Good times for Watchmen
By MIKE ROSS -- Express Writer
Even before anybody knew who they were, the
Watchmen were confident.
Take the 1989 edition of the Labatt Blue Band
Warz (please). At the time, this reporter was in an
Edmonton band competing at the western
Canadian semifinals in Winnipeg. As soon as the
Watchmen hit the stage, the winner became
obvious. Everyone knew - the other bands, the
crowd and even the Watchmen themselves, by all
appearances.
And the Watchmen won all right - by a landslide.
The band blew the competition away with the same
style of smart songs rendered with energy and soul
you can hear in a rather more focused form today.
We didn't stand a chance.
Nine years later, guitarist Joey Serlin laughs,
"Yeah, because the heavy hitters were there, the
home-town heroes!"
Of course, this Winnipeg rock quartet has come
far beyond acing cheesy talent contests, but
confidence is still running high for its fourth and
latest album, Silent Radar. Serlin and singer Daniel
Greaves sat down over a wee dram of scotch last
week to talk about it.
"We knew we had a good record going into it,"
Greaves says. "And we knew we'd be proud of it.
Our confidence is overflowing. It's a success
already, whatever else it does now. No one can
bring us down off that cloud."
They had more time to write and road-test the
songs, for one thing, thanks to a seemingly seamless
record label change. (From Universal to EMI - no
one really cares except maybe for staff at Universal
and/or EMI. "It was pretty amicable," says
Greaves. "We could make some s--- up if it makes
for good reading, but it was just a business thing.")
Another key factor was that the band was able to
get over its instinctive perfectionism and let it all
hang out in the studio. They recorded the album in
Seattle - not for any desire to jump on the
grunge-wagon (it's a little late for that, in any case)
- in Pearl Jam's studio. Located in a Bohemian area
of Seattle, with "lots of coffee shops and fabulous
women walking around," it was a comfortable
environment that contained a basketball court, a
ping-pong table and even windows. It all had a
beneficial effect on the results - "If you're not happy
where you are, it may not be in a tangible way, but
you'll hear it," Serlin says.
More than any of the band's previous albums,
Silent Radar captures the Watchmen's live magic.
Almost.
"We balanced the scales a bit this time," Serlin
says. "We knew that's kind of what we wanted to
do on this record. And that's kind of why we
sought out (producer Adam Kasper). He's a real
one- or two-taker. He's really good at saying, 'It's
good! Move on!'
"When you first start recording, you think that
everything's got to be perfectly in tune and perfectly
in time. This time, we just wanted to make sure that
capturing the vibe and the essence of the song was
more important. That's why the mistakes don't
matter."
The Watchmen is one of these lucky bands, like
the Tragically Hip, that developed in a vacuum. The
band members have literally known each other
since kindergarten, learned to play their instruments
together and were chiefly influenced by each other.
Their sound, therefore, is unique.
"We jammed every single day," Greaves says, "It
would be minus 40, we'd go to our rehearsal space
at the McLaren hotel and jam for hours with a case
of beer and discover our craft together. We
influenced each other. I'm sure there's other bands
with that relationship, but it's a special thing we take
pride in."
Says Serlin, "We didn't know any better. We were
just Winnipeg kids doing what felt right at the time.
Looking back on it, I think it definitely affects things
if you're from a community that's far away from
anywhere else, especially the whole Toronto thing."
Of course, Randy Bachman and the "Wheatfield
Soul" sound came out of Winnipeg, but as Greaves
says, "There's no way when we're writing or
playing or jamming that we're thinking about Randy
Bachman - much as I love the guy."
Yet another thing for the Watchmen to be proud
of.