INTERVIEW WITH STEVE RAWLES from BELVEDERE on “THE REVENGE OF THE FIFTH”

WITHIN PUNK ZINEINTERVIEW WITH

STEVE RAWLES/BELVEDERE BY PHONE

APRIL 06,2016COURTESY OF

MELANIE KAYE PR

J.B: So on we are here talking with the one and only Steve Rawles from the Ca-nadian Skate melodic Punk band Belvedere which is named after the cheeky 80’s family sitcom. Steve: Hello how is everybody?J.B: So did the tour for “We are the One Tour” actually happen?Steve: Ya we did that in the end of February and early March we were in South America we did Brazil, Chile and Peru through to Columbia. We did that with Lagwagon, Mute and Adrenalized. It was a great tour, it was fun!J.B: What was that like hanging out with Joey? Is it always an adventure when he’s around and on tour?Steve: Ya I’ve known them for a while now and I’ve always felt really fortunate to tour with them with Belvedere or Standoff and that’s been up in Europe and in Canada and now South America. So ya they’re always good fun and great guys along with Mute and the Adrenalized guys it worked out to be a super fun tour.J.B: So do you find it hard to get back into the full on speed of touring after the hiatus and the family life and stuff, but I guess not because you guys did do a pretty good reunion tour?Steve: Oh ya well we started playing shows in 2012 and we started picking away at it we can’t do full time touring anymore but we were able to do about 20 shows a year or so. We’ve been playing quite a bit and especially since we’ve been writing for the album we’ve been able to do quite a bit of practicing at our drummer’s studio here in Calgary. We haven’t been practicing every week but usually every other couple of weeks we get together and jam, so yeah it feels just how it used to be. Right back at it feels pretty natural.J.B: Of course that was the reunion tour though you did Europe and some North America and big festivals from Groezrock to Resurrection Fest and Extreme Fest?Steve: Ya well we were down in Brazil with Less Than Jake and we did a bunch of stuff up in Canada and then we did some Europe stuff, I don’t know I guess we thought it would only be about ten shows or something. Then we did a couple of weekend shows - so we did a show with Grade/Moneen and Full blast and that show was in London, and then it was okay well it’s back to Europe (Laughing) but you look at each other and say well this is music! But in the end you know it’s pretty sweet and that’s kind of where we are at. Everyone in the band is in a good spot and getting along really well and it just kind of happened organically where we said hey we have all these reunion shows and we wanted to start writ-ing again. J.B: Of all the places you played and the different scenes that you’ve seen is there any scene or venue that really stood out to you and inspired you because of how strong the scene was?Steve: I feel really good everywhere we go but Italy is really good for us obvious-ly Groezrock is a huge festival and that’s in Belgium and it’s really great. Japan’s a

lot of fun we did two nights in Tokyo - that’s things you don’t see every day. You know we play in Calgary and it’s the same thing it’s like oh okay see next time but places like Brazil it’s somewhere we haven’t played in a while and the crowd gets really amped up and those places are special to me, but places we haven’t played even more so.J.B: “Revenge of the Fifth” where does the name come from? Is it a reference to where you guys left off with “Fast Forward Eats The Tape”? Steve: (Laughing) Ya it’s a reference to a lot of things accidentally actually, like me and Scott were looking through our emails and it was actually May 5 when you came up with that song! And I was like yeah it was actually May 5 and be-cause it was May 4 and the Star Wars Movie was out with the title “Revenge of the Sith” and he was like check out this riff I call it “Revenge of the Fifth”. And he was joking around with it and the whole thing of “Revenge Of The Fifth” and what that meant and all that the Fifth element being the Human Spirit and I started writing about that. And then we were like well we like the title of that

song let’s just call it that. Then we were like well let’s just put “The” in front of it as a criteria for album names and then it became “The Revenge of The Fifth”. So from there we were like oh this is our Fifth album and laughed and that’s what we said on May 5 and you know 05/05 and that’s funny and if you order an album we will send it you five days before the release day and we just went a little crazy with it.J.B: Almost a Star Trek Continuum there?Steve: (Laughing) Ya it’s been fun and the whole idea with the art work and the album.J.B: So you guys started out obviously as the Skate/Melodic Punk but now is faster what was your inspiration?

Steve: Now or in the beginning?J.B: Well I mean you guys have changed the formula and now it’s faster, more technical?Steve: I started the band and I consider Jay and Scott to be founding members but I started the band in ‘95 and I was just a kid out of High school and just trying to figure it all out. You know the difference between 18 and 40 if you’re playing regularly hopefully you get better? (Laughing) I think we’ve gotten better at what we all do and we try to push the envelope a little bit and it’s not you know three chord songs I wrote when I was eighteen and it’s evolved into what it is now and it’s something that we are really excited about. As far as influences we all come from a different background and listen to different stuff and the bands we’ve played to a listen to all kind of play a part.J.B: Obliviously you’ve had lineup changes over the years that has affected that outcome also with the introduction with Casey Lewis?Steve: Ya mostly in the drummer department it’s mostly myself Jay and Scott in

the band that’s been consistent since ‘98.J.B: Ya and Casey is from “The Evidence” and he has that almost Jazz and Clas-sical Training like Neil Peart?Steve: Casey is still in a bunch of bands and still in “The Evidence” and he likes to jump into other bands as well at the Studio if the bands are having problems and help people out. He’s been playing for a long time I can’t speak on if he has classical training but he goes around listening to stuff like that.J.B: Ya not to mention he has some sick ink of flames that ties also into your logo?Steve: Ha! Ya we kind of lucked out on that one!J.B: So let’s talk about that with the earlier works you had the 4/4 classic blaz-

ing snare drum and Hi Hat usual work with tom rolls. Now of course it’s more technical and Jazz influenced with more symbol work and you would almost say that there is a double pedal in the kick?Steve: OH NO! No Double allowed in this band (Laughing). But thanks for say-ing that because that is the skill he has its all single but sounds like it.J.B: So rhythm section and Leads back in the day - when you did pick up Scott and things really did change how would you explore his guitar wizardry? I’m talking about the Scale work?Steve: Ya Scott’s a beauty he’s been playing a really long time and I’ve played with a lot of good players and he ranks right up at the top. He’s an awesome dude to be up there with and he does shit I don’t even know, that’s why I play rhythm and sing and let him do all that fun stuff and I just kind of watch and enjoy.J.B: Obviously you pay homage to the metal because you do have gallop riffs in there does that really come through on “The Revenge of the Fifth”?Steve: Oh ya for sure we did do some video’s for songs that are more mid-tem-po and more newer sounding, but there is a pretty good metal influence in the more structured songs. You will have to listen and see for yourself I can’t say too much. J.B: Ya also plays in with Jason’s sick base lines like the intros of “Mediator” and

“Stain” right?Steve: That’s awesome and thanks, I know he will appreciate that, he works real-ly hard at it.J.B: Ya well you know when you hang on tour with Dan Palmer (Death By Ste-reo) and Jake Kiley (Strung Out) it’s hard to not get influenced by those guys.Steve: (Laughing) Oh ya! Danno is awesome we have been really lucky to tour around with bands like that. And when you bring up the Death By Stereo guys those guys are fucking shredders ya those guys are great.J.B: You guys had samples at one point in time to song intros like an homage to Good Riddance like on “Angels Live In My Town”. Is there any possibility of that coming back into play on the next one?Steve: Ya that was ‘98 so we were doing some crazy goofy things and drinking way too much beer in the studio. And on “Angels Live In My Town” we were definitely in the that wave of bands that liked to play movie samples. And it’s funny we were at shows and people were like coming up to us after these shows and doing these quotes off like “Falling Down” or something (Laughing). But then that made me want to go and watch that movie you know! And I was

like ah that was kind of cool you know! Maybe we should do a plug for that or something?J.B: So lyrical content on this release you covered pretty much everything from personal relationships to life experiences so what was the creative writing pro-cess on this one? You started writing in 2013 right?Steve: Ya 2013 -2014 you know the lyrics always come last in this band but in the last four to six months is when I really went at it and try and put together stuff. You know I’m forty now so when I was writing back when I was eighteen I wrote about those things that made the difference and were effective back when I was 25. Now you know I have a six month old son, I’m married now, the world is a bit different now. Maybe I look at it in a different eye than I did maybe fifteen years ago. Maybe I’m more passionate about the world we are leaving to our kids and when you have a kid that really plays into my psyche and to you know what I like to write about so. It is a little bit more personal the lyrics I think than it has been before in the past. And I tried to be very direct about what I was speaking about and what I’ve done before in the past was people could interpret to whatever people got out of it. So whatever it means to them and that’s cool to me and maybe now I’m a little bit more direct about the subject matter.J.B: And of course the cover art you’ve always had some epic Illustration over the years one of my favorites was “Twas Hell said former Child” with that whole epic Graphic Novel thing going on. But now you guys have that cover of the Ouija board? Steve: So yeah we were thinking about the cover art and we brought up the idea of the Ouija board and gave it to a friend to work on and he found this perfect one and it’s really kind of beautiful and scary looking at the same time. It’s not one of those cheap Fisher Price looking things you know and we really liked the way that it looks and in our minds what we wanted this album to look like. I have a friend Colin Mitchell who ran a bunch of contests for it and he did a re-ally good job with it and we gave it over to our buddy Juan in South Africa who designs album covers for a lot of bands. And he started going on it in it Illustra-tor and got it going and he tweaked it and we really loved it.J.B: So let’s talk about the Studio end of it I noticed a clip of Jay and Casey doing Tracking?Steve: Yeah it was done in Casey’s studio and were lucky to have someone in the band that owns a studio and that’s his job. And he’s tracking all the time not only do we jam there we were actually able to go through a proper demo pro-cess and we’ve never done all the way through. We did a little bit of demoing before but this time we were able to go in a couple of hours at a time every week or every other week. So we were able to hammer down on vocals and Guitars and kind of worked the song out and some of the songs took months to do that. And that went on for a better part of a year and then we tracked it at his studio

but you were able to listen to it over and over and think of the songs through you know instead of like okay we have twelve days in the studio to smash it out and whatever happens and let’s get it done type of thing. And ten hour days because you know we can’t do ten hour days for a month in studio we just can’t do that so to be able to go in for like four hour chunks at a time when ever he wasn’t busy with other guys and bands it was great to do that. And so it took two months to record the album and then we sent it down to the Blasting Room in Colorado and then we mixed it there for about a week.J.B: Oh so it was the Blasting Room?Steve: Ya Mixed and Mastered there.J.B: Who did the mixing?Steve: Ah Andrew did the Mixing and he’s done so many bands and he’s a really great guy really talented, and obviously Jason Livermore did the mastering and he does the mastering for everything coming out of the blasting room.J.B: And Labels this time you are not on The Union Label Group you are on Bird Attack Records and released in Effervescence and Funtime Records for Europe and Japan by Bells on Records, Italy by No Reason Records and the UK by Lock-jaw Records. Anything in ink yet for Canada? Steve: Ya Bird Attack is doing all of Canada and the States and Distribution they are handling it all and lot of these people I have known for years and we are friends and they were like people to help push the album in their area. And these guys are amazing they really push the stuff at the shows and the Festivals and you always see them out there and they have a lot of fans. And you always see them with these records handing them over you know one at a time and that’s what’s really cool about all this stuff you know. It’s not like shooting thou-sands through the store there’s some love here and they’re handing it over to someone saying you know you’re going to love this this is a band and album that I like so!J.B: Yeah it’s an old school approach just like the old days of picking up the zines to find shows and venues or asking fellow bands where to stay and Social Media plays a big part of all of that. How do you feel about the evolution of the scene like that?Steve: I’m thankful it’s here. We used to only play maybe 25 shows a year and now it’s way more active you know playing every day and running into people and it’s just not the case anymore and you hope you can reach all these friends and hopefully catching up with them. I’m on Facebook all the time and it’s awesome like that looking from a band aspect as to communicate. Myspace was really getting off when we disbanded so!J.B: You guys also have that sick skate deck that is up for grabs on the pre order contest? May or not come pre signed or scratched by a session down at Shaw?Steve: Ya we are giving away 5 (Laughing) get it? They were done by Jackson. But ya everyone that pre ordered has a chance to win one up to somewhere like

April 20 on the 26 we will do the draw but we will press others for show merch maybe. J.B: So Pouzza Fest this year! Are you guys excited?Steve: Ya it’s going to be awesome we have been watching the festival for years and they contacted us and when they asked it was perfect and we’re excited and can’t wait. A month after we are in France with NOFX and then Pennywise.J.B: We always end with a famous book or quote that inspired your life. Any-thing come to mind? Steve: Well I was reading a book called “Hawaii” and that’s been out since the fifties and I can definitely say “Hawaii has stolen my heart”.

PLAYING

May 13 Dickens Calgary, Canada May 14 Brixx Bar & Grill Edmonton, Canada May 20 Call The Office London, Canada May 21 The Cave. Toronto, ON May 22 Pouzza Fest Montreal, Canada Jun 22 Stereolux w/NOFX Nantes, France Jun 24 De Klinker w/HomerAarschot, Belguim Jun 25 Jera On Air w/ Pennywise, Zebrahead Ysselsteyn, Netherlands