed to Paramount. She gets paid $250 a week and when Paramount wanted her to do a car sale thing she was obliged, it was in her contract. It's almost exactly the same thing with record labels. They loan you some money to make a record which you don't own yet you have to pay back the money you get paid to make it. It's the equivalent of a pimp buying a dress for a hooker and telling her to go walk around the track and then taking the dress away at the end of the night. So this way we own our own master, we have control of our intellectual property. So we can decide if we want to sell it to a Labatt's for a beer commercial, or if we want to decide not to or whatever.

O: Did you decide your first single was going to be "Dirty?"

T: We did as a collective, I wish people could meet Sylvia Massy because they would know how she talks. But she's got this crazy voice, she's like [in annoying old lady voice] "Trevor! 'Dirty' would make the best single for Christmas parties!" And we were like, 'hey, you know what, you could be right.' Because this is another thing too, everybody that is in the music business that I know, and I know a lot of people, said if you release a single in November it's career suicide. You might as well stop recording now, because people go on vacation for Christmas. If you work in radio they basically take December 10th to January 10th off and they lock the play lists down. So we just decided 'look, we're going to do this our way and release the single in late November.' And it got added and it's doing really got for us. It's amazing, we got stations that we never got on when we were on BMI. That's the negative is that we were working on a distribution deal and what happened was we fought and battled to try and get x amount of records in the market place, and they just didn't believe that we have the fame. So now all of a sudden they're scrambling to catch up and we told them from the get-go, 'look down underestimated us we can really do this.'

O: You guys are huge, some people can't believe you're playing in Kamloops at the Blue Grotto, it's crazy!

T: It's important if you're reintroducing a band. And this is a basically a new band to a lot of people. You have to do this, you take the steps, you can't skip a run on the ladder when you're trying to build a fan base for the future. Because if you look at somebody like Fall Out Boy or Good Charlotte, they go from here to here and now they put out a record and nobody gives a shit. Sum 41 kind of blasted onto the scene really quickly and you saw their Canadian tour got canceled, nothing against those guys but it's just that they grew so fast that they didn't really have a lot of the "grassroot" fans in place. If you put those fans in place you always will have those fans, and you can at least come back to rooms this big or bigger and always play. This is my life, music is the craft that I love. Same with the guys in the band, we want to play forever. It's not about the fame or the other crap, it's about being able to make good music and being smart about, and building the fan base so you can always play.

O: Would you say fame is one of the inspirations to your songwriting on your latest album?

T: I've had so many experiences in between when we stopped and now it's basically covering a whole gammon of the life experience. I spent a lot of time in America where I'm not really known at all so that was comfortable. I'm from Verdin, Manitoba, Fritz is from St. James, we're a Canadian band. I lived in Seattle for a tiny bit of time, there were a lot of different things going on at that time but I answered a newspaper ad and went back to Vancouver.

O:What year was this?

T: 1992

O: So pre-Nirvana

T: Nirvana had just got got big. I literally remember hearing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and going "Holy Shit." That was the greatest thing that ever happened to music up until now, we're starting to see another revolution I believe. But that one is just like..all these dudes are like 'what?'You could just see the record company executives going 'Oh my God, no more hookers, blow and limousines? Fuck! What is this going to do for the Hairspray industry?'

O: What was your experience with your solo work with the band "Hurst" and did it influence your decision to return to Econoline Crush?

T: It definitely did. I didn't really want to call it Hurst, it was actually called something else. I worked with this guy Ross Childress from Collective Soul and we wrote all these songs together in Atlanta. He went out and did some touring with me, but it was four guys in a van with a trailer. We loaded all our gear, we had no crew or nothing. And he just couldn't deal, he said "I haven't plugged a fucking pedal in since 1993 I can't do this anymore," and I was like "well I can." See that's the difference, I think if you look at my contemporaries, if you look at people that have had success, they think it's humiliating to have to lift a piece of gear. By getting in a van to try and do it again, they think they won't look super famous or mysterious. But my thinking is if I'm not one of the people then how I can I write for the people? You have to keep your head, you know? I think the things musicians miss when they become well known is we provide whether it's on the disc, a show like this for an hour or 45 minutes of reprieve from the day to day grind. I was in Toronto doing a show with Three Days Grace and Seether and two guys came up to me from the U.S. Army. They both looked like they were about 17 years old, I swear. They both had purple hearts, already had life threatening injuries, and they were going back in three days. The kid was almost in tears telling me how they drive around Baghdad listening to Econoline and was his platoons favourite band. They were so grateful that I was signing shit, it just shows you you never know the power of your music. But you have to make the music that connects to the people. That's why I'm shocked "Rock Star" was a success for Nickelback.

O: I hate that song.

T: It's insincere.

O: It is, it really is. So let's talk about the latest tour, what's it like doing a show without Three Days Grace and Seether?

T: We did a few shows in between, we did in Ottawa play, Toronto, Montreal, St. Catharine's, On all days off we almost have somewhere to play. When we play with them we have a 30 minute set and you have to try and condense your work, with 30 minutes it's like what songs do you play or what songs don't you play. Tonight we're playing for about an hour, and it's a lot more fun because you can cover the span of your career from start to finish.

O: Are you choosing any older songs or are you sticking with the latest album?

T: The set has to fit, so we're trying to get songs with the new stuff and the old stuff that sits well. And also, we as a group kind of choose what songs do we really want to play, what songs we like, and what songs we have to leave behind. We don't really play anything off Brand New History. We did it with this guy John Travis, as a producer and stuff I had hoped because he had done this Kid Rock record...I wanted to kind of bring a bit of that "American Bad Ass"funkyness to the band. I wanted to kind of loosen up a little bit, a lot like the single "Dirty."I realize now that it was Kid Rock that produced that record more than Travis. And when we were in the studio we thought, "Oh God, what is going to happen?" You get freaked out, there was nothing I could do, I couldn't stop the process, I just had to go with it. There's really nothing off that record we want to play. We play "You Don't Know What It's Like," but we're not playing "Make it Right" which is a single. That's the only stuff I would play if we were going to. Don't get me wrong I don't dislike the record, I have such a bad taste in my mouth the way Ian Mi treated us and the way that he treated us, I just don't really feel like going there. And the guys are happy to play the songs that they dig.

O: Well a lot of people remember you from ten years ago, everyone excited to hear new music.

T: It's cool, I'm stoked that people are still interested.

O: It's creating a big buzz around town. So I looked you guys up on Wikipedia, cause you know Wikipedia is big for college students...

T: Oh God, the misinformation

O: It mentioned that you're industrial, what are your thoughts on how you categorize yourself?T: If I was to define industrial music...Industrial music was based on the idea that it was machine like in its sequencing and that it's sounds you would hear in an industrial factory used to make music. Maybe KraftWerk, De Crooks, Front Line Assembly, Skinny Puppy...These bands I would define as industrial. We have hints of industrial in our music because we have a lot of songs that are machine-like in their programming, but I really don't know how to describe Econoline Crush other than we're a rock band that uses industrial, electronic and even some Hip Hop elements to infuse into this rock thing and to augment the dynamics of the songs. When you want to set up a chorus or something, you throw in a bar and a half of a little Hip Hop loop, and then you [drum noises] and you're into the chorus. So you throw this little loop in...We've always been about that I've always been conscious of the fact that when you go to a show and see a rock band, and they're meat and potatoes rock...You have bass, guitar, drums and vocals. After a few minutes it's like "can I hear a new sound?" That's why we do a lot of programming with keyboards because then things break down, like with different sounds or a piano, and it just takes the listener away. When you're listening to it on headphones, like a lot of people do, things swirl around and it's like a trip. That's what gets me off I like making music as trippy as possible.

O: On that note, I read somewhere that your band name comes from a book by Euxebe Auxtry titled "Jeu de Fountaine" and references a drug-like feeling...

T: This is to right all the wrongs here...Restless Records signed us when we did The Devil You Know and it was owned by Regency Pictures, I guess it's no longer there. They did movies like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, all kind of stuff.

O: Classic

T: So the owner, I think Rupert Murdoch might have had had a smidge of money in there...He's the evil empire...anyways so they hired a crackhead junkie to write our bio and he comes up with this. The book doesn't exist, the drug doesn't exist, none of it is true. And I say to the label, "what the fuck?" And they said, "shut up kid just go with it, this is America it's a different fucking thing." The reality is when I was in high school my Dad had an Econoline van, it's a model of a Ford van, and we would drive around, 16 years old, getting drunk and listen to AC/DC. And that's why it's called Econoline Crush.There's a list of people they say played in Econoline Crush on Wikipedia, 50% of them were never in the band. There's so much misinformation on there. I really think that web site is wack. The other thing that is interesting too is that they got the CIA, the DEA and the Pentagon rewriting things. You should follow that one up, there's a website infowars.com.[Photo editor Chantal vigorously writes the URL down]

O: I know you don't like to throw out names, but what would be your favourite underground Canadian band right now?

T: I'm sort of guiltily out of touch a bit because we spent three months in the studio in the States. And I don't know how people describe independent, what is independent? Hold on a second I have to let the bass player in.[Bassist enters the Blue Grotto while Photo and Entertainment Editor discuss infowars.com]

T: There is a band in Winnipeg called Inward Eye who just got signed a year ago, and I thought it was the best greatest independent band I've ever seen play. It was stellar, that was at least year's Juno's...For me personally, lately just surfing...because our boss has this American satellite system, I like Shiny Toy Guns...and I kinda dig that's probably a guilty pleasure but I kind of dig Paramore with "Crush Crush Crush." It's a girl-fronted band that sounds kind of Econoline-y in a way. They've got this thing, I don't know how you describe it, it's not Power Pop it's cool, it's really rockin'. It's weird because I go through spells where I listen to a lot of new music and a lot of old music. During the record I was listening to a lot of old music, I wanted a comfort zone. I'm a huge Massive Attack fan for example, so I put on some Massive Attack just for the comfort zone. Or old Prodigy or something. Being out on this tour with Three Days Grace and Seether, it's kind of mainstream. So when we do these kind of gigs, and some of the gigs we're going to be doing in the future across Canada, we have bands from each area opening up. They do that in the States all the time, I swear I saw bands in America when we were touring down there, in Lincoln, Nebraskra, you'd be sitting outside, or on the tour bus and in the dressing room and go "who the hell is that?" You'd go in and you'd just be blown away. Sometimes when Canadian bands get a big head and think they're all that, it's like 'you know what, there's a band in every small city of America that will floor you.' And for whatever reason the stars don't align and they don't get signed. And it's heartbreaking because I have seen bands in the smallest towns that are amazing. That's another interesting thing about Myspace, MSN or Facebook, All these interactions and people, young, young kids I don't know if they're dads would turn them onto Thin Lizzy or something. But when they're listening to this stuff, it's stuff like when I was a kid it was like 'fuck off I don't want to hear that.' And they're dating it, and I think there are going to be harmony guitar solos in the future, [makes rockish guitar sounds and air guitar] it's all going to be coming back.

O: You talk about drugs in your songs, I read somewhere you're now sober?

T: Yes.

O: So what's your opinion on songwriters using drugs as an influence?

T: I have used a lot of drugs in my lifetime, that's for sure. I would I say that they're good? Sometimes, but on the whole I would say no. I lost a very dear friend this year, one of my best friend's in the world under mysterious circumstances that could only be connected to drugs. He was a great musician and a great friend, you have one or two of those experiences and you realize it isn't something to mess with. It's a weird thing, because I spent some time in Los Angeles spending time recording with [name omitted per Hurst request] from Nine Inch Nails and we kind of partied pretty hard. It's part of our industry, and I think part of it is to separate yourself from normalcy and to put your brain in a different space. But if you're not careful it eats you up. I've left it behind and hopefully I will never do it again. You go day by day and you hope and pray that you just don't go there again. I see some other people struggle with it occasionally, and it's a bummer because drugs are fun you get high it's good, you know what I mean? But at the same time, at some point you have to be careful because we're kind of a rolling carnival. So for a normal group of people maybe the odd weekend, or once a month you might get out of your mind and take some mushrooms, E, whatever. But every day of the week, with the exception of the day off, we're in a party atmosphere. If you like to party with drugs you can get them everyday, and before you know it you're putting the drugs in front of the music, the drugs in front of every day life, the drugs in front of everything. Have you seen the movie Spun?

O: Yeah, that's a really good movie that depicts the scary side of drugs. Or Requiem for a Dream.

T: That's Seattle in the 1990s. That's the kind of things that happened to a lot of people. That was the one place I got a lot of problems was in Seattle because a lot of people used a lot of different drugs. It was kind of like the thing to do as a musician to get right out of your mind.

O: Do you think Kurt Cobain influenced that?

T: Most definetly, but more-so the whole underbelly. Seattle wasn't just Nirvana, there was a hold load of bands, Skin Yard, Andrew Wood's band in Seattle...what were they called, before they got famous?[Drummer steps in and provides the answer Mother Love Bone]

T: Thank you. like Andrew Wood's favourite band in the whole entire world was KISS. And the day before Mother Love Bone was supposed to open for KISS he OD'd on heroin. The whole band was at the party and they left him in the bathroom turning blue. And they went on to become Pearl Jam. So you know, you have to realize it takes it's toll. That girl in 7 Year Bitch died when I was in Seattle. A lot of people were dying from heroin in Seattle. You can't mix heroin and alcohol but try telling that to some musicians. There was a rehearsal space there were bands that played there, like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden...It was run by a guy who was a heavy dealer. He more than anyone influenced a lot of people. He would score them meth, coke, heroin, pills...You're in a secret club, and you think that nobody knows. Well, actually everyone knows and you're fucking up. I think in the end I don't want to tell anybody what to do or not to do with their their lives.

O: Comments on the show tonight?

T: Well it's sold out, so that I think is cool. I love the intimate room, I think we'll have a really good time turning it up in here.

O: Where are you going to next?

T: Two nights in Vancouver.

O: And then you're coming back to Kelowna?

T: Yes, I got a tour book that tells you all your dates, and I went to the front of the book and go 'OK we start here.' And then I flip to the back [shwooshing sound effects] and we end here...I have to survive these many days, OK! Sometimes you get a little confused, When we were opening up for KISS one time, they used to always put their set up before our set and write the city in big bold letters and put it up at the front, just in case. Because every arena looks the same when you're inside. So one night I looked down at the sign said "Cincinatti," and I thought "Cincinatti...I'm pretty fucking sure we're in Cleveland." And I look at 'Cincinatti' on the thing, I look over at the bass player and I'm like [mouths] "Cincinatti? And he's like "NO!" And I kind of swing over to the guitarist and ask him, and ask "What city?" And he yells "Cleveland!"