Oct30 - converted on Thursday, 29 October 1998,

Watchmen playing Canada Games Arena
By Cheryl Clark

The Watchmen are finally coming into their own.
The Winnipeg-based band, which recently released its fourth CD Silent Radar, just returned from a junket Down Under and is now on the road in Canada.
Despite the hectic tour schedule, lead singer Sammy Kohn says there is no such thing as too much road.
"That's what this band is all about - winning one fan at a time," he says. "The fans are sort of making it happen for us."
Indeed, the band has been together for nearly 10 years and has only recently begun to gain international recognition for its alternative pop-sounding style.
Kohn however dislikes putting any label on The Watchmen's type of music. "All of us write," he says. "Each of us has our own way of doing things."
If critical reviews are any gauge of success, The Watchmen's fourth CD, the first with EMI Canada, may well be its best-selling work to date.
Silent Radar, produced by Adam Kasper of REM and Soundgarden fame, was recorded at Stone Gossard's Studio Litho in Seattle. Guitarist Joey Serlin, drummer Kohn, bassist Ken Tizzard and singer Daniel Greaves say they appreciated the chance to record away from home.
"It's kind of weird when you make a record and you come home and you have to pay the bills and take the garbage out," says Serlin.
Isolation may have been a big factor, but so was space.
"This album has more air and more light than anything we've ever recorded," says Kohn. "There's some track where there's nothing happening except minor little swells of sound or no drums, just one voice, one guitar and one bass."
Silent Radar is a long way from The Watchmen's 1992 debut-album McLaren Furnace Room which itself did impressively well.
The CD earned gold certification in Canada and its success was spearheaded by the strength of the singles Cracked and Run and Hide.
In 1994, the band's follow-up CD In The Tree proved even more popular on Canadian radio with the hits Boneyard Tree and All Uncovered.
By the third CD, 1996's Brand New Day, The Watchmen had ventured into more adventuresome territory, with musical accompaniment which included piano, trumpet and strings. The singles Incarnate and Shut UP led the way up the charts and earned the band a gold album.
Now, with a couple thousand concerts under their belts, The Watchmen's Silent Radar features a sound that is raw and rocking, yet enriched by unique tonal paths as a result of experimentation.
"We don't analyze, we write," says Kohn. "I don't really know where it comes from. We look for timeless, good music."
Regardless of where their musical paths take them, three of four Watchmen members have no intention of packing up their bags and moving away from Winnipeg any time soon.
"This is what we call home," says Kohn. "You don't have to leave your hometown to make a name for yourself. That is old-school thinking."
Kohn notes that though members are in close proximity on and off the road, members do need a little time away from one-another.
"We fight all the time but it's for a common goal," says Kohn. "We're not the Partridge family."
And whether members have the occasional argument over direction or even spilled milk, they are keen on not letting their differences pull them apart.
"Here's a dream that is realized. So many band were here for a year and now they're gone. We admire long-lasting bands," he says. "We've been together going on 10 years - that's the key."
Watchmen fans should take notice that the Silent Radar CD includes a CD-active capability on the song Stereo which is able to unlock private web pages on The Watchmen through a CD-ROM drive and the Internet.
The Watchmen and their buddies from Big Wreck will grace the stage at the Crystal Centre Oct. 31 at 8 p.m.