HXR20YR RETROSPECTIVE: HXR037- GODSTOPPER, "Who Tries Anymore" 12" EP

In the first part of this interview there was a lot of discussion about how Godstopper came to be and quite a bit about some of the first Godstopper releases.  But it seemed right around when “Lie Down” came out Godstopper got really active with releasing more records.  Not long after splits with The Great Sabatini and Grizzlor were unleashed upon the world, as well as “Who Tries Anymore”- an EP on 12” format that was the impetus of what I had building up to in terms of working with Godstopper on new material.

            The “Lie Down”/”Children Are Our Future” CD was just making certain a physical version of two excellent releases would get out there, even if both had existed in the digital realm for some time already.  “Who Tries Anymore” was brand new stuff.

To my understanding Mike, and the rest of Godstopper, had already had some new stuff in the works.  Within a couple months the songs were fleshed out and brought to the studio where founder Mike Simpson laid out the basic tracks, backed by long time members Miranda Armstrong, Adam McGillivray, and Derek del Vecchio.

“Who Tries Anymore” was the most up-front about it’s pop leanings than any other Godstopper release to that point.  Whereas previous records hinted at hooks, melody, and clean singing by laying a sheet of feedback and distortion over everything this release put the singing up front and the cinder-block heavy riffs were relegated to the background (even though they certainly shine through on a few of the songs).  It was a very deliberate choice.  So naturally when it came time for artwork, and we were all at a loss as to what should be on there, I came across quite possibly the most brutal photo I could imagine adorning a record cover.  I mean, why not have eagles pecking away at a bison carcass in the snow and putting your band’s very metal-looking logo in a reflective spot-finish as the cover for a record that starts with piano and melodic singing?  Why would anyone think they didn’t know what they were in for?

It turned out to be a very cool release and I recall driving up to Toronto, records carefully hidden in my car trunk to deliver to the band, and feeling some trepidation as I crossed the border to see their record release show.  I remember the border guard asking me a rapid succession of questions about what I was getting up to in Canada- “Where you going?”  “How long you staying?” “What are you doing there?” “What’s the name of the band you’re going to see?” 

Godstopper. 

A long pause and a cold stare. 

“Are they any good?”

A brief pause on my end…  “Yeah!”

“OK, have a nice trip.”

            So travelling up to Toronto for the Godstopper record release show is, to date, the only time I have seen the band live.  It’s not like they’re coming out to the West Coast any time soon, and they simply do not play out very often period.  Mike has mostly focused on his one-man project Jack Moves for a couple years now, while Adam and Miranda also play in the band Humanities.  But when the stars align and everything comes together you might catch Godstopper emerging from the shadows to record or play here and there.

            So this is the second half of my interview with band founder Mike Simpson and delves a bit more into “Who Tries Anymore”, as well as why Godstopper remains a very part-time project.

I know the artwork for “Who Tries Anymore” is based on a photo a friend of mine took, who is a nature photographer, and I did the layout and all that.  And I know I pitched it to you and you were agreeable, but did you have any other art in mind for that release instead before I showed you what ended up being the artwork?

No.  I don’t recall having any ideas.  I can recall the title of the record coming about what I was thinking about at the time.  I wasn’t looking to spend a lot of time with the artwork.  The first record I went through four or five different artwork ideas before settling with the original thing I saw.  I admit, I may be a bit deficient in the visual end of the band because that doesn’t come to me automatically.

But the picture on that record is great.  I’m glad we have that in our discography.  I think it’s such an insane amount of overkill, it’s so intense.  I think it worked for the best.  I like that.

Throughout most of Godstopper’s existence you all have not played out too much.  What is behind that?  Yet you have a pretty decent-sized discography.

Being in Canada makes it one step more difficult.  It’s a large and sparsely populated country.  So that was something where you can’t just hop in the car and play ten shows to ten different markets.  And then to cross into the U.S legally is a lengthy and expensive process.  It makes it unnecessary in all those ways.  To do it the first time will probably cost you about $1000 between all the paperwork and forms.  You have to lie about how much money you are going to make there because if you say you’re going to make $75 because no one knows you and you’re going to be playing to 12 people in Philly it can be interpreted by immigration that you are less expensive scabs travelling to take the spot from other hard-working bands in Philly that they think are going to get paid more.  It doesn’t make any sense.  So you have to lie about what you’re going to make.  You essentially have to say you’re going to make more than Gwar.  So you’re going to lose money. 

You have to have contracts.  So, again, you have to get your buddy from Philly to fax over a contract for some gig you’re playing on a Tuesday.  So you have to forge some signatures, write up this fake amount of money you’re getting paid, and you have to submit it up to 7 to 9 months ahead of the tour.  It used to be only 45 days before you cross the border, but it was never mandated, it was just an agreement and I’ve had friends submit all their stuff, like I said, 7 to 9 months ahead, only to have to cancel their tour because the papers weren’t processed yet.  And the chances of booking something 9 months in advance in the U.S. is crazy.  You don’t encounter that at the DIY level.

So all those things make it really prohibitive to go across the border and lose money.  So there’s that.

And also the fact that everybody in the band was further along in their lives and other interests, and real jobs when the band started.  We were all already in our mid-20’s at least, no one was in their 18 or 19 year old prime.

I also don’t know if the touring lifestyle agreed with everyone in the group.  No one wanted to really commit to eating shit and I don’t blame anyone for that outlook.

 I'm proud of my ongoing run of timeless test press covers

I mean, “Who Tries Anymore”, right?

(laughs)  Yeah, that’s funny.

Where does that title come from anyway?

I don’t remember!  I was just thinking about that.  I think it’s something about trying to be cool by not trying?  It might be reflective of when people say, ‘it was a moment in time that I felt this way’.  Whatever it was it doesn’t resonate with me now.  When I look at the album cover and read the title it seems like there’s a sort of weird joke going on.  That’s what I think of.

Despite not playing out a lot you have a pretty thick discography and that it was mostly recorded and released in a fairly short amount of time.

I’d agree with that.  I feel fortunate to have been able to release like 8 different records.  I like there’s a progression there that I can go back and listen to and see how things changed.  I would say it was more on the prolific side.  I might not fully feel some of the earlier stuff we did anymore but I still like all of it.  There isn’t anything I feel like was totally off-base, or made mistakes. 

Do you think you might chalk that up to it being all your stuff and having control over it all?

I think it helps.  It’s not necessarily a given that if you wrote something you’re going to be into it 5 years later.  I think it’s more that Godstopper is the band that I found my own voice with.  I’d written music and come up with concepts before that, but it’s the one that I felt represented a unique enough combination of influences, as well as skill and talent, and a degree of conviction that created it’s own thing.  I think, for me, it was the time when everything sort of clicked.

It took a lot of people saying to me, ‘you need to find your own voice’ in order to internalize what that actually meant, and why that was important.

What has been the best part of the band and what was the worst?

I think the best part of the band has been the amount of possibilities that are available.  There’s not much off-limits in terms of what I can express in a song if I wanted to write it.  My musical vocabulary is quite broad.  The things I appreciate are quite broad.  So that’s why I feel like it’s an open book and I can go back to it at any point and it would feel right to do it.  I could make something that would work under the umbrella of what this band is.

I like playing live, just in general.  I like that it has given me the opportunity to learn how to perform a bit better on drums, or on guitar.  I like that it got some people’s attention, outside of myself.  It was the first time I had received some attention and assistance from some labels. 

On the opposite side, it doesn’t fit neatly into any one genre or scene.  I wonder, often, if that is a hindrance to others becoming aware of things I’ve done musically.  It’s a mix of several different things.  It’s not as simple as, ‘if you like this than you will like this band because they’re doing the same thing’.  When I saw that documentary “American Hardcore” someone in it was talking about how they saw the United States as each state being a different band.  So MDC was Texas and Poison Idea was Oregon, The Misfits were New Jersey, and D.O.A. was Vancouver, here in Canada.  And what I inferred from that is that listening to a lot of these bands to uninitiated ears sounds like different variations of Minor Threat or something. 

But in the 80’s there were only so many bands playing that style.  So if you were a junkie for that style when that one band came to town and it was an all ages show you just went, right?  Like when the Sex Pistols did a 10 date tour in the U.S. every single weirdo from the last two years that sprung up went because that was it.  That’s all there was.

Fast forward you get this network of bands.  I think the DIY hardcore network is great and was put together by these very level-headed young people who wanted an alternative to just being an idiot.  But I think the music can often be very predictable.  Very little has changed from 1982 to the present.  That’s how I look at a lot of the hardcore-turnover scene.  In my opinion, the music hasn’t really progressed.  I don’t want to turn this into me ranting about a scene I only know so much about.  But when you go into that scene you know what you’re going to get.  It’s very lock-step and that was my observation when I played in that powerviolence band.  You look a certain way.  You have certain political leanings.  You read the same things.  The soundtrack is always really close to what people going to a show in a warehouse were checking out 35 years ago.  There’s a degree of complacency and expectation of the familiar.

So this is turning into a long thing where I’m explaining why there’s too much of this, or too much of that and a band like Godstopper doesn’t fit into a scene where one word will tell people everything they need to know about the band.

It isn’t easily explainable.

Yeah.

And that’s the worst part of the band?

Yeah, I’d say so.

You’re not doing too bad then.

(laughs) You want me to say some horrible, acrimonious thing about interpersonal problems?

No, I’m saying that it’s nice that you don’t have that! (laughs)  You’ve had it fairly easy.  You’re Canadian after all, you’re very polite.

(laughs) I think if we went on some 45 day tour or something like that it would be a different story.  No one would want to be friends.  You ever read interviews with big bands who tour all the time?  People ask them if they hang out and they’re all like, ‘no’.  And just for the sake of preserving of whatever is left of the relationships you have, I mean, you’re in these touring situations where you’re spending more time with these people than you do with a significant other.  And when you’re with a significant other you can go off and do things, whatever you want.  With a band there’s always accounting for other people, and making group decisions like where to eat, or when to leave for the next town, all that.  It’s like when Metallica see each other and they’ve known each other for nearly 40 years, and they’re just like, ‘how are you?’  ‘OK.’  Like there’s this tension, but it’s really dull because they’ve known each other for so fucking long.  I think our band would be different if we were in a touring situation like that, just always being out.  There’s a danger of that happening.  It’s not for everyone. 

But the way that Godstopper would go about getting more known would require this intensive amount of touring that’s not really feasible for us.  I think it’s a pretty special scenario when you find four people who can sync up on something again and again, it’s not something that’s typical and not something I feel like humans have evolved to do.  You’re operating against certain human tendencies.  But if you find the chemistry, and it works, that’s great.

A snippet of "Halfway" from their record release show and some expert camera work by yours truly.

And that's that for Godstopper stuff!   Hopefully you all have a well-rounded overview of one of Canada's greatest musical exports (at least to me anyway).  And, naturally, if you act on it, you can get a deal for not only this 12" EP, but also the "Lie Down"/"Children.." CD.  Go HERE to capitalize on that.  Or, if you're just a digital tracks only type go HERE and grab those for cheap.