LUCIDMEDIA

Success is sweet, but when I sat down with band members Mike Eastick and Ryan Barkwell during their recent stop in Kitchener, I asked how they stayed motivated and committed despite circumstances that were beyond their control.

"We just looked forward, kept positive and kept writing and playing songs, did shows and kept at it. We just tried to take a shitty situation and make it a good one," says Eastick. "We never once considered not continuing," adds Barkwell, "so staying motivated wasn't an issue for us; we had one goal in mind and we never stopped trying to obtain it."

Of course, some people would argue the point that in a day and age where consumer technology allows you to easily record your own music, produce your own CD and advertise yourself through the Internet, why wait on a record company? "There are certain aspects that are just taken care of for you; like distribution and promotion," says Eastick.

But there is also a kind of stigma to the major labels, a stigma that says that once signed a band looses much of their creative control over their music. "When you look at indie labels there's a lot of creative control, but when it comes to majors you just have to look at the right ones," according to Barkwell. "The one we chose always made it known that we had control over what we do and there was never a question of compromising, we found a great team to work with."

"Being on a major doesn't mean you have to give up you creative integrity at all," adds Eastick. "You've heard horror stories of, 'they didn't let us do this' or 'they didn't let us do that', but we haven't experienced any of that."

The four members of Idle Sons all hail from Burlington Ontario. Eastick, the band's vocalist and Sean Kelly, guitarist both played hockey together. While drummer Barkwell and bassist Bruce Nicol were the catcher and pitcher on the same baseball team. They've played as a band for a long time now.

"I think we have a high comfort level with each other because we've been in the same band and been friends for so long," says Barkwell on the history of the band. "So maybe problems that could become bigger problems don't happen because the communication between us allows us to work things out rather easily."

They started as an outfit called Slurpymundae and released a couple of EPs, but out of a desire to be taken more seriously they re-christened themselves Idle Sons .

[Slurpymundae] came from us being 15, I couldn't even tell you what it means, I think the meaning's been lost over the years," says Eastick. "And we all kind of realized around the same time that none of us really liked the name," admits Barkwell, "we were embarassed to say it almost, it doesn't really have a great phenetic ring off the tongue and we wanted something indicative of what we wanted our music to be thought of."

As Idle Sons, they produced a three-song demo. With the help of fellow Burlingtoners Finger Eleven, they got signed to a major label and recorded a full length album in LA over six months to have been called Hell or High Water. Then they played the waiting game.

Being teenagers in the early 90s, the guys in Idle Sons were influenced by the big names in grunge and alternative rock at the time; they especially highlight Nirvana, Screaming Trees, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Sunny Day Real Estate and The Smashing Pumpkins. From the sound of it on their album, the band seems to carrying on in their tradition, just be careful using the word 'grunge' around Eastick.

"The name just bothers me. It didn't pay homage to the music, it was almost a rub on it. I think it's another label that the music industry or press or whoever puts on a popular style of music; it's like every popular style of music has to have a name, it just can't be good music."

One thing I think we can all agree on is that a lot of hard rocking bands have come out of suburban Ontario in the last five or ten years, from big acts like Ajax's Sum 41 to indie bands like London's Anti-hero. "In the cities you have a lot more diversity in terms of musical genres, but where we grew up it was playing hockey, drinking beer and rock and roll," says Eastick.

"Geographically we were sandwiched right between Hamilton and Toronto and both of those cities got a lot of the rock tours that were going through," offers Barkwell. "All of us would go to all those big concerts that came through because there wasn't much else to do besides make music and watch music."

So after 16 seasons, the band's course is back on track; the ambition for Eastick and Barkwell though is to just be working musicians. "We just want to be a band that continually progresses," says Barkwell, "we'd like to be able to tour for many more years and make more records."

"We'd like to be able to sustain ourselves on the road," adds Eastick, "not necessarily be a massive headliner but play shows where we can pay ourselves and pay the rent. As long as we keep progressing as musicians and as a band, and our live shows keep getting better, and we keep getting to tour, we'll be happy."