Interview – Chris Cook of Finderskeepers
This Friday, February 28, Ottawa punk rock three-piece Finderskeepers are releasing a six song 7” called Pack Your Bags. This will be the band’s third official release, and having been lucky enough to listen to it I am very excited for them. But not everyone knows these lovely people so I thought best to do a little question and answer with guitarist and lead singer Chris Cook on the band and the upcoming release. Check it out and you can stream Pack Your Bags below.
1) What did you three guys do before Finderskeepers?
We all played in other bands before Finderskeepers – Jon’s been doing it the longest in Ottawa and has been in old school Ottawa punk bands like Neanderthal Sponge, Mumbleweed and Harshey among many others. Devin and I used to be in the Centretown Cripplers and she was also in The Johnnies. I used to be in Tallships and Runstop Restore among others.
2) What brought the three of you together?
Well, Devin and I had been looking for something new to do together after the Centretown Cripplers broke up and Jon and I were currently in the Allrights and Mnemonics at the time. A friend of ours suggested that we organize a challenge to get everyone to record an album during the months of January and February (this was back in 2011) and I had some songs that I had been messing around with so I asked Jon and Devin to record them with me. We all had enough fun that we decided to keep it going as a full time band. That album ended up being our self titled debut.
3) Where you and Devin already married or is this a punk rock love story? If so care to elaborate a little?
Devin and I have been together for much longer than Finderskeepers. We started the Centretown Cripplers mainly just as an excuse to hang out with friends and play music. She had actually never played bass before the first practice and I don’t think either of us knew where it would end up but the rest is history as they say.
4) Where does the name Finderskeepers come from? We don’t actually remember – we had been trying to come up with a name and saw something on TV that mentioned finders keepers and decided on that but at this point we can’t remember what show we were watching. Personally I’ve had a lot of horrible names for my bands, so it’s nice that it’s not horrible.
5) How would you describe Finderskeepers’ sound?
Just punk rock I guess. I’m bad at these types of questions. Catchy, fast, short songs. Does that count?
6) Your vocals are rather unique, how would you define them? Who do you think had the biggest influence on them?
I’ve never really been someone who tried to imitate other singers so influence is a tough question. When I was learning guitar as a kid I didn’t have the attention span to learn other people’s songs so I’d just write my own. I do remember that hearing Pavement for the first time was a big thing for me at the time – just hearing someone who was so comfortable with his own voice despite it not necessarily being what most people would call ‘conventionally good’ made me realize that as long as you are confident in what you do, somewhere someone is going to be into it.
7) What were some of the inspirations behind the new 7 inch, Pack your Bags?
I’m not sure there’s really a single inspiration or theme for the album itself – the title comes from the fact that I had reused the lines Pack Your Bags and Pack Our Bags in back to back songs and didn’t realize it until I was actually recording the lyrics….by that time it was kind of too late to change them, so we decided to embrace it.
8) I absolutely love the song “Society in Decline,” can you tell me a little bit about the writing of that song?
Society in Decline is the oldest of this set of songs, so it’s the one that feels the most solidified to me. Even then though, like most songs for us it wasn’t 100% complete until we recorded it. The backing vocals in the chorus were something I always had planned on but never bothered explaining to Devin and Jon until we actually got around to recording it. We had also just started playing a song in the Mnemonics that had an interesting tempo change so I decided to steal that for the bridge part in this song.
9) Often bands have favourite songs from new projects, what is your favourite tune on the album?
As for favourite tunes, that is a tough one for me. Usually it’s more about which songs I get sick of quicker and I’m happy to say that I still enjoy playing most of our songs. The one song that I find interesting though is Push, the last song on the record. Mainly because it was the last song we learned and was relatively raw before recording, so it’s fun to see how it developed during that process. It was also a song that I had recorded in a very different format for a recording challenge that was never supposed to be a finderskeepers song, so it’s fun that it worked out that way.
10) How do you want people to feel as they leave a Finderskeepers show?
Sweaty and happy and full of adrenaline if at all possible. At worst, just not pissed off.
11) What are some future plans for Finderskeepers?
The release show for the 7″ is this Friday (Feb 28) at Luneta Bistro on Bronson. It’s going to be a fun show. This hasn’t been officially announced yet but I think we’re safe saying that we’re also playing in May with Devin’s other band, Fresh Hell, as well as the Raging Nathans and Panic Attack. We’re also going to try to play some out of town shows, which we haven’t really done much up until now but we really enjoy doing.
12) How would you best describe the 2 bands opening during your release?
Neck is members of Garaga, The Visitors, and Bitchin Camaros and they do a really fun take on Ramones style punk rock but with a bit of a more angular take. Just when you think they are going to zig they say they are going to zag but actually zog instead. RawRawRiot is a really great grab bag of punk influences. They write super catchy songs and in one song you’ll have pop elements, hardcore parts and then a ska breakdown (but you know, good ska, not that other kind). I really like them a lot. Most importantly though, we really love all the people in both these bands and are super stoked just to hang out with them.
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