by LORRAINE CARPENTER

With their electro-lullabies, haunted hip hop and premie rock, with their mighty powers of confusion and charm, self-described assholes Nicholas "Niel" Diamonds, Alden Ginger and Jamie Tambour are ready to take on the world. No longer merely a Montreal band, the Unicorns ride Canada's lonely highways in their 1979 Ford Frontier motor home, laying out their master plan in bunkbeds, dotting the landscape with their waste [RV enthusiasts: please contact the Unicorns about operating the sewer pump]. Their sophomore album, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, is only the first step in their 12-step-backwards program, beginning with death and retirement, progressing to world fame and spiralling debauchery and ending in the soiling-pants-and-screaming phase of infancy. The Mirror conducted two interviews with the future superstars, first with Ginger, straight-shooting from the Georgia Strait, then with Diamonds and Tambour, dishing bullshit out of Guelph. Here, fused and heavily edited, are the Unicorns.

Mirror: Alden, let's go back to your high school in Campbell River, B.C. It was your first day of Grade 10, at a new school, and you wore a skirt.

Alden Ginger: That is true. I wanted to make friends and I figured wearing a skirt would attract the kind of people I would want to hang out with, and I met Nick that way.

M: "Tuff Ghost," "Ghost Mountain" and "Sea Ghost." Three songs from your album. Do you believe in the supernatural, Alden?

AG: I have a real ghost story, actually. I was living in this old, rotting house by the waterfront in Courtenay, B.C., which is south of Campbell River and apparently, back in the '40s, this young girl was hung there. Her ghost haunted us, but there was no real threat from her. I was playing guitar one night in the dark next to a candle and I had my eyes closed and when I opened them, the candle was lit. I took that as a sign that she was trying to ignite a friendship.

Jamie Tambour: Every song explores a different facet of facing mortality. There's a maturing process throughout the album, and at the end we accept it, just like Biggie.

Nicholas Diamonds: And every album must end.

JT: Yeah, just as every life must end, so must every album, even -

ND: - even the greatest album.

Bums rush the show

M: So how did you guys attract Alien8?

AG: They respected the hard work we put into our first record and the fact that, despite what a lot of people think, we're serious about our music and taking this band somewhere. They come from a very hardworking background as well, and they could see that in us.

ND: [Alien8 boss] Gary basically begged us, begged and begged and we said, "No, I don't think so."

JT: They're actually a little afraid to make the kind of money they're gonna make with us.

M: Speaking of which, didn't you once convince some homeless guys to be your replacement backup band?

ND: It wasn't like Bumfights. I paid them pretty handsomely. You see, Jamie and Alden didn't show up but I had to do the show. It was a nobility thing. So I went to the corner of des Pins and St-Laurent and found some willing participants, three or four guys, like a chorus line. One guy had a bag over his head, one of them even played a bit of drum machine and the others just kinda bobbed and swayed. They weren't very interactive. They got a bit of stage fright.

JT: He's actually lying about how this came about. The three of us got in a big fight and Nick said that Alden and I are assholes and he'd be better off being backed up by anyone, and we were like, "Oh yeah, bring it." And I guess it just goes to show that the Unicorns are better than homeless people. We are better.

ND: Well, I just thought I'd include the homeless.

M: They're not very well represented in the music scene.

ND: No, they just kinda sit on the curb and beg for change. Hey, can you call this article "Tinglebitties?"

With the Diskettes and DJ Alex Moskos at Casa del Popolo on Saturday, Oct. 11, 9pm, $7

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