You are reading an interview with The Spill Canvas
conducted by Dan Claydon on 28 November 2004
On Friday the 26th of November 2004 I interviewed The Spill Canvas at the Metro Club in London.
Hey, who are you and what do you do in the Spill Canvas?
N: My name is Nick Thomas and I play guitar and sing in the Spill Canvas
J: My name is Joe and I play the drums.
S: I’m Scott and I play bass
Cool, so this is your last date in the UK, what are your feelings about the UK?
N: I personally like it, it’s amazing. It’s kind of gloomy – the weather is cold, we’re used to sun in South Dakota but it’s still a lot of fun. I mean it’s a different country so it’s totally new.
J: We’re totally foreign *laughs*
N: You can tell, heh, you can really tell.
J: We’ve been asking so many questions, we don’t know what were doing
S: it’s a magic place
N: yeah it’s awesome
Ok, what have the shows been like?
n: They’ve been good, it blows my mind because no matter whichever show it is or whatever night it could be there are at least ten or fifteen kids there, if it’s a bad night, that still know who we are and sing the words and everything
j: Yeah its cool.
What made you start playing then?
N: What made me start playing music was er … I don’t know, it’s just been … it’s just always been there. I really cannot remember the day when I just figured I wanted to play music.
J: I’ve just grown up around it so it was like ‘yeah ok I’ll do it’
Where did the name the spill canvas come from?
J: it kind of came from braid’s ‘framing canvas’ album
N: just a band called braid , they have this album called the framing canvas and I had been toying around with lyrics for songs and ‘canvas’ is what I had been using sort of, spill canvas just came out of that.
Cool, so did you only add the rest of the band recently?
N: oh yeah, yeah about…
S: it’s been about uh, when did you start practising with us?
j: February, since February probably.
N: yeah, it’s been about close to a year
J: we actually have another guy too; he’s not here he’s back in the states and couldn’t make it. His names Dan and he plays guitar
What made you add more people?
N: there’s only so much you can do with solo acoustic stuff, I can spend all day doing it, but in actuality to connect to a broader range of people you have to have a beat and you have to have other stuff going on, plus its more fun, you get more friendly, its more of a comradely thing.
J: it’s a lot harder to be original and creative when you’re doing it by yourself
N: yeah, especially nowadays
J: we build off each others creativity
S: everyone has their own perspective on the music
Are you still playing ‘the tide’ by yourself?
N: yes, I do play the tide by myself; we’re currently working up a full band version sort of...
S: Just talking about it , we haven’t actually practised it yet
So are the other musicians actually part of the spill canvas now?
N: These guys are the permanent guys, there is also Dan, who is back home, he’s permanent too.
Are you surprised with the response you got with the album?
N: yeah, it’s so crazy because those were songs that I wrote. It was mainly just me on the album with some other friends of mine that helped out but the songs were like demos. I remixed them and rerecorded some things. They were really, I don’t know, really…
J: …rough.
N: They were really… some of the songs were written when I was 17 years old and so it’s a little different. It’s amazing...
J: …In three years…
N: the response blows my mind, it’s amazing.
Cool, how did you get licensing from Mighty Atom?
J: Pretty much brad, Brads our label guy on 111 Records back in the States, and he was pretty much looking to expand our fan base so he pretty much contacted, I *think* he contacted, Mighty Atom and then they expressed an interest in us so it all worked out.
So who were you listening to when you were writing it?
N: Currently? Or when I was writing the album?
Both.
N: Both I suppose, I listen to anything from independent like underground hip hop to hardcore/metal to singer-songwriter stuff. I couldn’t even start to name…like... Just a broad range of music, I wish I could give you specific answers but I can’t.
Weren’t you in a metal band?
N: I was, yes, they are our friends back home in South Dakota. They’re called Nodes of Ranvier and they...
S: They’re amazing.
N: Yeah!
J: They are amazing.
N: We’re really proud to be associated with them because they do really amazing stuff and are good musicians and good people.
Do you find you get to Dashboard a lot?
N: Yeah we do that comparison..
J: On AP we are compared to Dashboard, and OneLineDrawing and the Lyndsay Diaries.
N: It’s cool, I mean, like, there will never be a time when artists won’t be compared, it’s just a necessary evil that you kind of have to deal with. I mean it’s great, regardless of what anyone thinks he’s a good songwriter and he’s a good artist and it’s an honour I guess to be compared to good bands and good people. I mean if we were compared to – I don’t know, a NOT good band *laughs*..
S: It might be a bit of a different story.
N: It’s just a compliment I guess.
Cool, did you think things would ever come this far, like UK tours?
N: I didn’t think it would come this far, well not yet, it’s very quick. Things happen very quickly, like I said we’ve had the band not even a year almost and from the time the band joined until now it’s just been uphill, it may have been slower at times, but it’s never actually been going downhill. I thought it’d take a lot longer, I mean it has essentially from when I started by myself, but with the guys it’s been a lot quicker.
Are your shows in the States bigger?
N: They’re essentially like...
S: I haven’t noticed too much difference between the shows here and the shows in the States. Like, there will be some bad turnouts in the States but again like Nick said there will be the ten diehards there singing every word just like it is here and the kids in the states are great and they’re really supportive.
N: Yeah.
J: The thing about the States is that if we tour it and we keep touring it then we’re going to have a lot more fans that have seen us before and they’re going to come out to see shows and so there will be like more people each time that sing our words and know our stuff. That’s kind of why it’s better to be in the States because we won’t come over here much so not as many people are going to know us.
N: It’s just a big process of fan base building.
Is the touring schedule quite harsh?
N: Yeah lately it’s been diehard I mean we’ve had a total of maybe not even 2 weeks in the last 3 months or four months of rest. It’s our dream it’s what we want to do so we’re not going to complain but it does get a little rough.
J: There is a lot of hard work. Some people don’t realise it but there is a lot of hard work behind the scenes
N: You have to make your home in a van with people you see every moment of the day whereas when you go home you can relax and close the door to your room and relax, and do whatever you want. But this is a little different. It’s great though.
You’ve got another tour when you get back to the States haven’t you?
S: Yeah we just got off a full US tour of five weeks, we had 3 days off before we flew over here, and we leave here on Monday then we have another 3 days or something before we hit the east coast for two weeks. After that, hopefully, we’ll have a long break
N: Yeah we’ll have a good long holiday break and start writing for a new album
So are you listening to any UK music?
N: I just recently got into Snow Patrol
*agreement from the other two band members*
N: They’re a good band.
J: Is Keane from over here?
Yeah, think so.
J: I listen to Keane
N: I listen to Muse, they’re a killer band. I personally love Coldplay I mean they’re amazing, you can’t really touch Coldplay that’s my opinion.
S: Yeah, they’re really really good.
Now I’m totally out of questions, is there anything else you’d like to add?
S: Thanks to everyone who made this tour possible, it’s been amazing.
N: Thanks to you guys.
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