Welcome to the Watchmen, cyber rockers.
By Perry Bergson
The Brandon Sun
The Winnipeg quartet has been among the industry leaders in utilizing the Internet as an invaluable promotional resource.
Guitarist Joey Serlin says much of the credit belongs to bassist Ken Tizzard, who joined the band in 1994 after Pete Loewen left.
"He kind of dragged us all into that and we're all now very into it," Serlin says. "We'd always talked about it but he's the one who made it reality. He's knowledgeable in that area and we get off from the direct response from fans."
As a companion to their March release Silent Radar, the band unveiled the web site www.silentradar.com, which recently made the final five of 15,000 entrants for a prestigious Internet award. The enhanced CD also featured cutting technology.
The band already had www.the-watchmen.com, their earlier web site. Serlin says the band's come to rely on the twin websites.
"We take our laptops with us when we're out (touring), we'll play a show and then the next day there will be e-mail from the fans that saw us the night before," he says. "It's a very helpful thing and we like to take advantage of it."
Area music fans won't need to go online to see the band on Oct. 28, when they play the Manitoba Room at the Keystone Centre with Big Wreck and Mayfield Four. It'll be the first date on a national tour that will swing west and then back east all the way to Montreal for a final show Nov. 21.
The Watchmen's visit to Brandon will be their first as an EMI band. Their first three albums McLaren Furnace Room (1992), In The Trees (1994) and Brand New Day (1996) were all released with MCA.
"It was kind of a very amicable split," Serlin says. "We made a lot of good records there. We're proud of the body of work we left behind but we were offered a new home at EMI.
"They seem to have a real handle on where we come from artistically so we thought it would be a good time for a healthy change."
It proved to be good timing for EMI. The band's first single off Silent Radar was Stereo and it charted in the Top 10. So did the current single Any Day Now.
Serlin says Watchmen fans needn't worry that the outfit has deserted its well-earned label as an album band.
"I like the perception of being an album band because that's what we are," he says. "We take every song on an album very seriously. We're proud of the fact that we've never put any filler on our records."
The band is currently shopping for a label to release Silent Radar in the U.S. It's received a warm reception in Germany and Australia, where the band is currently on a promotional tour.
They recently finished up an American swing with the Tragically Hip that found the two bands playing 2,000-3,000 seat venues. Earlier this year the Watchmen toured the United Kingdom, Holland, Denmark and especially Germany, where they played everything from clubs to festivals.
The road work may pay off because Silent Radar is their strongest and most melodic effort to date. Recorded in Seattle's Litho Studio with producer Adam Kasper (Soundgarden, R.E.M.), a sleaker, hook-ridden guitar sound is a revelation.
Serlin says it was an inevitable evolution for the Watchmen.
"It's very important to us as a band to always move forward," he says. "We always knew that we were never just going to find a comfortable niche and stay inside of that. We're always trying to progress and become better but I think that there's an evident step forward in maturity on this album.
"This is our fourth record and I think that we can say we finally feel comfortable in the studio. I think that comes with time. We were less concerned with studio perfection and more concerned with capturing somewhat of the essence of what we're about live."