Interviews: Nick Babeu (Trigger Effect)

Montreal, Quebec's Trigger Effect have spent the last year exercising a work ethic as heavy as the rock 'n' roll coated punk rock they've been playing for the last five years. Their self-released album Dare to Ride the Heliocraft was recently re-released by Signed By Force Records. With an extensive North American tour about to wrap up, the band's vocalist Nick Babeu talked to Punknews interviewer Michael Dauphin about what they've been up to, and what we can expect from them.

You can click Read More for the interview.

Why don’t you start by introducing yourself to Punknews readers.
Well, I’m Nick and I’m the singer of Trigger Effect. We’ve been around since 2003. Sergio (bass), Mike (drums) and I have been playing since high school. We’ve gone through a few different members, but eventually we found Pat (guitar), and that was a great fit. We managed to break up his old band and steal him into our band. Then we were looking for a second guitarist and we found Jordan folding cotton in a work camp of sorts. We managed to steal him from there and eventually returned him to his parents and now he’s safe. But in return, he had to play guitar for us.

You guys hail from Montreal, Canada. Generally, that city has been known to support the traditional punk bands like NOFX and Lagwagon. Is it difficult for a band like Trigger Effect, who has a crazier style, to stand out in Montreal?
Not really. There’s a whole bunch of shit going on in Montreal. There’s the whole nu-hardcore thing that happened, which is kinda lame. But it did expose a lot of people to heavier stuff.

You guys have taken a very D.I.Y. approach with Trigger Effect.
The reason we have taken the D.I.Y. approach is not because we have this "D.I.Y. Attitude" or "Damn The Man." It was more because we wanted to put out an album, and we wanted to go on tour. And we couldn’t find the help for that. So we were just like, "Fuck it. Let’s do it ourselves."

You guys have a running festival in Montreal called "Fear and Loathing In Montreal" that has been going on for a few years now. "Rock Fight" is another event you guys put on. Can you explain the details on those?
This is going to be our 7th year doing "Fear and Loathing In Montreal." The idea behind it is to eliminate dead space between bands. We have bands playing on one side and then weird freak shows: people eating bugs, satanic evangelism, chicks getting naked and rolling in broken glass. You know, a constant flow of entertainment.

"Rock Fight" is a battle of the bands where the bands actually fight. For example, the staple of the event is Dildo Nun Chucks. Which is where two bands face off, one guy from each band. They each get a helmet with an egg attached and a set of nun chucks made out of dildos. They have to fight with the dildos until one cracks the other’s egg and the winner’s band then gets to take the stage and play three songs.

How does Trigger Effect fare in this event?
The thing is, I put together the event and I emcee. It’d kinda be weird if we actually competed since we’re the ones putting it on. But the past couple of years, the rest of the dudes in the band have come up with fake side-projects.

You guys self-released your last album and then re-released it on Signed By Force Records. How did that come about?
We recorded and pressed the record ourselves and then basically walked it around to record stores in Montreal. We didn’t have a way to get it out properly across Canada. So that’s when Ram came up to us and said he’d put it out. He’s definitely been a help with that; making the record available in Canada. And he’s helped us by getting better visibility through ads.

I read something about a BBQ that you guys tour with.
We used to travel with a trailer and we had it rigged up so that a BBQ could swing out. It just worked better for us out on tour instead of spending $6.00 on a fucking Big Mac. We didn’t actually end up traveling with the trailer this time out, so we now have a device where the BBQ actually attaches to the back of the van. It works out better and we have grill outs in parking lots. We’ve had a bunch of people come and be like, "Can I throw this skewer of mushrooms on there?"

What are your touring plans for the future?
We just finished quite an extensive U.S. tour. We went from Montreal, down to Florida, across to California, up to Vancouver. I think it’s gonna end up being around 45 shows in 48 days. I think we’re gonna try to do the U.S. again in the Fall. We’ll probably do some one-off shows in New York, New Hampshire and Maine.

Do you have a new album in the works?
Yeah, the plan is when we get back to Montreal, we’ll chill out and probably not even look at each other for a week. We probably have half of an album written, as it stands now. We’ll write a bunch more and get them recorded in some preliminary form and then work them out. It would be nice to have an album out before next year on Signed By Force.