The Watchmen - Watching the Radar
Undercover.net.au
By Tim Cashmere

Canada's The Watchmen have become somewhat semi-legends in their home country. In Canada, there are even Watchmen cover bands. That's got to be a milestone of success.
Although The Watchmen have had a fair level of success within their homeland, it is only now that they have set out on the discovery tour of the remainder of the planet.
Recently, they landed in Australia where guitarist Joey Serlin and drummer Sammy Kohn got inquisitioned by Undercover's Tim Cashmere

TC> Tell us about the CD multimedia, because it went way over my head.

J> I'm just starting to figure it out myself. We were approached to do this CD-active CD and it was just appealing to us, because we love that kind of interaction with our fans. It gives you that immediate contact and that's what we were looking for. We thought about doing just your regular enhanced CD but I know from my own CD's that I own that you check 'em out once or twice and that's it. So we wanted to take it a step further. So what it basically is, is that our CD is a key to our website and the idea is to update it and change it with new info, new pictures, new everything and that way its not a standard thing, new info all the time and it will keep people coming back and checking it out, so that's the whole objective.

S> Its been a big part of what we do actually, internet stuff. Like, I answer the bands email every night and Ken sort of did it for a while too, we sort of make sure whenever we can to avoid the middleman, the management, the record company so we can just speak to our fans. I sort of sit in my underwear at 2am and answer the bands email, I know it's pretty glamorous.

J> If he's not wearing his underwear he just can't do it. It's weird that way.

TC> Who does the website?

J> Ken, our bass player is the one that kind of dragged us into the computer age. We were still playing space invaders and he is kind of the guy. He does the rough designs of the websites, then he brings it to companies and they just take it one step further and get this site all happening. I think in total we have about 4 websites, as we develop a new one we keep our old one online too. So anyone who wants to go back to the archives can go check that out as well.

TC> What effect do you think Adam Kasper has had to the sound of the band?

S> Adam's influence wasn't so much a musical thing. It was more his presence, the very relaxed vibe. For example, I've told this story before, but this epitomizes my thoughts on him. We'd book the studio for noon or 1 and he'd show up two hours late with a big bag of dope ready to sort of relax and have some fun and I'd be like Adam, let's get some recording done. And he'd be listening to like a Marvin Gaye record in the control room, so relaxed, and he encouraged that in us, 'cause we were really making sure that every note was perfect prior to meeting him, and he came and opened up a lot of doors, just to sort of chill and pull for one or two takes, and avoiding all the details but working for a vibe and a good song, so he's a really influential on that.

TC> Well you recorded at Stone Gossards studio. What do you think that was like?

J> That was good. Those guys know how to set up a creative environment. It just had a cool vibe, which was conducive to creating great music, and we just stole their environment for a little while, and in a lot of ways it was very similar to our rehearsal space back in Winnipeg, just kind of little things that make you feel comfortable. It's a great sounding room and great gear. That in conjunction with Adams attitude just made for a really relaxed approach to recording. Like Sam was saying, more so than we have in the past we were relaxed and confident.

TC> Did you get to meet him?

J> Nope, didn't get to meet him

TC> Do you think the settings of the studio effected the sound of the album at all?

S> Well like what we were describing. If you're in some uptight LA studio or something with some secretary and the whole bit, you know that stuff exists out there, those sort of sterile environments, and this was just the antithesis of that it was just vibe, sitting around relaxed, playing our songs, rolling tape, great experience.

TC> I read you didn't seem to make this album so perfect. Why do you think that was?

S> Well the details were an afterthought. It was more just creating the right vibe for the right song. There was nothing more than one or two takes happening on one song, and that was what we went for this time, that was the idea. We also went into this project, or this album really enthusiastic because, there's 12 really great songs on this album if I do say so myself, I mean a lot of bands these days are sort of putting one or two good songs on an album and just assuming that that's going to sell. And usually it does for a while then the band sort of fades into obscurity. We're sort of an album band, we're trying to bring that back, we trying to bring back rock and this albums coming out in America in September and we're going to bring back rock 'n' roll! That's what we're going to do.

TC> Someone said you have more "air and light" in this album. What do you mean by that?

J> I think that's something that comes with time as you become a more mature musician. You tend to know when not to play, and that takes a while. When you're younger you're excited and you want to get in the studio and you're fighting each other for airtime and you want to get every note on there, but as you grow up you know to put the song first, to make the song king and back off. A lot of us were saying we're going to hold off here, we're not going to play, we're just going to let Danny sing, you know and it made for an intimate record, it put the lyrical content more forward than it had in the past and it just made for a nice listen.

TC> Joey, you co-wrote a lot of the songs. Were there any arguments as to what a song was going to be about?

J> No, Danny and I are pretty cool that way. It's not so much a co-write with lyrics, there's suggestions, but he writes lyrics for the songs I want to and he writes for what he wants to. We never talk about what lyrics are about, I think that's important for Danny to sing a song that I've written with conviction, I think he's got to have his own meaning for it, so we leave it pretty vague so he can do that.

TC> Well, this is only your first international album. Do you feel any different as people now that you've made worldwide success?

S> Well, our other releases have been available in certain European countries, but I don't think it feels any different really. This band has sort of built up like slow building blocks, its never been about an overnight success with us, like a video image or something like that, we always won them one fan at a time and this is just part of the picture. We're coming here to Australia, this is our 2nd visit, we're doing a lot of promotion, and we're just introducing people to the band slowly because we know that its not like the cover of every magazine one year, then fade into obscurity. We're here for a long time, we want to make a lot of records, a lot of people will have a lot of our albums in their CD library over time.

TC> Well I hear Australian fans are much like Canadian fans, do you think this is true?

J> I do, I really do. I think from the fans right through to the industry in general. Both countries have had their international success but for the most part they're trying to really, in a more masked way are trying to break through internationally, but at the same time Australian fans and Canadian music fans really support their own music. And they don't need to look to the States to tell them what a good band is, they feel confident enough to decide on their own. And that way I think music scenes are very similar.

Well I've heard nothing but good reviews on your album, what do you guys think of it?

S> Our album? I think its a piece of shit. No just kidding. I'm very proud of it, its our life, its our art. We play these songs every night. It's something that I was saying to another guy a little while ago is that the fact that we're still playing these songs 3 years after they've been written and for the most part some of them are pretty old already and are still giving me chills down the back of my neck on certain nights. They're good songs. So if people give it a good review then good.

J> We're also excited about our new stuff at this point. That's always what we've been about, just moving forward, pushing the art forward, and career-wise and more importantly music-wise and we've written a bunch of new songs that we cant wait to record but looks like that's a fair way away until we get that opportunity.

S> We'll include that in our live show. Maybe that's sort of been a situation of playing to Canadian audience who have seen us multiple times. So we'll thrown in a couple of new songs to keep people interested and to do something just for the thousand people who are out there. Just something special like a new song. We're debuting a new song tonight. It's for us too, but it's for the people out there as well.

Tell us about the cover. Is that you Joey on the cover of Silent Radar?

J> No, I get that a lot. It's ironic, it looks like me. The guy who did the artworks name is Dave McKeen and he does a lot of artwork, well he's a renowned artist in graphic novels, comics and stuff like that. We'd never met and we gave him full artistic liberty and he sent that out, and it does look kind of like me, but I'm much more handsome.

TC> Well I've heard a lot of comparisons of you guys to Pearl Jam and REM. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

S> Its a good thing, because people are going to compare you to other bands. We're a new band for all intensive purposes for people here in Australia and they have to have a reference of who we are, and if they're going to reference us to such great bands like REM and Pearl Jam it's not a bad thing. I mean, slowly we're going to come into our own, and I do feel we have our own sound because I'm really close to what we do, and I know every song intimately but its just what happens when you're being introduced to people.

J> Its interesting the comparisons you get too. I could see why people would say REM but Pearl Jam? A few of us like them, but some of us have never listened to a whole album. But I agree with Sammy. I don't mind comparisons as long as its a band I like. If its somebody I don't like then it pisses me off.

TC> Well, I hear you Joey had to choose between guitar playing and Ice Hockey. Do you think you made the right choice?

J> Oh yeah, I think I did. Judging by my knee's right now, but I think I did and I think I'd be far uglier if I was a pro-hockey player. I don't know if you've seen what those guys look like, maybe they look like the football players here but I've seen a lot of the football players here and they still look pretty good. In hockey they get all cut up, I think its the stick work, they get all cut up and broken noses and get their teeth knocked out.

TC> Where does the name "The Watchmen" come from?

J> It's from a comic book. I'm a collector of comics and its kind of a cult comic, and I gave the book to all the guys, and we liked the book and we just thought it would make for a cool name, because the slogan for the comic was 'Whose watching the watchmen?' and it was kind of always dug that.

TC> Have you guys heard of anyone citing you as a major influence?

S> There's been a few bands in Canada that I can see have taken a few ideas from us.

J> There are actually a few cover bands that just do our sets and our songs. We just got a tape and it was pretty interesting to hear these guys interpretations of our own music. They sent us a tape of like 10 Watchmen songs that they play in bars and stuff

S> Well actually on this tape, there's a song from our 3rd album, the song is called Incarnate, and its got this backing vocal part that they did live that we don't even do live and they sort of pulled off and I just remember hearing it and thinking "that sounds great, we should try that"