Angie Lalonde writes:
"Sometimes I wonder why in hell I would chose to sit in a van all day long with stinky touring bands but experiences like this one don't even make me questions my intentions when I roll-up my sleeping-bag. Meeting these guys, the first day they saw snow; Aside from Portugal dragged me on to their first 'Live & Starving 2003 Canadian Tour" for too many hilarious culture-shock moments, constant Tim Horton's and Subway high-way stops and educational sessions of dirty Portuguese words. All in all it was amazing to see them experience punk rock in an entirely new culture with new people, personal venues and mostly unknown to them always all-ages shows of so many kids wearing DC shoes they'd happily regularly note. Another far-away talented punk-rock band sincerely trying to make a voice for themselves beyond their country, they definitely worked hard to get out here, every chosen risk served them well and their music was heard with recognition from eager kids for their next tour.
This interview was done on a night we all got stranded, the great beauties of transmissions… so I rounded up the tourists and sat them down in our hotel room for this interesting session with their Canadian label owner to get their outlook on their Great White North mission, of course they didn't let me down, they had more than enough out of the ordinary things to say practicing their newly polished English for this first Canadian interview… "
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ANGIE: First can I get you guys to say your names and
PARDAL: Our addresses, our phone numbers
DANIEL: Iâm Daniel and I play the guitar, I am left handed
P: Hello! I am Pardal, P-A-R ⦠um and I play the drums (laughs)
NETO: Hey I am Neto and I play the bass
DAVID: I am David and I am the singer
R: I am Ricardo and I am the guitar player (Ricardo spits as he says it) and I drool (laughs) sorry
A: So have you guys ever been to Canada before?
P: Oh yes all the time, how many times a year!
D: Every weekend!
P: Yeah this is our first time in Canada, weâre enjoying very much, the people are very kind, they have the mind open to any objectiveâ¦
R: Hey, hey! Tim Hortons rules!
P: No way Subway!
A: And how would a kid get a copy of your record?
DAN: Well itâs on Freedumb Records, go to www.freedumbrecords.net or you can get it at www.asiderockers.com
A: Have you guys ever played any other international countries before this Canadian tour?
DAN: Um, no but once we did one show out in the Netherlands cause we won a contest that was like two years ago.
A: How did you guys get on a Canadian label being from so far?
R: This all about the internet
D: The communication and doing things by ourselves
R: Mp3.com, setting up our siteâ¦
DAN: Basically what we did was record some songs and spread it where we could to every people who would be able to listen to and somehow Mike from Freedumb Records listened to it and he wrote us, therefore we started emailing and talking and thatâs how we got on the label.
P: Itâs simple Mike saw us on the internet
A: Oh so he thought you guys weâre cute!
P: Oh yeah he saw us on portuguesegaysarethebest.com (laughs)
A: And the title of your record
D: âGood Enough For Someone Elseâ itâs good enough. I think it could be betterâ¦
DAN: Basically what it means weâre never satisfied with what we do so every time we record a song and we listen to it we think it could always be better, thatâs to us what the title means.
A: When was it released?
DAN: It was supposed to be a year ago but we had a lot of problems with the album at a Portuguese studio, it only ended up getting released this October.
D: Yes, the album is actually to us one year old
P: Yeah, it was like the draw was gone
DAN: Mike has been waiting a whole year to release this album
P: Thanks Mike!
DAN: So this album is not even what we play anymore
DAN: It doesnât give us justice for now
A: So yeah weâre all on the âLive & Starving Tourâ
D: Yeah we are alive and starving
(all at the same time âand without money!!!â)
A: But hey guys tonight weâre drinking someone elseâs beer, staying in a hotel on someone elseâs credit card, night off, câmon not so bad!
(everyone raises their glasses to this fact!)
A: So how withstanding is the independent music scene in Portugal?
DAN: It sucks, well we have⦠Um well itâs hard
D: I think the independent scene in Portugal is completely dead and devastated, it doesnât exist at all. The bands are trying to reach something that doesnât exist so we just have a couple of bands that help each other, and thatâs it nothing more. I think in Portugal we have a big problem with competitionâ¦
P: Thatâs the thing, we are all so small and then we are fighting to open the door and everyoneâs like âno, no! I am going to open itâ âno, no itâs me!â we donât need that we need to help each other.
D: We have thousands of doors but it seems that everyone wants to get in that âoneâ door, door number one and it sucks.
DAN: What I think is the bands are not trying to work, they just want to have a band and be on top of everyone, just donât do the normal stages that every band should do like from the beginning, record a demo, start touring as much as you can, release your first CD continue touring and learning and leaning but⦠They just want to have a band and be on TV or be a punk rock rockstarâ¦
DAN: But you know one year from this conversation I know I am going to sleep with my mind totally clear, I never going to think that I was a rockstar, I donât want to be a rockstar, itâs just me.
P: We are not at all judging the quality of the songs, the bands are all really good, they keep really, really good bands weâre simply saying that the bands need to help each other out more
DAN: Yeah thereâs lots of great Portuguese bands, I can name you some; Easy Way, More Than A Thousand, Fiona At Forty⦠Those are for me some of the bands. Another problem we donât have is a gig-circuit so itâs really hard to play in Portugal and we donât have any venuesâ¦
A: Yeah I was going to ask about your venues?
DAN: Ahhh, yeah it sucks! Cause we used to have some good venuesâ¦
D: We do have but you have to fight for it (laughs)
DAN: In Portugal we have either really tiny, small venues or really big ones, we donât have those medium size kind of venues that these (Canadian) kinds of bands are used to play. So either you play for twenty to thirty people top or youâre going to play in a venue for five or six thousand.
N: 12 million!? laughing (Neto doesnât know English very well)
DAN: The promoters and the bookers basically arenât really interested in booking Portuguese bands they just want to bring bands. And of course the other problem, people just donât go to the fucking shows, they just donât care, really itâs true.
P: They will only got to the internet to criticize your band but when the band play they donât show?
DAN: Yeah thatâs another problem with internet, people always critizincing without going there, they just sit on their chair and say you guys suck, itâs like âhave you ever been there?â ânoâ well how can you say that? âWell someone told meâ this is the mentality we see. In some ways, in other ways we have genius guys who are always there, always making efforts to go completely. We have some venues out in Porto itâs a little bit far from Lisbon but people just catch a train and go there for shows which is fantastic!
A: And whatâs the weirdest food youâve eaten in Canada so far?
P: Ahhhhh, oh yeah! Well Burger King sucks
(Everyone yells out âpoutineâ!)
DAN: Yeah we ate poutine, itâs supposed to be typical Canadian food but itâs just fries and cheese with sauce on it (laughs)
P: I like it, poutine is really good and I like Subway! Their veggies Subway rock
A: Weird though letâs hear weird
D: I can compare this kind of food to what we have in Europe or the Netherlands, itâs about fried things (makes a disgusted face)
DAN: Buckets Oâ grease, all oil
D: But ahhh what can I say about the food
A: But you all have nice shoes!
N: Ahhh yeah! Great sponsor
DAN: Although in Canada everyone wears these shoes! Itâs weird itâs nothing special or anything itâs just really weird.
A: So yeah you guys are sponsored by DC shoes
D: I do love Reebok but we couldnât have them (laughing). Stop, kidding, kidding I am kidding. Yeah that was another do it yourself thing we did
R: No one came to us and was like âhey can we sponsor you?â
D: We had some examples of other people trying to get in contact with DCâs and they were like âoh forget about it!â
P: Everyone was like forget it, you donât have the credibility to be sponsored by them
D: And we tried! We tried with the illusion box
R: We were like whatever who cares, it was shot in the dark
P: Tut is the name of the guy who sponsored us, Tut is the best! He was like âhey you want to be sponsored, fine show me what you got, show itâ we showed him our material and he was like âoh fucking shit letâs go!â props and big thanks to Tut heâs part of their Portuguese crew and also weâd like to send out big props to Jean whoâs on tour with us right now, heâs been too amazing to us all!
A: You guys have a fun intro for your live show
P: AC/DC âBack in Blackâ!
A: Do you guys always do that one?
DAN: No we have more, we have a bunch⦠(everyone is rambling and Daniel starts mumbling in the recorderâ¦) They donât make any sense, I think theyâre already drunk, youâd better put that in…
Now Mike, their label owner emerges from the hotel bathroom in a fury arguing with the boys about who left something in the bottom of the shower that is neither shampoo nor conditionerâ¦
DAN: Ahh, forget about that! We donât have any specific set-list we only decide a few minutes before the show, what we feel like playing it happened to be all the shows till now in Canada with the same intro but we have other introâs but weâll see what happens on the next shows on the tour.
A: Okay guys enough about the sperm, please back to the interview, I really donât care who did it (laughing)
DAN: They are discussing who masturbated in the bathroom in Portuguese
A: You know this is all going to go in the interview, Pardal everyone might now what you did in the shower
P: Jesus! No I didnât okay if you want to write it you can but I didnât do itâ¦
(the guys keep arguing over this topic some moreâ¦)
A: On your record it says you guys did the production
DAN: Oh no we had help of a really good friend of oursâ¦
A: Did you literally rent your studio time in Portugal and�
DAN: Ahh, itâs just really a long storyâ¦
D: Itâs like twenty pages
DAN: We canât talk about it right now cause it actually involves legal questionsâ¦
D: I am writing a book about it so you can see how large is the history
(laughing)
A: You guys support and also have IDA (In Defense Of Animals) appear in your record slip.
DAN: IDA whatâs that (laughs)
P: Yeah, yeah itâs true!
DAN: Oh yeah, thatâs Mike, Mike!
P: Mike! Mike come here you have to talk about this
MIKE: No I donât agree with that
DAN: Mike answer the question
MIKE: No itâs just an organization that Freedumb Records supports and weâre giving a percentage of the sales to the organization
A: Whatâs been your favorite tourist attraction youâve seen in Canada so far?
(someone yells out boobies)
DAN: Ah man, girls
P: Babes!
(David starts ranting about how itâs our by now stinky hotel room)
D: No⦠Okay three important points here, Niagara Falls, Quebec and
N: The snow!
R: The Parliament in Ottawa
D: Oh yes, snow fights! Thatâs number three
R: Weâve seen so many cities
N: Molson Dry is cool too
D: So Niagara Falls, Quebec, snow â¦
DAN: And the girls
D: No
P: The Quebec City night was cool we went to a bar that was really cool it was like a punk rock bar with a lot people it was really cool.
D: Oh yeah and the venue of Labaie! I forget the place but it was too, too, too cool but okay Niagara Falls was the best one
DAN: Ah for me it was the snow! For the first time Iâve seen snow it was in Canada.
P: Me too! Now everytime I see snow or I touch snowâ¦
A: Ricardo you put your ass in the snow
R: And my balls
D: Yeah thatâs true now it burns
(David starts singing âIâm already burning, Iâm already burningâ)
A: Anything else you guys learned in Canada?
DAN: A lot of French dirty words
P: We can turn right when the light is red
DAN: Yeah! That doesnât happen in Europe
D: You can have the license to drive, without having license (laughing) but eh I want to say that Canadian people have a different kind of mentalityâ¦
DAN: Open-mind
D: Yeah itâs completely different from the Portuguese, I can say that you guys⦠well being here I feel completely safeâ¦
(things go quiet and finally everyone cracks upâ¦)
D: Okay well being here at night and going to some bar or whatever itâs completely different in Portugal, I feel totally safe here at night in Portugal I canât say that.
A: Well thanks much guys, I guess anything else, your website www.asiderockers.com, any toursâ¦
DAN: Weâre in Canada till the end of December and check out our website!
P: Yeah and sign our guestbook!
DAN: Send emails
D: Most of all we like to be criticized by anyone or anything
P: Negative or positive we love to hear it!