“Dog-children” and “Pube-pie” An Interview With The Organ Thieves

in Interviews by BBtBB Team — December 30, 2009 at 6:49 pm | 1 comment

“Dog-children” and “Pube-pie”
An Interview With The Organ Thieves

by Diego Silva

CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS OF THE ORGAN THIEVES

First and foremost, forget what you know of Dave “Brownsound” Baksh, the old Sum 41 guitar player, because he has long since moved on to bigger and better things. The Organ Thieves are a force to be reckoned with and through their talent and will power, these guys will rise to the top very soon. Soon to be releasing an EP, they have already leaked tracks on MySpace for your listening pleasure (CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE ORGAN THIEVES MYSPACE).

With a half hour left before going on stage to open for White Cowbell Oklahoma, we sat with Dave Brownsound and Chuck Coles of the Organ Thieves to discuss how this amazing project first began and what we can expect in 2010. Having played many shows in Ontario this past year, they started the snowball of fans that will continue to grow as the band progresses in 2010. After seeing two performances I am convinced that the future is very bright for the Organ Thieves. Check out our interview to get the inside scoop on what they’re up to:

BBtBB: Let’s begin with some history. How did you both meet? Was there any connection prior to the Sum 41 years?

Dave: Barely, I knew of Chuck just from playing shows. He had a couple of stories going around about him. He was kind of famous and he set the bar for punk rock in Pickering.

Chuck: I think it was because when I was a kid I pissed in someone’s oven. I was drunk, and I was at a party in Pickering or Ajax.

Dave: I’ve heard many stories… He’s a fuckin’ legend! (laughs)

BBtBB: How did the rest of the band members come into the picture?

Dave: Well, you [Chuck] and Smith [Mike Smith, bass] have been friends forever.

Chuck: Yeah, I’ve known Smith since the days that my mom used to babysit him. We’ve known each other from playing in different bands. We all knew each other except for Dave. I met Dave during the Brown Brigade days at a party he had at his place where I went and jammed. I recorded this funk jam and we were all drinking and partying, but when Dave listened to it he got a hold of me and asked if I wanted to jam. Being at that party produced our relationship, further than just seeing each other and saying what’s up.

Dave: We actually used to jam for free at this club called the China Doll, doing a bunch of reggae and stuff like that. All I know is it was cool because I was trading licks off with this guy I hardly knew and it just worked!

Chuck: We backed local reggae artists, a lot of guys from Toronto. We would just play older rhythms and let them come out. There were some wild guys that would get in there!

Dave: Even Blessed used to come out a couple of times! Good old Canadian Juno winner. It was more like every artist would come up and do their own thing, so we were doing more funk guitar riffs and experimenting with more dub, trippy kind of shit on guitar. We can just be doing rhythm stuff, but when we got a chance to do something, it was pretty wild.

BBtBB: That is pretty far off from what Brown Brigade was doing at that time with the hard rock and hair metal thing. Did you feel it was necessary to explore other styles like reggae and dub?

Dave: Brown Brigade was more formed and formulated and planned out. The new stuff [Organ Thieves] has a lot of material written by Chuck.

Chuck: That’s how it all started because without that band [Brown Brigade] and without that happening our relationship wouldn’t have formed the same way. Me writing songs and Dave helping out by playing on them, he brought them to a whole different level than they were at before. A lot of the songs we had were acoustic and sounded like Robert Johnson, old blues stuff, but then they evolved. After playing for a while, we sort of formed a sound.

BBtBB: Having the creative background of jamming out reggae and dub tracks together, how did the Organ Thieves sound develop into what it is today? Did the songs come naturally or did it take a lot of work at the start?

Dave: For me personally, I got tired of shredding all the time and getting pigeon holed as a shredder. One of my favorite guitar players in the world is Tom Morello, and I’ve always wanted to go in that direction as a guitarist. If you know Tom Morello, you know he can play without his effects as well, so you have to train like a ninja for a while and then get wild on the effects. That’s where I’m at right now, and I get to think outside the box with scales and I don’t know theory, so it helps me out a lot not having to use that.

Chuck: We both came from a strong reggae background, so there are some songs that I can hear more reggae or dub influence in them. It’s such a mix of everything, and I know a lot of bands say that, but I know there’s a strong influence from everything. Mike and the other guys come from more of a pop punk or hardcore background and also reggae to folk. There’s a wide variety of songs, especially lately for me, when I listen to so many bands on MySpace and it makes me realize that there’s a huge record store in front of me and I can sample anything and take influence in any of them. I think it rubs off on everybody, where we can all send each other links to bands, like a band from Sweden or Austria, it’s crazy. We’re just so open to everything that it would just be cool to see where it goes.

Dave: Music is going beyond the whole, “this is the starting of heavy metal” or, “this is the starting of punk rock.” It’s gotten to a point where new music is being created everyday, and I’m sure it was back then, but now we have a tool called the Internet where everybody can be heard. Instead of just Brooklyn sharing their music, the world has become smaller and we can share everything together.

BBtBB: The world is a lot smaller now, and bands can have a huge fan base in Japan, but not have a big following in their hometown!

Chuck: How many bands have you discovered from MySpace over the years? There is a guy from Brooklyn [Ontario] that I heard on MySpace, I can’t remember his name right now but I didn’t know the guy lived so close to me. It just amazed me that there was such a talent down the street from me! These kids that are making insane hip-hop beats at home, and just the thought that maybe it’s always been there from time…

BBtBB: Your story alone is a great example of that, where you jammed together and had a musical connection without even personally knowing each other. That’s the way it should be with a band, instead of having a direction and a formulated idea where you pigeon hole yourself to stay inside a certain genre. The way you started open to different styles leaves the doors open for you to explore with any sound.

Chuck: It’s a good feeling because we can do whatever we want. No one can tell us that we can’t do that because it’s not our style, but now we’re coming to a point where it’s starting to feel like we’re coming together as a band and understanding our sound. Another thing I wanted to say is that everyone in this band shares this crazy love for each other. It’s not just new, but it’s like starting a relationship and getting married to somebody. I love everybody in the band and I feel strong enough that even if we weren’t a band, we would all still be playing. On top of that everything is just a bonus. There were nights at the China Doll where we would jam until five in the morning! Getting home you would think about how you wanted to do it again! It grew in a really cool fuckin’ spot and knowing each other from that is cool.

Dave: It wasn’t a business move, we were playing the China Doll for free, so we wanted to be there and we were just in that room together. There was no forced pushing for the relationship to happen.

BBtBB: Just there for the love of music, and probably spending a lot of money on booze on top of that, right?

Dave: Absolutely, I know I was!

Chuck: There’s a cool story about that. Upstairs there was an art gallery and Fugazi was set to play up there and they came down to ask us how late we were going to play because we were so loud and they were doing soundcheck. I started playing ‘Waiting Room’ in a reggae version, so they gave us tickets to go upstairs and watch them. In watching how they were performing, it was crazy to think that one of my idols is playing these little small rooms, packed to the tits with people there just to experience the music. We were doing the same thing downstairs with no one there just jamming and we got to go upstairs and see it being done as well. It was weird being at that place, and that story really means something to me.

BBtBB: Music brings people together! Like you said, even your with your idols playing small venues, doing that because they want to play in front of people who are there for the love of music.

Dave: Especially in the spot the world is in right now, I think music is about to come back into the forefront again like it was in the ’90s and late ’80s. Movie theaters are getting super old and movies are starting to re-hash and re-done, so it’s time for music to step up and be the forefront of the arts. When downloading happened, a lot of artists didn’t understand what was happening, even though they were around for the tape-trading days. It’s a similar thing, with just a little more Star Trek in it! (laughs)

BBtBB: Let’s move onto the new album. You’re working with Greig Nori on it, correct? Did that come from a past connection?

Dave: The one reason why I wanted to work with him was when I was playing with another band, he came in and helped us with some pre-production stuff, and he came into the studio on his own time and fucked around with knobs, but we weren’t paying him for anything. He was there for 6-7 hour days and he did that on his own time! He was sitting in the back of the room fiddling with gear trying to find the right sound, and that made me realize how much time and care he must put into his projects. It worked out because we ended up moving on to the same spot with him not even knowing we were going to be involved with him.

Chuck: It all started with Darrin Pfeiffer who came out to see us play and he took us in the right direction, but I had no idea that Greig was even involved. It just happened.  Greig came out to our show at the Bovine and he just wanted to be a part of it.

Dave: I was used to the Greig that was used to making hits and production, but after chatting with him at the Bovine on the type of records he’s making now, he’s working on stuff that he really loves now and it’s cool to see where he’s at and how happy he is.

Chuck: He just opened a new studio in Collingwood and it’s a giant place and it’s beautiful. His vision of what it is and when it gets to that point of what he wants it to be, it’s going to be a fun spot to record in.

Dave: It’s a house in the middle of nowhere. If you’ve seen Funky Monks by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, it’s the same thing, Deep Purple, Machinehead, recording at a house that essentially is a studio. You can’t use Ringo’s cutlery (laughs).

BBtBB: Have you already recorded tracks with Greig at this new studio?

Dave: We only have demos right now that we did with Jesse [Smith] and Bone [Jason Bone] from Cauterize. There should be a download thing soon. We basically have a 5-song demo that we are giving away for free on the Internet. You give us your email address, so we can update you on upcoming shows and stuff, and then you can download the demo for free.

Chuck: We were talking about the possibility of paying what you want and the money wouldn’t go to us, but to Amnesty International or War Child. We put the money into this thing to make the physical CD and I put them out at local record shops, so if someone bought a CD, they would get ours for free. I was pumped on it.  I’ve never been so proud of something before. It’s a totally different approach, so if you download [the album], you get it for free, the same way we had done it before.

BBtBB: The plan for 2010 is to get that EP into as many hands as possible, right?

Chuck: Yeah, work hard as hell!

Dave: We’re trying to stop 2012 actually. We’re trying to tour so hard that we shift the poles ourselves! (laughs)

BBtBB: You got two years left to make sure that happens!

Dave: That’s what John Cusak keeps telling me on Twitter! (laughs)

BBtBB: Time for the last question, which we ask everybody. If you weren’t playing music, what would you be in jail for?

Dave: Raping a chitlin.

BBtBB: What is a chitlin?

Dave: It’s a green, a vegetable. No, I’d probably be in jail for killing somebody to be honest, dead serious. Probably a skinhead, they did some shit to me when I was a kid, so if I didn’t have music it would’ve been over for them.

I searched for what a “chitlin” was and found this:
Chitterlings (sometimes spelled chitlins or chittlins in vernacular) are the viscera intestines of a pig that have been prepared as food. In various countries across the world, such food is prepared and eaten either as part of a daily diet, or at special events, holidays or religious festivities.  [Courtesy of this Wikipedia article HERE]

BBtBB: That was your outlet to let out the steam?

Dave: Absolutely, man!

BBtBB: You would get fucked up for that in jail! The skinheads would probably have lots of buddies in jail ready to kill you!

Dave: Yeah! I would totally be dead right now!

Chuck: It would be a crime-suicide. (laughs) I would be in jail for just rape. If it wasn’t for music, I wouldn’t be able to control my raping.

Dave: It would be for taking Jack Nicholson’s advice and never wasting an erection!

Chuck: You know what I would honestly be in jail for? I used to work at a group home and there were some kids in the group home whose parents would mistreat their kids, and I would sit out front and read their files. The kids would have to go home and see their parents, and I would see the parents and I just thought of killing them all the time, so it would be a killing for sure. I’d think, “I would love to just strangle this piece of shit to death!” I’d be a super-hero criminal.

Dave: I think if you ask any kid from the suburbs, they would say they’d go to jail for murder.

The interview was almost over, but Chuck wanted to make his jail story more elaborate. Once the most maniacal idea came to mind, he requested that I re-record it and make sure it was on this transcription.

Chuck: I would have kids and I would walk around on all fours and for six months I would make them watch me.  Then I would eat out of bowls so they would think it was normal behaviour. I would invite people over six months later and they would ask what was wrong with my kids and I would say, “I DID THIS TO THEM!” Then they would call the cops on me and I would go to jail.

BBtBB: (laughs) With your army of “dog children”?

Dave: I want to change mine too. I would go to jail for shoving a pie in Stephen Harper’s face full of my pubic hair and over-age cream. That’s how I’d go to jail! Try to get that in there.