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On Thursday I got the opportunity to see one of my favourite Canadian indie bands play at the El Mocambo event “Music for MS”. After the show I spoke with Tara and Skodt from 5th Projekt. We talk music, the industry and ninjas.

G: I’m standing in the rain with…

S: Skodt.

G: and…

T: Tara.

G: For anyone who’s not familiar, tell me a little bit more about 5th Projekt.

T: We’ve been together for about five years?

S: Six.

T: We released a few EP’s and one full length. Right now we’re working on a second full length album. I guess we’ve been described as cinematic/cinematic rock.

G: How did you become a part of ‘Music for MS’?

S: We met Shelby at U of T. They’ve been really supportive of 5th Projekt’s stuff over the years. Whenever we released an album we’d send it their way and get a good dialogue opened up between everybody. They’ve been great at helping local artists.

G: Your first full length album Circadian; how was that? What was it like to go about that path to having a vision and a sound then actually trying to make it come forward for people to hear?

S: That’s a good question. We had an idea of where we wanted to go with things when we started but we recorded the album three times before we got what we heard. It was a very long and frustrating process but once we got to the end I’d say it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life. It was really cool to have this thing that we worked on in the end.

G: Was it one person’s vision or was it a collaboration of the group?

T: I think Skodt and I…, we just met basically when I applied to an ad on the internet when they were looking for a singer and it just sort of worked out that we were both different and weird and that was fantastic.

G: Call it eclectic.

S: Eclectic yeah.

T: Yeah. We just loved the ideas that each other came up with and we kind of threw our ideas together. I had some songs on my computer and they had written some things already when I joined. It just worked I don’t know, it was just good chemistry when we met.

G: What would you say are you influences?

S: Wow there’s a huge list.

T: So many.

S: The ones that people pick out the most are Portishead and My Bloody Valentine are the ones that people get. Anything that’s been around mostly, our parents really liked music and growing up we were always around their collection, their influence. They appreciate music in all its forms with a huge diversity in the stuff that both our parents listened to with a huge crossover too and I think it’s that crossover that stuck with us. It’s kind of what 5th Projekt is. Seriously it’s a huge list. We tried to put up a short list on myspace and it was still ridiculously…

G: You ran out of space?

S: Yeah. We just like good music. There’s definitely a desire for us to create and I think that’s where the ambient/shoegazing perspective, post rock kind of stuff comes from but there’s also a huge folk influence as well. We’re crossing a few genres that don’t normally get crossed and people always respond to us based on what their musical preference is. If they listen to these three genres mainly and some other stuff they’ll classify us based on what they listen to and somebody who listens to a completely different set of music will respond to us differently based on what they heard. It’s cool that we can keep an original sound while harking on all these influences that we’ve taken in and try to do it in a refreshing way. That’s the most rewarding thing. When you get a review there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to read it and the other half of you will pick it up and read into it and you’re like “hey this is cool, wow they totally compared us to grizzly bear. I don’t even know who it is yet maybe I’m gonna go check em’ out”: then you check em’ out and they’re awesome. That’s a huge compliment.

G: It’s interesting to see that coalescence these different genres come together.

S: Yeah. We know that there’s other people out there doing it. We’re trying to find out who they are so we can hook up. It’s a lot easier for the 95 bands in our rehearsal space that play death metal to play gigs together but were the sore thumb that sticks out and everybody is like “Why do you have Monet up on your wall? Where’s the naked chicks?”

G: One of the things that made it so easy for me to find out about you guys is for example 5th Projekt has such a strong presence on the internet. You’ve made quite an effort. How has the internet shaped your ability to communicate with your fans?

T: It’s almost the only way to communicate nowadays. I don’t even want to know how we would do it otherwise or how people used to do it. We depend on it. It’s what we use the most. Mailing lists don’t mean snail mail anymore. So it’s the only way for us. It’s a good tool for promoting our shows. We’ll do other stuff like postering around the city, actual physical things but for the most part I think most of our fans are online.

S: For this show we did a facebook ad. I think that’s pretty invaluable for someone of our stature. We’re pretty much unknown outside of southern Ontario, a few fans in Montreal. It’s a very affordable marketing campaign and you’re reaching all these people.

Everybody is like "Why do you have Monet up on your wall? Where’s the naked chicks?

T: It’s allowed us to have reviews in magazines in Belguim and Germany. I don’t even know if we would be noticed there at all otherwise. It would be expensive for those efforts. The other thing about the internet is it’s so saturated. Everyone in their basement can do it but at the same time it’s a great tool for people that are already your fans. To get out there it’s hard because there’s so many other people doing it.

G: Your first song was actually coming from your new upcoming album that you’re working on right now. What can you tell me about this upcoming album without giving too much away?

S: Right now we’ve only got eight songs that were really satisfied with out of the bunch that we’ve been working on over the last while. Right now we’ve got a bunch of songs we can pull from but we don’t want to because it doesn’t seem to work with what we have now. I’m not sure how to describe it.

T: It’s fun. It’s us playing most of the instruments. It’s just him and I basically writing it.

G: Skodt’s the Trent Reznor of the group.

T: Exactly

S: Oh man I wish. Did you see the Nine Inch Nails show last week?

G: I did.

S: I think they were a four piece for most of the night. I think it was one song they were five piece and it was totally scaled down.

G: I’m still a sucker for the mixed stuff on cd.

S: I know what you mean.

G: You mentioned your music has such a far reach. What’s the most unusual place that you’ve ever got feedback from?

S: The Belgian magazine.

T: Oh yeah I think it was in Belgium we got that review and it was in Dutch so we have no idea what it says.

G: You haven’t gotten anybody to translate it for you?

S: We asked.

T: But nobody…

S: Knows that specific language. They’ll say it’s this dialect or it’s that dialect.

G: When all else fails, google.

S: We tried a bit of that. I think we had trouble finding out what the original language is. I recognize parts of it from other languages that I’m familiar with. It’s positive because it was a 4/5 with a write-up but I wanted to know what is he responding to.

G: You’re starting grass roots. You have music but you reach a point where it can feel saturated with so many people trying to find their sound. What do you see for the future? You have a music industry that feels like it’s stuck. There are people that are still trying to protect the old way and people like you guys who seem to be evolving towards finding a medium and an audience. How do you see yourselves in this future?

T: Hopefully just being really happy doing what we’re doing. That’s what I’ve come to the conclusion of basically with record labels the way they are. I’m not expecting to be discovered some day. I know we have to work really hard and do it ourselves to get anybody on board, if anybody is interested in getting on board. The most important thing to me right now is writing music I love and being really happy doing it. I’d love to be rich and famous of course but the most important thing is the day to day being cool with your life.

S: We’re the artists so it’s our job to make the stuff. We do the best we can given our resources to get it out there and once we get to a certain point there’s other people who can do it better. If it comes along and everybody is really helping each other out that’s cool. It’d be nice if the people who controlling the big things right now could actually get down to the street and get out of their offices to see. Not to wait for another Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails to do something that’s gonna lead where the industry is going. It’d be nice if they actually came down and payed attention the people who actually create. These four bands here tonight are all part of the scene.

I know we have to work really hard and do it ourselves to get anybody on board, if anybody is interested in getting on board

G: I think a quote I remember that seems to fit here is “It seems like the people who try the hardest are the people who get nowhere.”

T: Were going to try to get people in. With this album were going to write all the songs and then we want to talk to people we know or people that were interested in what they do to see what they think to see if they want to add anything to it from musicians or producers. Were totally open with this album, we just want to have fun basically.

S: A lot of what we were doing in a previous collaboration really influenced how we’ve been doing this and how we’re approaching this. We learned a lot about how to record from our friends who’ve been doing it a lot longer and they can stand our curiosity every now and again and they’ve been really supportive. That’s cool and we can do something to the point where we’re happy with it, listening to it passing it around to friends to get their input. The way 5th Projekt has always been, Tara and I have been doing the songs and just ask friends to play with us. We’re trying to get more input from people but it’s not necessarily always needed. We work really well together and we’re able to complement each other so well that we’re just having a lot of fun doing it.

G: Now this is by far the most important and final question. Life or death depends on this question.

T/S: Okay.

G: Pirate versus ninja. Who would win?

T: Ninja, Ninja.

S: Ooo Ninjas for sure.

G: What?!? Why?

S: Because…

T: They’re cooler.

S: You never see a ninja. You see pirates everywhere but you never see ninjas.

T: Pirates have wooden legs and so many handicaps.

G: They’re swashbucklers though, they’re feisty.

S: They just come at you with their sword…

T: Yeah but you don’t see a ninja coming.

S: Yeah… If you see a ninja coming chances are it’s not a ninja. Just wants to be a ninja. Ninjas are never seen and if they are they’re supposed to commit suicide.

G: Really?

S: I’m dead serious. If a ninja’s face is unmasked and they’re seen as an assassin in public it’s a disgrace to their honor and they have to kill themselves.

G: I think I just learned something new about ninja folklore.

T: Me too.

S: There was this video game I played on the commodore 64 called ninja and it had all this great backstory about ninjas. I like ninja movies like American Ninja 1-4 I really enjoyed as a kid when I was younger it was really awesome.

G: Awesome. Once again I want to thank you guys; Tara and Skodt for the amazing set and sparing me your time with this interview and I look forward to hearing more about 5th Projekt in the future.

Tags: Interview