Interview withKaine D3l4y (vocals) & Denyss McKnight (guitar, bass) of Left Spine Down
Over here in Europe, the Canadian five-piece LEFT SPINE DOWN won’t ring many bells. Perhaps this interview can help to change that a little bit and best introduce them to many potential new fans as they’ve a lot to say, whereas here you should take some statements with a pinch of salt.
Kaine: Well, there are several stories to that answer. One would say it began in a basement with three synthesizers, a drum machine, a bass guitar and a big dumb Rottweiler scratching at the door. Others would argue that it began with a 400 word piece of paper found at the Purple Onion. Some would even go so far as to say we're just a few years old as a group, and we all just got out of rehab. There are even tales of white flashes of light, gigawatts of electricity and advanced knowledge in quantum physics when discussing the birth of LSD. I'll leave it up to you.
RoD: The band name sounds interesting by the way. What’s the story behind its genesis?
Kaine: Man, that's it. I'm gonna start charging MONEY for this answer. Please fwd a cheque or money order of $20 USD payable to Synthetic Entertainment. The point is not how it came about. I'd like to know what it means to YOU.
RoD: Your debut album carries the title ‘Fighting for Voltage’. How did that name come about?
Kaine: Now THAT's a question I've been dying to answer. ‘Fighting for Voltage’ began as a meme upon the group's embryonic years. An anti-mantra of sorts. We all knew it was going to be the title of our record before we even knew how to make one. It evolved and became a concept album. Non Linear Autobiographical Science Fiction would be the best way to describe it. Hint: There is a biorhythmic peak in the Earth's bio-cycle that happens every 20 years, and the story began on August 12, 1943.
RoD: Is it a conceptual album or more like a collection of single stories that are told in the various tracks?
Kaine: Fighting for Voltage is a non-linear portion of a concept album. You see, when the subject of making this into an album came about, the group was still in a very formative stage. I myself was just getting comfortable with the idea of writing and singing for this group and had to really think about what I/we wanted to represent. All the lyrics within are in relation to one another; a good portion of the lyrics and dialogue samples come from my personal tape collection, hacked up into bits and re-organized to fit song arrangements. The clues are in both the album and our remix album, Voltage 2.3: Remixed & Revisited. But wait, there's more...
RoD: The cover of the album shows a (raised?) fist inside a globe holding a flash and a hair cross is pointing at the arm. I was wondering what you were trying to express with that visual imagery.
Kaine: Well, it's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it? ‘Fighting for Voltage’. Harnessing energy, it's what we do. Or at least try to do. Hahaha. The concept also has a bit of a militant angle to it; if you dig deep enough you'll find a whole web of intriguing facts behind this record.
Denyss: I’m by no means the artist in the band, but to me that image is incredibly powerful and was from the first time I saw it. To me, it’s a visual amalgamation of something very Orwellian and a graphic novel. I hate playing the part of harbinger, but in my opinion, all logos will attempt to be as intimidating as we tried to make this one in the near future. This is a call to arms, and this is the image we chose to represent what we were trying to get across on the album.
RoD: Voltage 2.3 - Remixed & Revisited is your most recent release. Why did you feel the need to release such a collection?
Kaine: This was an interesting endeavour. We held a remix contest online and got an overwhelming response. I remember hearing the XP8 mix first in our hotel in Montreal while on our first tour. I think we got the Download mix next, Melt after that, Led Manville, KMFDM... the names and mixes just kept piling up! We came home and tried compiling an "ideal" playlist for the remix album and realized we'd have to fork over a lot of $$ for production on a multi-CD remix album release! So we crammed as MUCH as we could into our computers, plugged in those two transmitter cabinets and that old Generator from the USS Eldridge, and actually bent the space-time continuum to create a CD that was JUST over 80 minutes. Some weird files and sounds ended up on there too, and shit, we covered a Joy Division song in there somewhere, and it sounds like. We had to learn from THIS mix to play it live. See, it was released before it was recorded... if you can imagine such a thing. We still have the other remixes in stasis with a lot of other digital goodies. Check your pockets; they might all turn up in there someday.
Denyss: I can’t even really remember what the initial catalyst was. The idea came out of left field when a number of friends and colleagues of ours expressed interest in remixing us. When the ball got rolling, it turned into a bit of a contest I guess. Our mindset went like, “Let’s see who else we can get on this thing”. We were really fortunate to have gotten the submissions we did. It was and is a huge honour to have these names on our release and I hope the fans were as pleasantly surprised as we all were.
RoD: One remix I found pretty terrific since it’s so totally different was the Funland Mix of Last Daze by The Birthday Massacre with whom you were already sharing the stage. Did you just ask them if they wanted to do a remix for this release?
Kaine: Bit of both really. When we first met TBM we opened for them in 2006. Before we had a drummer, we had to rely on the machine driven break beats to drive our music onstage. The sound desk was a nightmare and I think there was just a little too much tension in the air. It was our first all ages show in a while, and TBM's first Vancouver stop. All our friends and peers were there, and I think our terrible sound didn't help ease our tension. So Jeremy pulled something right out of the Kurt Cobain handbook and gave the faulty monitor onstage the thrashing of a lifetime. I have never seen a keyboard splinter apart like THAT, and I've been to Nine Inch Nails once already. Anyway, Rainbow and Chibi were watching from the balcony above, and at first freaked thinking he just killed their Keytar. Anyway, we've been friends ever since, and when word came about a remix album was being done, we got their mix almost immediately. I'm still beside myself when I hear it. I expected to be Leonard Cohen's age before I heard anyone else sing what I wrote on a record.
RoD: On the disc there are also two cover songs by Nirvana and Joy Division. Did these bands have a big impact on you in your musical evolution?
Kaine: We have this dead rock star fetish. Maybe next album we'll cover Sid Vicious or The Cramps or The Ramones or The Clash or Queen or Atari Teenage Riot... Dead rock stars are like the biker movies of today. You may have killed off Carl Crack, but you'll never stop ALTERNATIVE MUSIC!!!! Ok, honestly I think both songs have some sort of attitude driven quality that's lost in modern music. I turn on the radio and it tells me to go away, I used to turn on a dial and hear REAL rock songs by real artists. All I hear now are spoiled teenage dirtbags and scruffy Quarterback music. I guess the nutshell answer is we're posing a strong question to listeners: "Remember when rock music was THIS exciting???"
Denyss: I would say so, absolutely. There were some concerns initially about the Joy Division cover, we weren’t sure if it was going to be filed under “typical” or not. In the end, we decided just to go for it, we loved the way it was taking shape and we realized we didn’t give a flying fuck about what anyone had to say about it. As far as the Nirvana cover goes, I mean, that’s just a great song. Collectively, I think it’s safe to assume that Nirvana is our favourite band. It was kind of a no-brainer.
RoD: With ‘Welcome to the Future’ there’s one brand-new track on Voltage 2.3 as well. Is that already a glimpse of what’s to come with the next album?
Kaine: It's a punky, poppy number which kinda leans into the direction of where we wanna go more into, musically. But it doesn’t stop there. Lyrically, it's a lost page out of the Fighting for Voltage concept, hence its apt placement on this album.
Denyss: It’s hard to answer that question without giving too much away. That track had been sitting in our library for a while, so we felt it was the perfect track to put on this release. As far as new material goes, we’ve been experimenting with different ideas and sounds. It goes without saying that you absorb and re process the things that have caught your ear and we’re no exception. Not only that, but we have really found our stride in our work ethic and our personal relationships with each other. We’re writing at an incredible rate and it’s all over the place. Over the next year we will be filtering it all down to come up with a finished product. I would say…the only similarities between ‘Welcome to the Future’ and the rest of the new material is that, it’s Left Spine Down.
RoD: What about the live circuit. Do you guys have any upcoming plans regarding this or is it mainly working on the new record at the moment?
Kaine: Well my zero time reference is down and we've lost Tim to some crack in the wormhole, I may have to re-establish communication with 2023 before I can begin a rescue mission. May take some time. I still need connections to a hi-grade plutonium supplier in Canada. I hear there may be one on the outskirts of Dryden, ON.
Denyss: We do have touring in the plan to close out the year. We’ll finally be hitting the US with some good friends of ours, so it’ll be nice to get this band on foreign soil. We have toured Canada so hard over the past year; we’re kind of looking forward to enjoying some time at home and working on new music. Touring for us is really intense. We have the presentation of an arena show on a smaller scale, stuffed into smaller clubs and manned by the 5 of us. It would be a lie to say we can just strap on and plug in. Anyway, off of my soapbox, yes there is a good chunk of touring coming up after the summer. Stay tuned.
RoD: We’re closing in on the end. Is there anything you’d like to add?
Kaine: Not a damn thing. All your BASS are belong to us.
Denyss: I haven’t shaved in 6 days.
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