1 - WHO ? ROCKETS RED GLARE ?

evan clarke, age 23 - guitar, vocals

gus weinkauf, age 25 - drums, driving

jeremy strachan, age 23 - bass

we all live in toronto but grew up in mississauga, which is a middle class suburb of toronto. despite being a suburb, mississauga is the 4th largest city in canada, so its not at all hard to find like-minded people to play with. in that sense, we were quite fortunate to grow up there. gus and I played in blake when we were teenagers, while jeremy and I played in a band called blue light blockade, that never released any records. when both bands split up, we somehow decided to start a new band. the idea for the title came from a william s. burroughs story called 'twilight's last gleaming' - i found the re-contextualization of the american national anthem quite appealing, and 'rockets red glare' was the next most obvious lyric. since our formation in the winter of 1999, there have been no line-up changes. there's only three of us, so any line-up change would be quite dramatic and is probably impossible at this point.

SPECTRA SONIC SOUND & Shawn Scallen... Story of BLAKE !

SSS was a label started in by shawn in 1997. after releasing about 10 records by various post-rock outfits, shawn elected to focus more attention on photography. he's gearing up to put out blake + okara discographies however, so SSS should be up and running again soon. as for blake, when we started that band we were all quite young (16, 18, 19) - by the time that i (the youngest) turned 20, our priorities and ideas about running a band had diverged to the extent that it made sense for us to break up. it has definately been for the best for all parties.

2 - Influences !

in terms of the music that i play now, the most important influence on my development as a musician, was definately the post-hardcore scene of the early/mid 90's. at the same time i also listened to a lot of east coast rap music and experimental electronic music. at that time i was very eager to experience new ideas, and i was willing to soak up as much culture as i possibly could. at this point, when i'm extremely involved with my own music, i find it very difficult to find time or energy for new music. when i do, my interest tends to be motivated by the social circumstances of the music, more so than the music itself. ergo, i am much more likely to be interested in music that my friends make than in some new shit-hot band from new york city.

3 - Instrument / What's a Musician for U ?

i started playing the guitar at the age of 5 - i've had a few teachers in my life, but for the most part i've just developed my own way of playing (which is not necessarily innovative or revolutionary, but is based on my own particular sense of harmony and rhythm). the last part of your question is quite difficult - i don't believe that there is any such thing as a musician in a pure sense. playing music is so caught up in the politics of everyday existence that it is difficult to isolate it as an autonomous sphere. i suppose that i could pinpoint 'honesty' as a quality that suggests musicianship for me, but of course, that's a completely subjective and potentially dishonest means of evaluation.

4 - SICKROOM RECORDS & DIEVENOM

die!venom is a label run by jim mcintyre from blake, and shaw-han liem from blue light blockade. they've been friends of ours forever so it made a lot of sense to do the record with them.

sickroom records is run, in part, by the guys from the chicago band sweep the leg johnny. we met them at a music festival in halifax (eastern canada) and became friends. we don't know them or the bands on the label too well, but they have good touring contacts and distribution, so it worked out very well for us.

5 - Music

our songwriting process is quite ardous - generally speaking it takes us about three months to put together a song. part of the reason for this, is that lately i've come to practices with only very vague song ideas, or sometimes just a key and time signature. as a result, we tend to hatch a very provisional framework, and draw out all of the directions that this framework suggests. our songs often seem complicated, but are more often than not, a series of variations on a very basic musical idea.

6 - today !

gus, our drummer, works full time as a computer programmer, while jeremy and I divide our time between work, university and music (both of us play in other bands). generally speaking, we are either working on songs, or we are on tour playing twenty-five shows a month. we don't do very many one-off shows, as we can't really afford to be distracted from our labour-intensive songwriting process.

7 - USA / BUSH/ CANADA ?

its sort of awkward being canadian at the moment, because our country's economy and politics are very tightly interwoven with the united states, whose government is quite loathsome to me. at the same time, its nice to have even a small amount of distance from that country, and to be a part of a generally more liberal, non-imperialistic nation. lately our prime minister, jean chretien has made a number of public statements in opposition to unilateral military action on the part of the US, which has been somewhat reassuring.

8 - PROJECTS

rrg is recording a new record at the beginning of april and planning on touring for the summer. it would be great if we could make it over to france, but that seems unlikely.

i play in a band called holding pattern (www.matlockrecords) and jeremy plays in a band called the sea snakes (www.dievenom.com)

9 - PLAYLIST

neurosis jim guthrie (www.threegutrecords.com)

gogol - vladimir nabokov (book)

coming through slaughter - (book by canadian author, michael ondaatje)

where is the friend's house - abbas kiarostami (film)