Interview: Econoline Crush September 11, 2001
INTERVIEWER: I understand that the opening band has some relatives or people they knew who were in the area of the attack on the World Trade Center this morning. Do you know if they're going to be able to play?
TREVOR HURST: Yeah, I don't know much about it, that's what we had heard too, but up until now it's just a rumor. Johnny has a very good friend that has an apartment right across the street from the Trade Center but nobody can get through. Friends of ours work in the publishing industry which is all in that area. It's very small. Manhattan isn't very big at all. We were just in New York at the end of the Buckcherry tour and that city is tough to navigate when it's running smoothly. I can't even imagine [it] today. It's mind-blowing, I mean it's a bigger deal than Pearl Harbour. I think it's … even hard to fathom it in our minds you know, what we're dealing with. Fifty thousand … and you think of all the people in the surrounding areas. Plus, the cruelty of it all is that you have, 18 minutes later, a second attack, so all the emergency workers were already in trying to help the people. They probably wouldn't have thought initially [it was a] terrorist attack, they probably just thought a … guy fell asleep, something happened, accident, explosion, who knows? But we've got to get these people out of [the area]. Eighteen minutes later another, second attack, second airliner, killing all those firemen that were trying to help and all the police, it's unbelievable.
INTERVIEWER: Does the band keep up with world issues and current events?
TREVOR: Yeah. That's about the only station I ever turn on, CNN, when we're down in the States. When you're in Europe that's the only station on television you can understand in Germany because it's in English, CNN World News. So yeah, I'm very much involved.
INTERVIEWER: How's the tour going?
TREVOR: Great. I think it's about time, we're really happy to be back in Canada. We just did that one quick tour with Godsmack [in Canada]. You take your chances, but we went down to America because the label down there thought that if they could keep us working we would capitalize on the following we had made the last time around. It was kind of at the expense, a little bit, of some of our Canadian audience. So I'm glad to be back here now, touching base with the home crowd. Obviously, this is where we're from, this is the country that made us, and let's face it, the weed is better here, the beer is better, everything's more fun [laughs].
INTERVIEWER: Econoline Crush is a band with a lot of dramatic flair. Do you think that's missing from popular music in general today?
TREVOR: It is a little bit I think. I think a lot of bands were signed in a frenzy, trying to catch up with certain musical flavors or styles, early, before they were even ready to be up on stage, and so you don't really get a chance to develop your skills as an artist unless you've played a lot of club shows. You can always tell a Canadian band I think because there's an immense amount of tour skills that we acquire in Canada, driving, because the cities are so far apart. It shows you a determination. If you're willing to drive from Peterborough to Thunder Bay to play a gig the next day, going crazy overnight, like twenty some hours, set up and play the show, sleep for a few hours, go to Winnepeg, and do it all over again… you're pretty hungry to have a record deal and pretty hungry to take your music to the people. There's not many bands in the rest of the world that'll drive that far. In America the biggest drive we ever did, unless there was some crazy routing, was six hours. That was maximum.
INTERVIEWER: Right now we're not in a really identifiable musical era. You can't say it's a Seattle thing, it's not about the west coast sound or the east coast sound. Do you think there are disadvantages and advantages to that?
TREVOR: I definitely think we're in a transition. I know that a lot of the industry is in turmoil. I think sales are down. I think too many [bands] were signed, I think too much money is spent on … there's a lot of one-upmanship in the video department … you get a lot of these big pop and hip-hop acts spending hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars making their video and then the next guys do the same. It's really hard to pay that money back with record sales, especially if you don't sell a million copies, you're never going to pay that back. That, combined with this whole pop phenomenon that has captured the youth, the really young kids, there's not a lot of record buying public out there to fight over. Then we have this Nu Metal scene, I don't know how long it's going to last… I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's very fractionalized. Every single style of music seems to be represented, but not very well.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think it's harder to be a successful rock band now than it was 10 years ago?
TREVOR: Yeah, I think so. When we started out we noticed that the money flowed a lot [more] freely when we were first signed than … it is now. Now it seems like there's a lot more restriction on budgets. People are really watching the bottom line.
INTERVIEWER: After 6 albums is the process less difficult?
TREVOR: I guess it's a little less difficult. But I think it's about the same. You're always trying to go in and re-invent yourself. At least with our band, we try to go in and do something that wasn't the same as the last time so that we're at least progressing.
INTERVIEWER: In your mind, has the quintessential EC song been written yet, or is that a moving target?
TREVOR: I think it is. I think we're always striving for that and there have been times where we've come close. Songs like "All That You Are" have come close to the Econoline Crush sound.
INTERVIEWER: You arrived in town last night. Johnny was here and gave the crowd a demonstration of "butt bongos" with the help of an enthusiastic female fan. He also helped out with a couple of the contests. Do you think people are surprised when they meet the band and find you to be real people?
TREVOR: I hope not.
Interview by Brian
Benwell for
and
SIN CITY
