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For More on Faber Drive
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Alternative Addiction: Could you tell me about the Vancouver Fox Seeds and how that competition started the ball rolling for Faber Drive? Faber Drive: Fox Seeds was the biggest confidence builder for Faber Drive. At the time we were a young band and didn’t think too much of ourselves but after we took home 1st place out of over 500 bands our belief in ourselves went up a notch. AA: How did you get involved with Chad Kroeger's 604 records? How much involvement does he have in the signing of bands? FD: That’s actually a funny story because Chad originally was not interested in us. I remember asking him," Hey Chad, We got a show this weekend and you should come!" His response was, " I'm gonna be totally honest with you man and tell you that I wont come until I hear some more buzz about you guys." It wasn’t until I had bugged Chad over and over that he actually started coming to shows. Ha Ha!! He then came to 4 or 5 shows in a row and at the 5th show he said to me, "Faber Drive should sign with 604 Records!" My response was," Why the hell should we sign with you?" AA: How did you feel when you were signed? FD: Signing with 604 records was like drinking a few jugs of Heineken without getting the hangover. AA: How did Universal get involved? FD: When we were on a Nation wide tour with a well known Canadian band called Hedley we were in Montreal, Quebec. There was a few labels interested in us at the time but Tom McKay (Hinder, 3 Doors Down) was so excited to see us that he flew up to Montreal. The show went horrible! It was in a shitty little club that smelled of piss and spilled beer with maybe 100 kids there. However the kids still screamed, cheered and applauded after every song and Tom ended up signing us a few days later to Universal Republic. AA: Were many labels fighting for your signatures? And did you have to play many showcases? FD: Leading up to the show in Montreal there were a few labels fighting over us but we didn’t hit it off or feel that we should sign with anybody else even though they took us out for big expensive dinners. We just didn’t feel that connection like we did with Tom McKay. AA: When did the name change take place from Faber to Faber Drive and what were the reasons for it? FD: When we were about to sign with Universal Republic we had to do a name search to see if Faber had been taken and it turned up that it was. Our lawyer Chris Taylor (3 days Grace, Nelly Furtado, Avril Lavigne) had called me up and said that he strongly suggest we change our name to avoid a law suit down the road. You see there are no problems with law suits until you sell a million records and that’s when everyone wants a piece of the pie. AA: Was your EP recorded before or after the Fox Seeds competition? FD: Faber Drive had recorded a 3 song demo with our Producers Joey Moi ( Nickelback, Default, Theory of a Dead Man) and Brian Howes (Hinder, Daughtry, Lifehouse) that we used to get into Seeds but we hadn’t finished our first full length album (Seven Second Surgery) until November 2006. AA: Why did you choose to use some of the songs from the e.p. and not use completely new material for the album? FD: All of the songs that we have put on the album are songs that we love and have spent many days and hours making them the best we could. AA: How did Joey Moi and Brian Howes get involved with producing the album? How did they help shape the record? FD: When I first met Joey I was just in the middle of an old band break up. I gave him a CD and he said cool but didn’t seem too excited. So, I told him that I have other acoustic songs that I wanted him to hear and he set me up with his assistant at the time Alex Aligizakis. We recorded about 12 acoustic tracks at Greenhouse studios in Vancouver B.C. and then Alex handed them to Joey. About 1 week later I called Joey up to see if he had listened to the songs yet. He said no and told me that he would call me when he did. Another week went by and I called him again and he said he hadn’t listened to them still. After doing this for about 2 months he finally called me back out of the blue one day and said, Dude! These song ideas ROCK! I want to work with you. Then over the next year or so I sent him acoustic ideas via email amounting to probably over 50 songs until he said come to the studio and let’s do a Demo with Brian Howes. AA: Who does the bulk of the writing and how much involvement did Howes have in the songs? FD: I do the bulk of the writing. Usually I'll come to the band with a verse and a chorus and we will decide if we think it is worth going further with. By the time the song gets in the studio and we start working on it we have tried to flip the song around, put a twist on it, rip it apart and throw it back together. Song writing for us is hard work. Don’t be fooled, a good song takes time but a great song takes blood sweat and tears and years of honing your craft. Like Billie Joe said," Once you are a master at your craft you can do anything." AA: Do you think that categorizing the band as pop punk is a bit unfair? FD: We say that we are a Modern Spin on Timeless Rock. We have all kinds of influences in our band. We are huge music fans and we love anything from Megadeth to Michael Buble from the Beatles to Led Zep and from Green Day to Tim McGraw. AA: What is the bands recent involvement with Canadian Idol? FD: Canadian Idol had asked us to perform at their opening auditions in Toronto Ontario. We were stoked until we found out that it was at 8 in the morning!! Ha Ha! We were all up at 5 am going for Jogs and doing vocal warm ups, it was hilarious. It was a great experience and we had a lot of fun especially after the show when we went into the crowd and handed out 2000 stickers to kids that were standing in the line up for hours and hours. AA: How has the new album been received, in respect to sales and radio play? FD: Seven Second Surgery just came out on May 1st in Canada and it did over 1500 copies in that week. Our first single Second Chance is still climbing the Charts and it’s at number 11 in Canada. AA: How has it been received critically? Do you read reviews and how do you take criticism? FD: Personally and honestly I haven’t read anything bad about it yet. All of the reviews that we have read have been positive so far but we are sure that somebody’s gonna slam us at some point. Criticism for us has only ever been fuel for the fire, it pushes us to work harder and be the best that we can in all angles of life. AA: Are there any plans to release it to any other markets such as the U.K.? FD: It is a massive goal of ours to get into the U.K. and Japan as well as the rest of the world but we've got to take one day at a time for now and we are focused on the U.S. and Canada. AA: We’re familiar with label mates Marianas Trench, but who else from Canada should we look out for in 2007? FD: We have a few Canadian bands that we love; Billy Talent, Stabilo, Finger Eleven and Hedley to name a few AA: What is your opinion on the current music climate locally and globally? Can Faber Drive fit in? Are they relevant? FD: Music today is more diverse and yet more accessible than ever before. From downloading to myspace, music is simple and easy to get but it still seems like there is so many new bands that one could sit 24/7 on the computer and still not know every one. Faber Drive believes we are relevant because we have songs about love and loss like, Second Chance, "Instead of holding you, I was holding out, I should of let you in but I let you down" to songs about domestic abuse like, Sleepless Nights, " Another sleepless night and nothings changed he's still the same, I can hear her crying thinking she's the one to blame." and even songs about world issues like, "You'll Make IT". AA: How difficult is it for a rock band to make it in Canada? FD: We are very fortunate to live in Canada because we have never seen true poverty and I think many of us take the abundance of food and finances for granted. However, Faber Drive wouldn’t be where we are without hard work and the hand of God allowing us opportunities like we have had. The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary. We have had to give up a lot of our social time to get where we are but we are still just on the tip of the iceberg. We believe that we will be global someday soon. AA: Are there any plans to tour in Europe and the U.K.? FD: Europe and the U.K. have been in our sites for quite some time and we are ABSOLUTELY excited to get to them as soon as the opportunities start coming. Both of my parents are Dutch and born in Holland so that would be sentimental to play Holland and to check out Amsterdam! Ha Ha!!!
Faber Drive's debut
album is in Stores August
28th! |
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