Turning Down the Suck

Nomeansno are one of the seminal Punk Rock bands of my generation. The band has never had, nor have they seemed to pursue, strong mainstream success, but they do have a devoted fan following underground following including fans of their side project The Hanson brothers. I had the chance to sit down and chat with John from the band about the bands past and future.

Liberty Valance: Before we start I just wanted to say I’m a huge fan Jon, thanks for taking time out of your schedule to talk to us here.

John Wright: Hey, no problem man, thank you

LV: So, could you introduce yourself for readers who may not be familiar with your music?

JW: Well, you are speaking with John Wright from Nomeansno

LV: Your band was formed in 1979, how did you guys get started, and what’s kept you guys going all these years?

JW: Well I guess we were all first inspired by the punk rock that was coming out in the 70’s and early 80’s. My brother and I have been playing music with each other since 1978. We started writing, and eventually decided we wanted to play some live shows, so we started doing that as a two-piece, just bass and drums, and out of that, was born our first album. Essentially from there we just sort of started taking advantage of every opportunity that was coming our way, plating more local shows, eventually playing a show in Vancouver, we got some opportunities to play in Alberta. At one of our shows in Vancouver we met a guy who turned out to be our manager for many, many years. It was never our planned careers, but one opportunity lead to the next and we got to a point where we were working with a lot of really talented people and forming a good relationship with Alternative Tentacles for about 14 years. We had a regular outlet for our records and creative control on everything we released, and managed to garner some attention in Europe, which really made the band financially viable, and once we were able to earn a living from the band then we could really apply ourselves full time to touring and writing. It really just sort of happened organically, and since audiences kept coming out and we continue to enjoy writing there has been no reason to stop.

LV: That’s awesome. You must have seen a ton of changes in the music industry, how have you adjusted?

JW: well for us we really don’t do much different now than we ever did, we never relied to much on our CD and record sales, they were never a big seller by any stretch, so our success has always been through touring and playing live, and now that’s essentially what band need to do to stay alive. It’s very difficult to make any money selling to retail outlets now days, and as far as the internet and downloading goes, there’s some money to be made there but it’s hard, illegal downloading makes it hard to make a good living. Major bands who still have lots of money behind them and are branded and marketed will still do okay but even they are not doing as well as they used to. So for us we’re still playing live, D.I.Y. That much hasn’t changed. One thing about digital technology is that it makes demoing and recording a lot easier, so in some respects it’s cheaper for us to be a band, but we don’t sell and awful lot of records, we have to rely on touring and playing live.

LV: I think you guys might have an advantage over newer bands, simply because you guys have developed the work ethic it takes to survive in an industry that’s not exactly thriving right now. I think some of the kids coming up right now don’t realize how much work is involved in making a successful career in music these days.

JW: Definitely. The old adage “you’ve got to pay your dues” has never been truer. Your always gunna have your flash in the pan, momentary success that doesn’t last because it’s not built on any foundation. Bands that are good, if they put in the time, will always have a fan base. People respect bands that they see and really enjoy especially if their faces aren’t splashed all over ever magazine cover, and those are the true fans, the ones who come out to every show. We went through a time where we were playing to some really big crowds because the “scene” we were in was becoming very popular around 91’ when Nirvana was just breaking, but most of the people who were there were only there because of the type of music not because they were fans of any band. We basically discovered that quick success more often than no is not lasting success, and to be a successful band you have to work hard and tour a lot which is difficult if your not making money. There is the big dilemma, you have to be full time in order to earn money but you don’t earn any money while your full time, so you need a job, it’s a vicious circle.

LV: From what I hear, it seems like touring can be a real gamble for most bands

JW: It is, I mean we didn’t make any money for many, many years, try to get a job that’s flexible and hope that by the end, you break even. I mean if you’ve got a management company that buy’s you a Nightliner send you out on the road and sends you money out to you, your never gunna make a dime. But if you’re able to remain in control of your own destiny and spend you money wisely, you’ll be ok. What it all really boils down to is that you’ve gotta enjoy playing as much for ten people as you do for a hundred people, if your not enjoying what your doing, your wasting your time.

LV: I talked to KJ Jansen from Chixdiggit last week and he said very much the same thing. It’s an interesting time for musicians right now.

JW: it’s a whole new world with social networking, but unfortunately I think that might stand to reinforce the “one hit wonder” fad. People seem to make a splash on the Internet for one reason or another, but they’re quickly forgotten. Learning how to use social media and the Internet is the key to underpinning your efforts as a band.

LV: As you mentioned before, you guys were signed to Alternative Tentacles for while, in that time, did you get to work with Jello, what was that like?

JW: Well we did one album with him [Jello] in 1998/99  “ The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy” and that was great, we had a very good relationship with Jello, I mean he’s a very hands on person, although he also leads the management of the company. They’ve had a whole number of managers over the years we were there, some good and some not so good. It was a real handshake type of relationship; you know based on the people being your peers and your friends, not a business relationship at all, and that was the best thing about it. I mean you can say what you want about Biafra, but he’s one of the few guys who really true to his independent minded politics

LV: He’s defiantly a guy who’s known for sticking to his guns

JW: Yeah defiantly. You can knock him for other reasons, but you certainly can’t knock him for his integrity.

LV: So after 14 years, what lead to the decision to leave in 2002?

JW: eventually we needed to change our distribution in Europe. We were having a lot of trouble with our distributor at the time and wanted a change because Europe is becoming our only real market for selling and AT had no plans on leaving their distributor, so we figured it was just better to go out on our own. In a way it was kind of sad, because AT ended up changing their distributor, if they had done it a few years earlier it would have saved us a lot of trouble. But we moved on to Southern records who is out distributor in Europe now, then handle a lot of vinyl too, which is becoming more of a commodity

LV: It must be kind of a trip for you guys, you started your career putting out 7 inch records, selling them very DIY and now your back to selling 7 inches again.

JW: (laughter) Exactly. The thing about vinyl is that it weighs a lot more, so shipping costs are a lot higher and moving 18 boxes of vinyl is tough work, it weighs a ton.

LV: I’m a huge Hanson Brothers fan, how did you guys get the idea to start the band?

JW: I think because Nomeansno is an eclectic, sort of moody more intense pop rock, but at the same time we were all huge fans or The Ramones and The Buzzcocks, all that puck rock that was such a huge part of alternative music back then. So we played a couple “nomeansno clones the ramones” shows, and I guess out of that was born this idea that “hey we can probably write some songs like The Ramones so we wrote I think 7 songs off of that. I’m not sure how it turned into The Hansons, but we just thought we could be this phony brother band and write Ramones style music, but it would have to be Canadian, which means writing about beer and hockey, but staying true to The Ramones, writing about lost love and certain psychosis. We just wanted to do something really Canadian, but as we all should know, the real Hansons were American. So it was born out of a joke, and just kind of took on a life of it’s own.

LV: Do people often confuse you for the Carlson brothers from the movie Slapshot, getting you guys to sign jerseys or DVD’s?

JW: no but we often get confused with Hanson

LV: I don’t know where anybody would make that conclusion

JW: we played a show in Queensland, and this gaggle of girls came up to our merch table looking at the merch and suddenly became very confused. Our merch guy had to explain to them that we were not the boy band

LV: you guys haven’t released a full-length studio LP for a few years now; can fans expect something in the near future?

JW: Yeah, our last release ”all roads lead to Ausfahrt” was in late 2006, and since then we’ve been releasing EP’s, tour EP1 and subsequently Tour EP2 , and this fall in January we’ll be trying to release Tour EP3, the idea being to release four EP’s in as short of an order as we can, even though the first two came out rather quickly and this one is taking a little longer, we’re doing our best. Tour EP2 is sold out right now but we’ve out the first two ep’s as well as some live concert footage and photos onto flash drives that we’ll be selling, so you can get digital copies of that.

LV: I hear you’re quite the aficionado of beer.

JW: yeah, I’ve actually been brewing my own beer for about 20 years now.

LV: that’s awesome John, thanks so much for your time.

Check out Nomeansno on tour right no is a city near you, all the details can be found on their official site HERE or right below you if your super lazy.