Moist
Resurrection of the Creature
By Hames Morrison
You've gotta give Moist their propers. They've negotiated the minefield that is the Canadian music industry with a finesse that belies their relative inexperience. Of course, it hasn't been easy. It never is. But the three short years since singer David Usher, guitarist Mark Makoway, bassist Jeff Pearce, keyboardist Kevin Young and drummer Paul Wilcox shopped their first demo to a uniformly indifferent army of A&R reps, they've skirted the bear pits and tank traps that have swallowed other bands whole. No matter what the potential pitfall, the band has found a way to turn the situation to its favour. And with the out-of-box success of their second album, Creature, Moist now find themselves poised on the verge of a breakthrough of tragically Hip-like proportions.
That's not just wishful thinking, either. Moist's debut, Silver, recorded independently for the industry equivalent of pocket change, yielded on eof 1994's most indelible songs in 'Push' - without the backing of a major. That is, until EMI Music Canada woke up, smelled the cappuccino and signed the band. But the time the album's run was finished, Silver, had gone triple platinum (300,000 units) and given up two more singles, 'Silver' and 'Believe Me'. Boom! From farm team to franchise players, just like that.
Given that level of success, the birth of Creature should have been a relatively pain-free experience. But it was a longer and more difficult labour than anyone anticipated. "We weren't expecting it to take as long as it did," Pearce says. "But at the same time, it was nice to be able to take that extra time and be really sure we were doing things right. We were given the opportunity to second-guess our choices, to sit back and look at the record as a whole - what the 'story' of the album was going to be and how it was going to work as a narrative unto itself."
"We're definitely hard on ourselves," agrees Makoway. "We're very self-critical - and critical of each other, which sometimes creates tensions. And sometimes those tensions are exactly what makes a song great. When everyone is really focused and really intense, that's when the best songs come out."
During this time, rumours flew that the band was a little light on material for their current effort - a suggestion that prompts laughter from both of them. Makoways says they took a long time to write this record because they knew that the pressure was on. "We knew about the sophomore jinx and that everyone'd be looking at us under a microscope, so we had to make sure it was out best work. We wrtoe a bunch of songs in Thailand (Usher is part-Thai, and Moist toured there as a conquering heroes), we wrote a bunch of songs in Vancouver - in total, we wrote about 35 songs.
"It was just a totally different process than making the first record. Because of the time factor, even in the studio it was different, it wasn't the sort of wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am way of recording we did when we had no money and no time. A lot of the time, actually, we ended up looking for that kind of spark, playing a song all day long looking for the one take that sounded like guerilla rock."
"We don't write very well when we have too much time." Pearce adds. "We work much better under deadlines. We can piss around an issue untile the day before it has to be resolved. When we went into the studio, there were five songs the record company hadn't even heard yet, including 'Leave it Alone' amd 'Resurrection'. We cut them first, and the label was very,very happy to hear them."
Along the way, real life butted in, too. The entire band pulled up stakes from its home base of Vancouver and relocated to Montreal. "We were basically on the road for three years with Silver," says Pearce. "And we'd all fiven up our apartments and were staying in hotels when we'd get home. After we all got back and got places to live, it was as if Vancouver was a place where we'd explored every avenue. The songs we were writing were coming from kind of the same place Silver did, and we thought it would benefit everybody if we just picked up and moved - see what shaking up our lives that way would do to us as creative beings. As a touring rock band, we have that kind of luxury. We're sampling Canadian culture because we can. And Montrealy is a fascinating place. It's just getting different sides of the country. Who know?" Pearce adds. "We could be living in Halifax or Saskatoon this time tnext year."
Also complicating matters was the departure of Moist's manager, Keith Maryanovitch, who left to pursue film studies in New York State. To much business and too little creativity sparked his departure, Makoway says. "All along, Keith was involved in the creative end. He'd have his ears open for the songs, he had input on the videos. But as the band progressed, the more international we became, the less time he had to do anything creative, and they more he was just on the phone from morning to night. And eventuallyhe decided it just wasn't his trip."
Maryanovitch had been one of Moist's crucial early supporters, and his resignation could have been diastrous. But Moist recovered from this potentially devasting loss by signing with Nettwerk Management. "It's not like the standard sort of company, with a head manager and a sort of trickle-down from there," reports Pearce. "Everybody in that place, from (president) Terry McBride to the guy off in a corner doing Internet stuff, is extremely happy with their job. And their input is called upon all the time. They're totally evergetic and enthusiastic about what they do. And there's about 36 of them, whereas Keith worked on his own, which was an indication of how badly overworked he was."
Patience and determination is again paying big dividends for the band. Moist were thrilled to be picked for the opening slot on Neil Young's fall '96 tour. (You may remember the opening act from Young's last tour, Pearl Jam.) We played to a whole lot of people who are, like, my folks' age," a bemused Makoway recalls. "People who, in a lot of cases, hadn't heard the band before. We found ourselves having to win over crowds, having to walk out onstage and earn their respect. It's not something we've had to do for a while in this country."
And there are plenty of other indications that all hell is once again about to break loose. Creature has already sold more than 150,000 units based solely on the strength of the first single, 'Leave It Alone.' The second, 'Resurrection', was released in december and the accompanying video debuted that gauges its creative weight by the strength of its live show, a two-week Canadian tour in January - co-headlining with I Mother Earth - is being capped off by a four-night in Toronto. Further tour dates with Ginger opening take Moist into the spring. "It's such a good feeling, it really is," Pearce sighs contentedly about being on the road again. "It's so easy to lose perspective when you're off the road for basically a year. This is what it's all about, this is why we do it - that hour-and-a-half onstage." Makoway agrees. "Everybody lightens up when we're on the road, too. The creative process is great, but there are tensions in it, like I said, and there's a whole different mood to the band when we're out on the road which is really healthy. You pull together in a way you only can by playing every night and travelling in the close quarters of the tour bus."
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