Cheers! Electric Six frontman Dick Valentine wants you to loosen up and party down.

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Detroit disco-metal schlock-comedy outfit Electric Six first found fame and infamy with the early 2000s’ novelty hits “Danger! High Voltage,” “Dance Commander” and “Gay Bar.” Since then, the band has been unceremoniously dropped by its record label, has seen three out of six original members quit and has been sued by a previous studio engineer, yet it continues raging against the machine, with album No. 7 now nearing completion. In advance of the band’s upcoming Calgary performance, Fast Forward Weekly caught up with frontman Dick Valentine while on his cellphone at the post office.

By name alone, Electric Six must perpetually remain a six-piece band. Outside of the super-cool satanic connotations, what makes six the magic number?

If we ever dropped to five, we’d change the name to Electric Jesus. As for Electric Six, I’m actually not that fond of it and I’m still unsure exactly what it means. It’s something we collectively picked when we got our first record deal with XL in 2002 and had to change from our original moniker, the Wild Bunch. At that point, there was already a legally established band of the same name. I guess it’s a Massive Attack side-project.

On your website, you wrote “Canada is second only to North Korea in terms of difficulty for bands to enter.” What kinds of border troubles have you had?

If you’ve accrued any kind of encounter with the law, no matter how minor, Canada is really tough on letting people in. You have to jump through a lot of hoops, and it’s not like that with any other country. We went to Russia and they didn’t say a word except for ‘Come on in, comrade!’

Can you ever imagine touring to North Korea?

I actually think about it all the time — it helps me get to sleep at night.

I also read that several band members are hoping to run into Lanny McDonald in Calgary to garner some facial hair grooming tips. What do you think Big Red could teach you?

In my opinion, he’s the No. 1 Calgary Flame of all time, and I’m sure he could teach us a lot about a variety of things in life.

When you started the band, did you ever imagine you’d make it as far as seven albums?

I never thought we’d leave Detroit! I used to have a shitty day-job working in a cubicle, treating the band as an escape. I thought maybe I would home-record seven albums and no one would hear them, but never make it this far. After our first label dropped us, I think most people counted us down, so we’ve been out to prove them wrong ever since.

Finally, I wanted to address a long-running rumour: On your 2003 hit “Danger! High Voltage,” is that Bill Clinton playing the saxophone?

[Laughs] Actually, that’s Jim Diamond, the guy who recorded the song and then later sued us and Jack White. Long story short, he recorded lots of Detroit bands before they were famous, charging $30 an hour. A lot of those bands ended up making money — one in particular making a shitload — and Jim decided he was the producer and deserved a bigger cut. All he did was hit record! The Jack White case is the only one that made it to a courtroom, and was then dismissed in 10 minutes. The minute money gets involved in a music scene, it turns into a feeding frenzy.

People get hungry.

That’s the name of my next song! I’m totally gonna use that.

Great, just give me a cut.