Posted on June 27, 2010 - by Editor

The Flatliners: Punk Rock Nomads

Chris Cresswell © Imelda Michalczyk

The Flatliners are amongst the hardest working bands on the punk rock circuit and their youthful age is disguised by their mature and relentless approach as a band that earlier this year released their third full length record (and second via Fat Wreck Chords) “Cavalcade”. Distorted has not stopped listening to the record since and has eagerly attended all of the bands previous London shows, which bring an air of sincerity and determination in how these Canadians- workhorse like- cover vast distances touring the globe, without letting egos or taking things for granted act as any form of a stumbling block to their ongoing success and perhaps more importantly amplified respect of peers and elders in the punk rock sphere. Vocalist Chris Creswell spent a fair chunk of time talking through recent ventures and breaking down “Cavalcade” to Distorted on their most recent visit to London.

Steve: So this is your fourth show in London and third different venue (the same as their last London performance however), so you are doing the rounds. Before you hit London though you have already been through Europe so how has the tour been going?

Chris: It’s been going great man, and tonight is the last night of the tour. We didn’t go anywhere new, which we usually find ourselves doing when we come to Europe this being our fourth time over here, but we returned to a lot of places we have been, obviously, and the shows have been getting better and the crowds even cooler? It’s just been really amazing to see the kids sing along that intently and listening to our new songs which is what every band loves to see. So many bands will go out and “hey here is our new song” (in mocking voice) and the kids won’t even move cos they just don’t know it yet so they don’t feel it yet or whatever?

Steve: Yeah it’s normally a year later when they have gotten into new music.

Chris: Yeah the crowd is always catching up to the band right?

Steve: So were you surprised then with the reactions you have been getting?

Chris: Yeah I was surprised, we all were but it’s been great, we really love it over here and really glad to end the tour in London.

Steve: And you guys are usually pretty relentless, so would you say this year has been more relaxed than normal?

Chris: Um Well I would say the difference with this year to past years is that we did a massive chunk at once whereas as the past couple years we have done two or three big chunks then had some time off but we have been on tour since February. So it’s been pretty ridiculous but great don’t get me wrong (indicating he would have it no other way). We did Australia for our first time and Canada North America, Europe and the UK so we have covered a lot of ground, it’s pretty crazy.

Steve: And how did you enjoy your first trip to Australia?

Chris Cresswell © Imelda Michalczyk

Chris: Oh it was awesome. The only thing we didn’t do is the northern territory which I guess not many bands do anyway? The first show was in Perth, so we did the one show in Western Australia and we were on tour with No Fun At All so we ended up flying like every day almost and it was pretty wild, yeah pretty crazy. (stopping for a moment and grinning) But again we covered a lot of ground and it’s a massive country. But I think the coolest thing on the tour, aside from everyone that brought us over there were incredible to us, like treated us like kings, paid for everything, accommodation, the food which was great especially cos its really expensive over there (laughing) Aside from that, the best part was we did ten shows with No Fun At All, we had a couple days off to do nothing, hang out on the beach whatever.

Steve: And did you do nothing? (Last time we spoke to the guys they filled days off with ore shows, even playing a vegetarian cafe at one point)

Chris: We honestly just hung out on the beach, went to bars and went out and got drunk, that’s all we wanted to do, just mellow. And we returned to Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, which we had played a week prior with NFAA, so we were excited to go back but also apprehensive cos we didn’t know if it was actually was going to be good as we had just played there! But the shows were awesome.

Steve: And was it the same crowd that had come back?

Chris: Yeah yeah and that’s why it was so good cos all the kids that saw us the first time liked us I guess and bought all their friends. So yeah they came back and we were shown a lot of love there, awesome.

Steve: And you did Canada with Cobra Skulls right?

Chris: Yeah yeah.

Steve: You just missed them as they played here (same venue) last week.

Chris: Yeah we have been criss-crossing them the whole time. They are one of the best bands out right now for sure.  We love that band so much.

Steve: And label mates now too.

Chris: Yeah the first news we got when we came back from Australia was that they signed with Fat (Wreck Chords)and it was the day before we were going to play with them so we were so stoked. And the new album “American Rubicon” is awesome and The Broadway Calls are awesome too and we have known both those bands for a couple years and they knew each other so it was really just like a month of hanging out with buddies and playing with great bands.

Steve: And you have Warped Tour later this year too?

Chris: Yeah we fly home tomorrow then we have 12 days off then we play four shows on the west coast in the US, then fly home and then we have four days home and nine days on the NE Warped Tour, some headline shows, not warped tour but club shows which is going to be good and then we get to go home for a month and a half.

Steve: Wow, so are you looking forward to that time off? Or are you keen to get going quite soon?

Chris: Well it’s kind of a double edged sword cos I like the time off because we only get time off, well not ‘only get time off’

The Flatliners © Imelda Michalczyk

(mocking himself by using air quotes) but have time off after months of touring in a row, so after that its cool to hang out for a while but then you do get bored after a couple weeks. I have a girlfriend I love and friends and family, everyone does but at the same time we have grown so accustomed to touring and living in this weird nomadic state of mind that you are like “wow I have nothing to do today, that is so weird!” So I mean yeah it’s strange, it’s not bad but you are always living two lives at once and it’s so strange.

Steve: Yeah I know the “older punk” veterans and punk dads have mentioned they find it odd to adjust.

Chris; Yeah definitely like when we were on tour with NOFX and Fat Mike would be telling us about his daughter and stuff and I would be like”this guy is a father” and I don’t mean that badly, like he is having a good time and stuff but he is always telling us stories about her and I mean I suppose there have been guys that have left bands when they became a father. Mike obviously is not going to stop NOFX so it’s cool to see the older vets going so strong and doing so well and still serving as a strong influence to so many young punk bands and they are still better than so many bands now.

Steve: Does that give you the necessary kick up the backside in case you ever get jaded?

Chris: Oh fire sure, I mean we are young guys and you get those days sometimes, we have been doing this for eight years  we feel a lot older than we are and I look a lot younger than I am (laughing) so yeah when we get a chance playing or getting in touch with bands we idolised and saw as heroes and helped shape our musical taste and what not….. I can’t say they become our peers, we don’t see it in that way, but they become people we can approach and talk to, ya know what I mean? It’s very strange but in a great way.

Steve: And also in terms of learning from them, that ‘been there, done that’ feeling?

Chris: Yeah yeah I think so. That’s the thing, we are young guys and we have our problems and you see those guys and they have kids and mortgages and stuff and what not and my life is not that fucked up or confusing.

Steve: You talk about touring with people you respect and I read in a recent interview of yours that you were the merch guy for a Chuck Ragan tour in Canada?

Chris: Yeah yeah yeah. So I have been on tour a couple extra weeks than the other guys (grinning) cos that was right before this big ass tour I had about four days between that and this, so I’m the hardest working guy in the band (shaking his head and bursts out laughing). No I’m probably the least! Anyway my girlfriend is in a band called Cavaliers from Toronto, kind of like alternative country, if you can put that pin on it and still want to listen to it? I know there is a negative connotation to country.

Steve: Well the folk punk thing has come on in a big way.

Chris: Yeah sure and it’s that Wilco, Ryan Adams cool kind of stuff, and they got this tour with Chuck Ragan and Tim Barry and my girlfriend told me and I was on tour and like “when is it, when is it?” cos I knew I had to at least go to a show right, and she said it was in January and I knew we had a break so I hatched this scheme and I originally started doing merch for Cavaliers and the guy who books us in Canada also books Cavaliers and Chuck Ragan, so it kind of snowballed and he asked me if I could do merch for Tim and chuck and asked me to help with the shows, and that was incredible. Hot Water Music is one of my all time favourite bands and we have already been so fortunate to be playing with and befriend so many of our idols and we will never take that for granted and if we do, we don’t deserve to be a band. And I wasn’t even playing in a band on that, just to hang out with Chuck and Tim in that element, that one man show (vibe) was truly inspiring, it really was.

The Flatliners © Imelda Michalczyk

Steve: I know when Chuck played here earlier in the year it was the first time I had met him, and I got the feeling that you can’t help but meet him and walk away feeling inspired.

Chris: I know, I think he is the hardest working and most genuine person I have met in my life and I think I will stand by that. He could be sitting back and doing his carpentry stuff which he was for a while but he didn’t want to and wanted play music and he found a way to do it and do it well and he tours so much. Yeah it’s just so cool to see him and in that specific element I would have been excited with Hot Water Music too, but us all just hanging out with so much downtime and with Adam from Cavaliers. It’s like I would walk into a room and pull that stupid movie thing, where you just sigh, and I did it a couple times on that tour, and it was cool, really cool.

Steve: It’s great to hear and you just seem to positive all the time, like nothing can pull you down?

Chris: Oh sure I mean there are times ya know, we are human. Everyone had their bad days but it’s like I said we know we are so lucky and to complain about we have accomplished and what we have been able to do would just be so stupid. You can’t do it.

Steve: Ok let’s talk the new record (“Cavalcade”) it’s been out for a few months now, you talked about the positive reaction you have received, so has it cemented the belief that it’s a great record from your perspective?

Chris: Um it was weird cos we recorded between tours, it was the only way we could do it and Fat Mike even came up to Toronto to work on some songs he heard after it was recorded. We had recorded about 14/15 songs last summer before we came to Europe the last time. And Mike said he liked it and said “what would you guys say if I asked you to keep working on it, I like it a lot and I will put it out now if you want me to, but will you guys be opposed?” At first we were kind of bummed cos we thought it was ready but he felt he could push us further to make it a great record.

Steve: So did he offer pointers in what he felt would make it a great record?

Chris: Well he came up to Toronto, we went over all the songs we had already recorded, some were already a year old! And for us it was uncomfortable to work on them with an objective view as we were so comfortable with the material. It was literally impossible for us to think of them in a different way. So Mike said “well I can come up and help you work on them if you want?” and we asked Steve Risez who has produced our records and basically a fifth member of the band, and it really did help to have Mike up there. We clashed on some ideas like you would with anybody.

Steve: And how did Steve react to that though having produced up to that point?

Chris: He was cool about it, and with the whole process. It was such a trip to work with him(Mike) in that way and it was super cool. We only made super subtle changes to the songs, like things we couldn’t work out on our own or just couldn’t get our mindset to how they could be. And man that guy is so good with that stuff, like little tiny things like with ‘Carry the Banner’ for instance’ him and I went over the vocal melodies, and I was singing them and he was like “uh yeah that note, how about instead of you going down you went up, like one note in the first verse” and I was like “that’s amazing!” And he was like “how about you repeated that pattern?” and I was like “no that’s weird” and he said “I know it sounds weird but that’s cos you are used to how it is, you don’t have to do it now but think about.” And little tiny things like that we may have brushed off at first but they worked out super cool. And from him there was no pressure to put it out fast, he wanted it to be a great record and we wanted it to be a great record so however long it takes we are not going anywhere and that was the coolest part cos we felt it was like so long since we had put something out. So we put out “Cynics” 7” to tide people over which was a great idea.

Steve: And the songs from that were they always not going to make the record?

Chris: There’s ‘Filthy Habits’, ‘Thunder and Lightning’ and ‘Wide Open Field’ we kind of knew weren’t going to make the

The Flatliners © Imelda Michalczyk

album where they kind of felt more like a 7” song than a record song and ‘407’ was a actually B-side from “The Great Awake” and it was the same thing, like we loved the song but if we  put it out on “The Great Awake” we won’t be able to put our record out on a single piece of vinyl so let’s save that for something cool, which we did, and “Cynics” turned our great. Like two different eras of the band?

Steve: Like a crossover?

Chris: Yeah exactly and it was the perfect thing to release between the two albums. So yeah having Mike helps us was really cool and we are so proud of it man, I’m glad we did take the advice and took our time with it. A lot of people were like “just put it out!” and we were like “errr we are going to listen to the head of our record label who knows exactly what he is doing”, so to us it really proved that Mike really gives a shit, he really does. He spent his money to come to Toronto for a weekend to work on songs with us and he wanted to help us and did a great job. The fact that we got a positive response from the album I think does as you say ‘cement the fact it’s a good album’; we are really proud of it and I think it’s a great record. I don’t say that with a pinch of arrogance, we are so proud of it.

Steve: That’s great and refreshing to hear, too many bands are afraid to say that and beat around the bush, if you like your record, say it.

Chris: Yeah exactly, fuck that, I love our records, I love our songs, and we write songs for ourselves. Not like (puts on voice) “Yeah yeah that songs is great people in Japan will love that song” fuck that, bands who do that fail and make bad record.

Steve: And the albums name itself, “Cavalcade”, where does that come from? I looked it up briefly and it mentions ‘marching horses’ or something?

Chris: Well yeah the term comes from settlers reaching new land and setting out to explore new land and its evolved to a series of anything, like a series of men on horses exploring new land and it’s kind of what we do with touring; nomadic life and exploring new things and the idea of a series of anything; thoughts, emotions, moments, stories, songs. It’s like every definition you throw behind that word it fit the album really well. And once we had most of the songs put together we kind of fluked on a theme of being away from home, and doing what we do and it’s strange and not everyone does what we do. We started thinking about how the world is going down the toilet in a way and as it seems as much as world advances and improves, we are getting so much closer to the way of the great depression and that’s because humanity is so stupid. And I’m not the smartest guy at all, I’m stupid, but it’s all our fault we got here.

Steve: But even though the subject matter is serious, it’s still a positive album?

Chris: Yeah that’s the thing, if we have a negative song or subject matter we have a way for turning that positive, its part of the reason why we went with that theme. That was the prominent theme in the songs, like ‘Carry The Banner’ sums it up pretty well and we got some cool imagery form it (referring to the album artwork)0. We are stoked with it, Alex Snelgrove, a woman from Toronto who does a lot of stuff with Cancer Bats and Alexisonfire (and others) she knocked it out the park.

Steve: You mentioned some songs already  and i wanted to go through some more, ‘Carry The Banner’ and ‘He Was A Jazzman’ you have discussed in previous interviews i read, about loss etc and strangely how the latter ended up as the reggae/ska type song?

Chris: Yeah its weird I know. Well you know how people say stand up comedians are the most depressing people on this earth, well it’s the same with music man (laughing). It was funny for us too that it worked out that way. But that song came about from a really bummer spot, a mental zone? We wrote ‘Eulogy’ for a friend of ours from school that passed away and it seems ever since we wrote and released that song, it seems like it was a blessing and a curse, cos if I could use a term it “broke our band” to a lot of people which is great but on the one end but we get all these similar stories (of loss and tragedy) from these people, which is flattering, which sounds morbid I know cos they are like “your song helped me through this tough time” and then go on to explain the tough time and this awful story. I guess we pulled off something really well and that’s what music does it helps people and all these stories from these people. I know we lose people all the time, we have lost six people since the end of 2008, between the four of us and Dorian (who always tours with us, one of our oldest friends) we have probably lost about ten people and that’s a lot and it was like what the fuck is going on here. I had this riff a while back during “The Great Awake” but wasn’t going to record it and write another song then,we were halfway through the record and my grandfather was battling cancer for the third time and went into the hospital while we were recording “The Great Awake” and I used to go and visit him and he passed away while recording; I always knew  that song would have something to do with that kind of situation. And whenever I have a riff in mind I use this recorder on my phone and saved it as “hospital reggae” so I knew it would be something but not such a morbid song and really it’s an asshole-ish song, its completely insensitive and a bad outlook. But it’s a human emotion in a song and that’s the thing. We were at the point where so many family members has passed away and I was like “what the fuck I don’t care anymore” like I care but it was happening so often and I was like “is this all there is? I’m like 20 something and everyone I know is going to fucking die?” And that the feeling that came through with that song, so yeha that’s the story, and we are human and we are going to break man.

Steve: Unfortunately that’s life….‘Shithawks’(people talking shit about your behind your back) is more obvious , what about ‘Monumental’?

The Flatliners © Imelda Michalczyk

Chris: Yeah that was peculiar and came out of nowhere, we had just begun and had started pre production on the record and I had this riff and we kept playing it with the guys and our producer heard it and was like “you need to make that into a song, its really cool”. And we were like “yeah yeha maybe for the next record”.”No” he was like “now!” and we did make it into a song and pretty quickly and we thought it was pretty simple and after we recorded it we thought it was really poppy and didn’t know if the kids would get it, the ones who liked our band, but after a while when we sat on the songs for a while we thought “yeah that song rules we are going to put it on the album!” There was no forethought to like “hey let make some of the heaviest and some of the most mellow songs we have ever written and throw in a crappy reggae song” it just happened, and we are so stoked.

Steve: Last few things, you had a few people do collaborations on the record. Some of those seemed to happen sporadically?

Chris: Yeah it was weird, initially we had Nuno Pereira from A Wilhelm Scream, those guys have been our homies for a while, we always wanted to get his voice on one of songs and that worked out really well. They have their own studio, and once we had the songs finished from our end we sent the files to Trevor Reilly from A Wilhelm and he used his ProTools or whatever and got Nuno in the studio and I sent like a scratch track to show him what we were looking for and he nailed it which was so cool.

Steve: Was that an odd way of doing it?

Chris: It was ok, I was on the phone to them a couple times and we banged it out pretty quickly and it was pretty painless.  I remember getting the track back and the day we listened to it for the first time and we were so stoked. It was relay cool, I have the mp3 of Nuno’s vocals and nothing else and its pretty funny. And then Dillinger Four happened to be in Toronto and we met them the previous fall on tour, and I have a D4 tattoo (showing me his arm) and we all love that band, all of us. So they were in town for a festival and they had a hotel room and flying back to Minneapolis the next day and they were getting kicked out of the hotel room at like noon and not flying till eight so we said we would take them to the airport if we bought them a bottle of whiskey and sing on a track. So Patrick Costello drank pretty much the whole bottle during the one line he sings on the track which was pretty hilarious. And Cancer Bats was in the studio and did most of the gang vocals with our friend and merch guy Dorian who i mentioned earlier. They (Cancer Bats) are always on tour and we were so stoked to catch them and Liam Cormier sings a couple lines on his own here and there. That’s the thing, I think when people heard all these people were going to be on the record they were expecting more vocals but the only person that has his own part is Nuno. We had a bunch of guys singing with but it was great to have friends involved.

Steve: Finally, playing the songs live now and being over a year old have they evolved further?

Chris: Oh yeah it was weird cos some of them were so old by one point that when we had to start playing them we needed

The Flatliners © Imelda Michalczyk

to practise them and “Bleed” is the one song we changed the most with Mike arrangement wise. And the first few times we played it and it was so weird cos we were so used to playing it the other way. And we just started playing “Count Your Bruises” the last week of tour and we have played it every day since and it’s what we do. It’s so much fun playing them live now and we are mixing it up, maybe two or three from the first record. And we might think we will have to play mostly from “The Great Awake” cos that’s the one the kids know and we did the first few shows but kids kept asking for new songs so we were like “yeah we will let you have it!” Actually our tour manager Ed would say that Jawbreaker when they came on tour would tour before the next record and play new songs and I hate that cos I want to know the songs.

Get to know The Flatliners songs off their latest record “Cavalcade” released through Fat Wreck Chords earlier this year.