>>PREVIEW
SLED ISLAND
CPC Gangbangs
Thursday, June 28
The Underground
Thirty seconds into "Waves of Hate" – CPC Gangbangs’s contribution to their split seven-inch with The Confusers – the drums pick up a pummelling, primitive beat, some distorted guitars kick in and singer Roy Vucino starts to shred his vocal chords. Like many other acts on the Swami Records roster, the Montreal band’s modus operandi is to simply rock ’n’ roll, and they do it in the dirtiest, scariest and straight-up awesomest manner possible.
With members of such Canadian luminaries as The Daylight Lovers, Spaceshits and Les Sexareenos in their lineup, the Gangbangs go deep and hard (Editor: See what he did there?). The quartet’s reputation as one of the rowdiest bands in an already agro scene precedes them, and though they have cleaned up their sound slightly for the full-length debut, they’ve still maintained their ferocity, just tightened the screws a touch.
"People kind of get tired of ABC rock ’n’ roll or indie rock or whatever, so we kind of add an element of... I don't want to say violence because tons of girls come to our shows and like to dance, but the pop beat is definitely buried deep beneath," says guitarist Paul Spence. "I think people give back what we give out."If you recognize Spence’s name, it might be because he’s a former Calgarian, or because he starred as Deaner Murdoch in the banger mockumentary FUBAR. CPC Gangbangs is definitely his main gig these days (signing to John Reis’s label is a pretty big deal), but as Spence explains, at gigs he is still sometimes recognized for his role in the film. "For the first two years that we played, nobody made the connection. Then the next year, there was a weird sort of bubbling of 16 and 18 year-old kids coming to the shows yelling out quotes and wanting to shotgun beers after. Then, they disappeared. I don't know what happened, because we’re still CPC Gangbangs and I’m still the Deaner. "We’ll see what happens in Calgary," Spence continues. "Maybe they’ll be a bunch of mullets and people pulling their costumes out of the closet. Who the hell knows? As long as no one's jumping onstage and forcing me to shotgun a beer, it’s all good. Then again, that could be fun." Spence has been involved in both music and film for a good chunk of his life, first playing in a self-described "devil-dog" rock band at the age of 16. However, he explains that he uses the two outlets for different forms of catharsis. "Creatively, it’s going to sound weird, but I get the kicks out of the comedy side of my brain with movies," Spence says. "I don't want to say it’s more serious, but the darker side of my personality – I think everyone has one – has kind of evolved into the music side. I don’t write joke songs. Not to say that they're really deep or anything, but there's a darker tip to the music that I don't really want to express through my other outlet. Movies are all about entertaining and having fun. I guess the same goes with music, but it's less tongue in cheek."The experience of widespread attention (through music) is still a relatively new one for Spence, and although they are quite popular out east, the Gangbangs have yet to achieve what he considers a milestone. "It'll be interesting to see what happens when the record comes out," Spence says. "If it’s really well received then we might even be nudged from the position we're in now – really good press and an underground reputation – to actually being featured in a real magazine some day (Ed: What’s Fast Forward? Chopped liver?).
"That's not to say that the dream of any band should be to one day see themselves in Rolling Stone or anything like that, but you can really only go so far on a local level. I mean, you can get the cover of the weekly, like the Fast Forward or whatever (Ed: Not with that attitude, mister). But it’s almost as if, in Canada at least, you’re not taken seriously until someone outside of your country gives you respect."
Spence has experienced international attention (again on the film level), with his small role in the deaf DJ bio-pic/parody It’s All Gone Pete Tong. Playing an Austrian session musician alongside his FUBAR partner Dave Lawrence, he explains that his time filming in Ibitha was like nothing he had ever done before. "I was there for four days, we did one day’s work and it was super, super amazing," Spence says. "It was really weird working with that crew, too, because the movie’s about a DJ going overboard with hard drugs in the club scene, and that’s basically what was happening when the movie was being made. We’re talking the crew, the lighting, the hair, the make-up, everyone."Lawrence and Spence are now working on a Western buddy comedy set in the late 1800s, that they plan to film in the Calgary area next summer. But before that, Spence is coming back as a musician, and he’s stoked for Sled Island. "It has nothing to do with where your city is, or what bands have come out of there," he says. "It just comes down to someone being ballsy enough to take the first couple of steps to make it happen. I think it’s really kind of a proud moment to be coming back to Calgary with my band, not just to play, but to be a part of this huge festival." |
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