The second edition of 'Heart of Gold Fest', the city's budding club festival focusing on punk and alternative bands, is fast approaching. Among the more intriguing groups on the lineup is Oakville, Ontario's 'The Fullblast' who have recently reunited after a decade apart. On February 24, their latest work, an EP titled 'Attack, Sustain, Decay' was released.
Ian Stanger, the group's lead vocalist, is also the owner of Black Box Records, a record label, management, and publishing company based in Toronto. The label represents a number of internationally renowned recording artists including Nova Scotia born rapper 'Classified', Kingston's 'The Glorious Sons', 'Shad' who hosted CBC Radio's 'Q', and Alan Frew, who is slated to perform at this summer's 'Stars and Thunder' festival in Timmins.
He took some time out of his busy schedule to have a Q&A session with TimminsToday.
Q: Have you ever played in Timmins?
Ian: "It's funny because our band toured all over the place, and I have really specific memories of a lot of shows, from a lot of different places, and for some reason I can't remember whether or not we actually played in Timmins. I've definitely been there before, because after our band broke up, I went on tour with some other bands, and I was there as a part of some of those tours, but I can't remember for the life of me if our band has actually played there before,"
Q: What have you heard about Timmins crowds from other musicians?
Ian: "Our bass player (Brian Robinson) plays in a band called 'A Wilhelm Scream' and they've played there a couple of times, most recently in December. My experience there, with tours I've been through, and friends who have talked about it, the scene there is really exciting. The people are really excited when bands come, because its so far away. It's exciting when bands make the effort to get up there. Having a festival like that has got to be good for the community, because it gives a whole bunch of bands opportunities to go up there. It gives local bands an opportunity to play with some out of town bands, and gives locals a great week's worth of shows."
Q: How did The Fullblast get involved with Heart of Gold Fest? Did you hear about last year's inaugural festival?
Ian: "A friend of mine Johnny runs it, and we've been friends for ages. He's booked bands that I've worked with over the years, so we've kept in touch. I know last year was the first year and it sounded like it was a really good time. He reached out a few weeks ago, since our band recently reunited and have put out a new record, and he knew we were looking for opportunities to play, so it worked out that way."
Q: The Fullblast's last album was in 2006. How did the 10-year hiatus come about, and how did guys you get back together?
Ian: "Yeah, the band broke up in 2006 basically when our drummer, and one of our key songwriters Andy (Lewis) left the band to join another band called 'Boys Night Out'. At that time we sort of all agreed that it wouldn't be the same to continue on without him. That's when the band parted ways. Our bass player went to play with 'A Wilhelm Scream', I dedicated myself to the record label that I run. Darren (Malcolm) our guitar player, worked up the corporate ladder to point now that he's the Vice President of the company that he was with back then. Everybody continued on with their lives.
How we came back together was, over the last couple of years we've had opportunities to do reunion shows, and get together and play again. With everything else we have going on in our lives, Bri on tour, Darren's got children, Andy and I working on our careers, being in a band full time is just not in the cards. All of a sudden when that pressure of full time touring is taken away, and you can just do it for fun with the guys you really enjoy playing with, that's where the motivation came from to try and do something again.
The biggest part of why it came together was that Andy and Darren wound up moving in pretty close to one another, their families live close now. They've been able to take advantage of close proximity, and they wrote the lion's share of this EP together"
Q: With the new album, has the band's sound changed over the 10-year gap?
Ian: "I don't think its changed. Its sort of an elevation from what we did before. It's a little bit more focused, and a little bit more consistent. It's a five song EP. It's not a full length record, which allowed us to focus more on those songs. We knew going in what we wanted to do, which was fast and melodic, which is what we've always done. I think that it was a different writing process than we had before. We tried to inject a bit of maturity and perspective into it as well. Writing songs as 35 year old people, as opposed to being 17,18, 20 when we wrote our previous stuff, we're different musicians now. We value things differently in terms of what we want out of music as listeners, so that's probably the biggest change."
Q: You work for Black Box Records. Included on the label's roster are 'The Glorious Sons' who played in Timmins last summer. Have they mentioned anything about Timmins?
Ian: "It was a great time. Its such a remote location in many ways, that the people there are really appreciative. It's a beautiful place to be in the summertime, Northern Ontario is beautiful that time of year. They had a really great time there, and we look forward to hopefully more of the same, although I'm sure its going to be a bit colder I assume."
Q: As a vocalist, who are some of your influences? Where do you draw your inspiration?
Ian: "It's tough to say. I'm a very, very eclectic music fan, as evidenced by our label, we've got rock, pop, hip-hop, and indie, all kinds of different stuff. My favourite vocalist of the last 15 years is probably Chino Moreno of 'Deftones'. I don't sound anything like Chino Moreno, but I think there's maybe some influence there in terms of some of his long-held notes that I sort of do in our band, some of the different cadences and stuff. I can't scream the way that he does, he's one of a kind. I don't know that I've ever really thought about drawing influence from somebody when I was singing. In terms of who are my favourites, its probably Chino and I think Tim McIlrath from 'Rise Against' is a phenomenal vocalist. Those are two people who I could listen to singing all day long.
We toured with 'Rise Against' back in 2005. It was us, 'Alexisonfire' and 'Rise Against' on a tour across Canada. I probably gained most of my appreciation for Tim on that tour, just as far as live vocals, and live energy, that kind of thing. He was off the chain the entire time. Since 2005, that was their first big record, they've just exploded since then. I think 'Rise Against' and 'Deftones' are actually touring together this summer, which would be a bit of a dream show for me."
Ian Stanger, vocalist of The Fullblast, and owner of Black Box RecordsQ: What are some of the craziest stories you have from playing live music?
Ian: "We're not the 'craziest' band, that's the thing. I've been around bands that party, and have a good time, and things go sort of nuts. With us, the guys like to have a few beers and stuff before the show, but we're not trashing hotel rooms or anything. There's always weird venues. We started playing in basements and living rooms. We've played everywhere you could conceivably have a show. Garages, basements, living rooms, bedrooms, attics, parks, and all of a sudden you get into the regular venues. The biggest show we ever played was on that 'Alexisonfire' tour at the convention centre in Winnipeg, which was like 3,500 people. We've seen it all."
Q: Is the band excited to play at Heart of Gold Fest?
Ian: "Yeah. So John (Cayen) asked us to play, and we agreed. I know how far Timmins is, but I sort of miscalculated a little bit in terms of what our plan was for travel and stuff. In the end we decided we were just going to fly. This is our second ever 'fly-in' show, which sort of makes us feel like rock stars, which is fun. The only other time was actually during that 'Rise Against/Alexisonfire', we won a contest through Alternative Press Magazine to go and play at their South by Southwest Showcase in Austin, Texas. We had to fly from Moncton, New Brunswick, to Austin, through Toronto. We basically flew there, landed the night before, had to get up early and play the next day at this big showcase. But that's the only other time we've flown with our gear to a show, so we're getting to do that again, which makes us feel like actual rock stars, which we are not."
Q: Are you familiar with some of the other acts on the lineup?
Ian: "Yeah for sure. 'The Creepshow' are friends of ours, so that's exciting. 'Bat Sabbath', we've played with the guys from 'Cancer Bats' over the years. They're good friends of ours, so it will be exciting to see those guys, its been a long time."
The Fullblast plays at Heart of Gold Fest on Friday, March 31 at The Working Class on Second Avenue.
