Treason season

>> The un-ska-nadian activities of the Planet Smashers

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

The new CD from local tuff-ska-poppers the Planet Smashers, ironically called No Self Control, finds them in a moodier, more controlled headspace. Except for frontman Matt Collyer, who, with his tune "Wish I Were American," has been too busy STABBING HIS FELLOW CANADIANS IN THE BACK. Bassist Dave Cooper's still good people, though, so the Mirror spoke to him instead.

Mirror: There's a lot of stuff on No Self Control that I find darker, angrier and sadder than previous albums.

Dave Cooper: That's all different degrees of upset (laughs). We all got together at the beginning of the record and asked ourselves, Do we want to do a party record or something else? Everyone said, "Something else," so we decided to write something a little more like the first or second records. On the second one, we had stuff like "Attack," "Hostile" and a couple of other songs about people who go and do stupid things. That's what we do--try to point out the obvious.

M: I would say there's a maturity to the record--

DC: We can't help it. We've been playing steadily for, what, five, six years now? And then, it was also wintertime--January, February, March, those aren't very good months to be writing songs. You're not in summer mode, where you're all happy-happy--which was probably a good thing, looking back.

M: What's your favourite song on the album?

DC: Mine? "Record Collector." It's got everything in it. If you're somebody who likes tons and tons of different kinds of music, and you like to go record shopping, well, there you go.

M: That one's got that little boop-boop-boop thing on it, there. There's a lot of little instrumental flourishes on the CD like that, things that I don't know if you'll be bringing out live--

DC: Actually, Kurt [Ruziensky] is playing double duty, melodica and trombone. Also, he and Leon [Kingstone, sax] are backing up a lot more on vocals, and what's more, we've brought Liam O'Neil from Undercovers along on keyboards. He also played on the record. It sounds a lot fuller with him. It's those kinds of things--we're making ourselves work a little harder.

M: Has the reaction been what you wanted?

DC: Everyone's loving it, which, once again, blows my mind. You know how when you hand in that exam at the last minute and you get 100 per cent on it? I think we got a 90-something.

M: One song in particular I want to talk about is "Wish I Were American," which I'm a bit confused about. What's the story there?

DC: I think it's from when Matt went down to Florida before Christmas for a Stomp drinking-fest vacation. You know, when you're sitting on a beach, having a couple of beers and actually living it, America's not so bad. We decided to poke fun at Canadians who actually go down to the States and then bitch and complain.

M: About how it's full of Americans?

DC: Yeah, well, America's great, except for the people.

At the Spectrum on Friday, June 8 (with Subb, Peacocks and General Rudie) and Saturday, June 9 (with Big D & the Kids' Table, Smitty's and X-Large), both shows 8pm, $15, all ages