Few groups could have survived the roller coaster this band has been
on for the last decade. The fact that the band as a unit is still alive
amazes some critics. The fact that they are not only alive but kicking
out all the stops with their latest double CD is a testament to the
resilience and drive of the Leslie Spit Treeo.
Too often you hear of bands who are willing to give up their
individualism in the interest of higher sales or increased exposure.
The Spits are indeed a rare breed. Fortunately for us they have held
fast to that one ideal which in turn has helped shape their distinct
sound; "always be yourself." With "Chocolate Chip Cookies" they've
shown us they can also do it with style.
MUSon: Lets start with an overview of the band's history. You started out busking the streets of Toronto with Jack Nicholsen.
Pat: And Tag.
MUSon: And Tag. [not only the family dog, but the President of their record label]
Pat: He never left the band.
Laura: He just keeps getting better and better.
MUSon: What's he playing now?
Laura: Well, he's good on monitors.
Pat: Works on monitors but he's not here tonight. Umm... yeah, then
in 1988 we had our first actual gig. Indoor gig. We played at The
Water's Edge Cafe at Harbourfront.
Laura: The DuMaurier Theater Festival. It was an after-show set.
MUSon: How long was the set?
Laura: 45 minutes.
Pat: No, it was two 55 minute sets.
Laura: No!
Pat: It was two 55 minute sets.
Laura: Gross! That's why we went to the Spit [the landfill site from
which their name originated] and rehearsed for like 5 days. Trying to
work up songs for this nightmare gig that we had.
Pat: We knew like 4 songs and we got this gig. We ended up playing
new tunes and some covers.
MUSon: Then came the deal with Capitol, and as a result, your first album "Don't Cry To Hard" which in turn led to the ' 91 Juno for Most Promising Group. What was your reaction to winning the award?
Pat: It was a big surprise to us really in a lot of ways. We gave the
awards to our parents. That was the first they realized we weren't
petty thieves or something like that. It seemed to mean a lot more to
them.
MUSon: The trouble began with the label on your second album "Book of Rejection."
Pat: The first album did a lot better than they expected. So of course
the second time out they tripled the budget, and instead of recording
in 12 days, we got 2 months. They wanted an American producer
because they didn't want the album to have that "Canadian Sound."
Whatever that is. I mean, the first album was successful and I figure it
must have sounded like a Canadian album. So they settled for an
American engineer, Joe Hardy. He'd just finished the Tom Cochrane
"Life is a Highway" thing, and done all the ZZ Top albums and stuff.
He actually turned out to be an excellent guy and that was the best
thing about that whole process. But, since they were spending so
much money on the album, we were virtually pushed out the door. All
we did was write the songs and got to sing on them. That's how they
made us feel.
Laura: Well it was just so different to what they said. It was a 7 album
deal and they were going to slowly develop us. At the same time we
were doing a play called A Book of Rejection based on the music
business. They were going to support that as the first leg of the tour
to promote the second record. Then they pulled out of that and got all
cranky.
Pat: They basically blew a wad in the studio on the album. It cost so
much money. I think too, we didn't know anything when we recorded
the first album. We were like, "off the street". We weren't expecting to
get a record deal. By the second album we had been learning a few
things in the studio and how we wanted to sound. I think the record
companies view of us from the first album was that we said yes to
everything because we didn't know what to say no to.
Laura: We were really good kids. Then it turned into: "What happened
to you Laura? You use to be so nice?"
Pat: We wanted to have some involvement in our own careers and that
was a big surprise to them. It just went downhill from there.
MUSon: What was it like to work with Joe Hardy the first time?
Laura: Awesome!
Pat: It was great. Had he not done the Tom Cochrane thing, we never
would have worked with him. It just so happens that we clicked and he
was the best thing about that whole project. In fact, they weren't going
to let us go to Memphis, where the album was being mixed. They
thought that was too much of an expense. They had already spent all
this money. It was Hardy who said "What kind of a record company
are you? You're crazy. Its their songs. They should be allowed to
go." So they let us go, but we were superfluous to the project at that
point.
MUSon: You left Capitol.
Laura: And junked the manager.
MUSon: At what point did Jack separate from the band?
Laura: Jack left before we left.
Pat: Before we finished touring for "Book of Rejection."
MUSon: How did your 3'rd album "Hells Kitchen" come to be?
Pat: We were still with Capitol. They were going to let us do more
demos and blah, blah, blah. We were going to work with a guy named
Tim Thorney. All they said they needed to hear were 3 songs. We
were going to do masters instead of demos and basically start the
next album beginning with the 3 songs. Then that all changed and they
wanted to hear 15 songs as fully-realized demos and said "Here's
$1500." The first thing Tim did was say "F**k this sh**!" and left the
project. "You can't do 15 songs on $1500." So we did the album
ourselves. We recorded it in a home studio, and basically cut our
teeth producing our own stuff, which I'm glad happened. Then we sent
it to Hardy. He wrote us back saying "Sounds like an album to me.
What doesn't Capitol like about it?"
Laura: We were going to move to Vancouver. There was a guy who
wanted to do some songs out there. So we said, "Okay, we'll do a big
garage sale. We'll split town and go do some tunes on the west
coast." Then we got this letter saying "F**k that! Come to Memphis."
Driving to Memphis is quicker than driving out west. The weather gets
nicer too. Joe has this gorgeous mansion right on the river. Studio
and pool in the backyard and a lovely wife who accommodated us
completely. We got to drink Heineken the whole time.
But I think he felt he should kick back a little to us because he made a
load of money from that second record. I think he does that every
year. He does a little kickback from some big project he's done. Then
he'll do some struggling local band... if it perks his interest.
MUSon: You completed 6 tracks with Joe and then finished the rest of the album at Manta Sound Studio in Toronto.
Pat: We finished and mixed 6 songs with Hardy and we had the beds
for 3 more completed that we finished up here at Manta. Then we
wrote a couple of new ones. It went pretty quick. We did it in six days.
MUSon: Then Jason Sniderman helped you with the release of the album.
Pat: Yeah. We had no distribution or anything so he ordered like 400
copies and put it through Sam's.
Laura: Jason's a good boy. He basically runs Sam The Record Man.
He's been playing on all our records. He usually plays keys for a
couple of songs. He helps out whenever he can.
MUSon: You pared back the band name to "The Spits" for "Hell's Kitchen". Why?
Laura: Yeah we did for that album because we were sort of going
underground with it.
Pat: We had left our record company. We had left our management. It
was funny because everyone had been referring to us as the Spits for
years and they still do. So we changed the name and played our first
gig at Lee's Palace to release the album. We usually sell the place out
but that night it was only half-full. We thought to ourselves, "Well, this
is kind of weird." Then the next day we ran into some people on the
street. They said "Hey! Did you hear there was a band called The
Spits playing last night?" Then when we were in Ottawa some people
came up to us and said "Oh. There's a Leslie Spit Treeo cover band
playing upstairs. Are you going to see them?" We said "Yeah. We
are them." We got back to Toronto and said "This sucks!"
MUSon: Now you're back with the original name and a new double CD: "Chocolate Chip Cookies." It's been said this album harks back to your first album. A sort of return to your roots. Would you agree?
Laura: Well the second album was so over-produced. "Happy" alone
was re-mixed 13 times.
Pat: I think if this album is more like the first, its out of necessity. We lost our transportation along the way. I had some guitars stolen. Most
of these songs were written on an acoustic guitar like the first, as
opposed to the 2nd and 3rd. As a result, even though a lot of the
songs were recorded with an electric guitar, they have sort of a folksy
sound to them.
MUSon: Who would you say were your biggest musical influences?
Laura: I had a lot of influences. Linda Rondstat, Dolly Parton and of
course Chrissie Hynde and Patti Smith. Then there's Bessie and Billie
Holiday. Big, booming kind of horn voices, where you sit in a room
with a band and one mic and everyone could hear you.
Pat: I was influenced by this guy named Larry Norman. A lot of people
still haven't heard of him. He was a pioneer in Christian rock music. I
had a strict church upbringing and that was the only music allowed
into the house. He was highly influenced though by the Stones and the
Beatles, which was evident. I listened to a lot of that music.
MUSon: The fictitious Monee Records referred to on the "Cookie" album. A deliberate shot at Capitol?
Laura: Not a shot at them necessarily. More like the retelling of a
story with some exaggeration.
MUSon: Do you not find it ironic however that after poking fun at "Corporate America" style companies on this album, the very
packaging of the album lands you in hot water with a similar corporation?
Pat: We still maintain that we did nothing wrong. It was organic to the
project.
Laura: We released it on such a minimal level in cookie bags. Maybe 2
per store if you could get it that far. You wouldn't think a big major
cookie company would feel that you were ripping them off.
Pat: We're not talking top of the line computer graphics here. We
didn't say Christie. We didn't say Chips Ahoy!
Laura: And we stuck the labels on by ourselves with glue at Spit
Headquarters.
Pat: What we maintained though was that their product had become so
successful it had become the generic form of the product.
Laura: Like, who doesn't have a Nabisco moment in their lives. Really.
Pat: We just wanted something that said "Cookie", and that said
"Cookie". If you see that triangle from across the room you would know
it was cookies. Four weeks ago Laura was doing the crossword in the
Toronto Star and 54 down said "Chocolate Cookie" and the answer
was "Oreo." I don't think we were too far off the mark.
I think these corporations are going to have mega problems with this
kind of thing in the future. People have the technology in their homes
already that allows them to diddle with things. You walk down Queen
Street and there's millions of rip-off T-Shirts all over the place.
Laura: Yeah and at least these people aren't mass-marketing them all
over the world and using third-world labour to make them cheaper.
MUSon: Perhaps Christie felt if they let a little fish get off, the next one would be bigger.
Laura: They have a tower of lawyers to take care of these things.
Pat: That's all they do. Search for things like that.
Laura: We just didn't think they'd jump on it that fast. When we went
for the 2'nd printing, we would have thought carefully about using that
particular logo again. Now U2 has the golden arch. Not a problem. Andy Warhol never had a problem with his Campbell Soup. Use your sense of humour.
Embrace it. Its not going to hurt them.
MUSon: What are you happiest with in regards to this album?
Pat: It was one of the few times we were not a slave to the whole
process. We were doing what felt right.
Laura: If there's a certain way you're supposed to do things to make
an album, we did the opposite. "You never do a double Cd! Who do
you think you are?"
Pat: We really wanted to tell a story and make a statement.
Laura: And we surrounded ourselves with people who love music.
[Drummer Vince Montagano and Bassist Shaun Noronha were kind
enough to sit down with us and give their views on the Chocolate Chip
Cookies album.]
Vince: Its really diverse. That's what I like about it. When you've got
one CD and 50 or 60 minutes to work with, you get a certain sound and
all the songs seem to fit into one category. There's a lot more
freedom with this album. When a band records 10 songs you only
hear one side of the band. When you see them live, its totally different.
This double album includes every type of music we like. Folk songs,
heavy songs, even poetry. Not that you don't have to see us live, but
this is as natural and as close to live as your going to get without
being there.
Shawn: I think its fantastic, although I didn't play on it. I think a lot of the things, especially the song-writing, were excellent from a musicians
point of view. The album is not your typical album and yet its very
melodic and an interesting listen. The only thing is Laura's voice.
Can't stand her voice. I think she sucks. (Flashes an evil grin at Laura)
MUSon: What would you recommend as the best way to eat these "Cookies?"
Laura: Its a long chew. You should put it on and keep it on for days.
Then it will get to you. Its a long chew as they say.
Not to spark another controversy, but . . . "Got any milk?"
J.T.
Visit the Leslie Spit Treeo: Page Of Reflection site at:
http://www.interlog.com/~abentley/treeo/
