by LORRAINE CARPENTER

When he's not pushing carts and treading plastic for HMV, you may find John Milchem hitting the metal pedal and slamming on the brakes with Starvin' Hungry, a hot-flash of blues established in Toronto nearly a decade ago. It started as a bare-bones, one-man band, eventually expanding to include Milchem's identical twin brother (and longtime Blue Rodeo drummer) Glen, then former DOA drummer Jon Card and Tchort bassist Nick Sewell. But Milchem felt stifled by the hype-driven rock scene in Toronto, where Starvin' Hungry just didn't seem to gel. Luckily, he found both a receptive audience and an apt creative environment when he followed his girlfriend to Montreal in 2000.

With the addition of a few good local men - drummer Spencer Warren, bassist Eric Larock (later replaced by Dave Lavoie) and guitarist Scott Mucklow - the band was signed to Grenadine, the local label on the verge of releasing the band's debut LP, Damnesty, produced by Jonathan Cummins. The Mirror spoke to Milchem about rock talk and twin dynamics.

Mirror: Did you and your brother start playing music simultaneously?

John Milchem: No, not at all. Glen was destined to be a drummer from the age of eight. I started playing with him when I was a teenager, but he'd become super-developed as a musician and I was just learning, so there was a bit of twin-sibling rivalry. I felt too much in his shadow, too insecure about it, so I actually gave up playing and didn't start again until I was 29, 30. By then, I'd gone through art school and he'd been in Blue Rodeo for a while and I just felt like, "I can do this - there are no expectations of me." (laughs) So now my debut rock 'n' roll album is coming out at the age of 40.

M: How do you describe your sound?

JM: I always say it's a rock 'n' roll band, which confuses the hell out of some people. I think music is being misrepresented now, with everything being divided into camps. When I was 20, I actually cared about aligning myself with a particular scene, but now I don't give a shit whether it's jazz or rock 'n' roll or neo-post-punk-funk. There's only two types of music to me: good and bad

M: "Blues rock" and "blues punk" come up a lot.

JM: Yeah, which is fine, but it's funny 'cause I'm not a schooled blues musician at all, I'm totally self-taught. I'm not the guy who sat at home learning the Led Zeppelin catalogue and then started a band. Luckily, the guys in my band are those guys. They know a C from D-minor.

M: Your painting that was used for the album cover [red lips holding a wet eyeball] is pretty lurid. How does that represent the music?

JM: It sort of reflects the attitude of the songs, thematically. They're good-time songs about frustration and hurt, sex and despair. To me, good rock 'n' roll is redemptive.

M: So is the eye drooling or is the mouth crying?

JM: Both.

With Jiangxi Blue, We Are Wolves and DJ Johnson Cummins at La Sala Rossa on Friday, May 21, 10pm, $6

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