Crisis Jane

Interview by Lili-Anh Le Minh

Crisis Jane is a band from Winnipeg, Manitoba that formed in early 2009. However, It’s members, Mike Burnard on vocals, Krys Tennant and Ashton Barter on guitar, Steven Foster on bass and Brendan Scott on drums, have all had much experience as musicians, being in other bands and even touring Canada. This past May, Crisis Jane released its first EP, “Don’t Flatter Yourself”, filled with catchy songs and meaningful lyrics, and followed that big step with a self-planned Eastern Canadian tour. Seeing how fast this band is moving and how hard they work to achieve their goals, there is no doubt in my mind that we will be hearing more and more of Crisis Jane.

On June 7th 09, the tour stopped in Montreal for their show at Café L’Inconditionnel. I had the chance to chat with Mike and Foster in their van, that has a no-shoe policy and a bloody plastic arm hanging right next to the door. Foster actually freaked someone out with that recently by putting it in his sleeve and shaking hands with someone. In the van, I noticed the back was special and Mike explained the “bunk bed system”. They had placed a plank of wood over the seats in the back and had put foam and blankets over it to make a bed. Under the piece of wood, was the regular seat and blankets; that was where they went when they wanted to sleep in the dark. They call that bottom bunk, the coffin. After that, we got down to serious business.

CONFRONT: So, to start this off, where did the name of your band come from?

FOSTER: Do you want the real story or just…

MIKE: SHH!!

Everyone laughs.

FOSTER: You want the real story.

MIKE: Ok Ashton our guitarist had a pet chicken, growing up…

FOSTER: The best part about this is he lived in Scotland.

MIKE: He grew up in Scotland.

FOSTER: So this little town kid got a pet chicken.

MIKE: And he had it for about two years when he was like, six to eight, he owned it. He kept it inside though and then his parents kind of got fed up with it. The chicken’s name was Jane.

FOSTER: Yeah and not only that, he was moving to Canada.

MIKE: It basically came down to: “you either eat it or let it go because we can’t keep it”. So that was kind of the crisis of “Crisis Jane”.

CONFRONT: That’s really interesting though! It’s a really cool story!

MIKE: I know! *laughs*

CONFRONT: How did you guys meet?

FOSTER: First of all, Ashton moved when he was 8 or 9 and we met him, or I guess myself, Krys our guitarist and Brendan our drummer, met him in high school. We were all friends in high school. Krys, Brendan and myself used to play in and old band but we disbanded in late 2008. We had done some work and shows with Mike Burnard.

MIKE: I was a solo artist.

FOSTER: He was a solo artist, did a lot of acoustic stuff and then made a band out of it later on. Anyways, we were looking to start a new band because three out of four of us wanted to keep on going. Got Ashton on guitar, called Mike up, put it together and then from there we just started writing…

MIKE: So early this year, we started.

CONFRONT: And did you think things would work out so fast?

BOTH: No *laughs*

MIKE: It felt like a miracle how well everything worked out. We all play off each other in mysterious ways.

FOSTER: We were best friends within a week.

MIKE: When they called me, I kind of hung up the phone and I told my family : “No. No way I’m joining them”. And then they convinced me to come and try to jam and I did one jam session and it was amazing. We almost wrote an entire song and we just really clicked. Everybody works hard and that’s why I’ve stayed here because I’m used to being a solo artist, working on my own but now I’ve joined a group where everybody just works their butts off.

CONFRONT: What are some of your influences?

FOSTER: We kind of all have different influences. There’s a big group of bands and artists that are all the same for us. We also kind of branch off…but the ones that are the same are Mayday Parade, Anberlin, We the Kings…

MIKE: And then there’s Krys who’s a huge Police fan, there’s Ashton who’s a big metal head, there’s Foster who enjoys classical music as well as oldies and Pink Floyd and then there’s me who…I rarely listen to old stuff because I get sick of music really quickly and I need to hear new stuff constantly. And I guess all of us pooling our views together creates the music that we have now.

FOSTER: Yeah we all bring different perspectives into the writing process and I think it really shows in a lot of our music.

CONFRONT: Yeah I find your music is really diverse so it does show.

FOSTER: Thank you!

CONFRONT: If you could tour with anybody, who would it be with?

FOSTER: What are we talking; signed or unsigned?

CONFRONT: Any. Dead or alive!

FOSTER: Well I think collectively, we decided Anberlin was one of the big ones.

MIKE: I was never asked.

FOSTER: You said you’d like to tour with them!

MIKE: Yeah but if I could pick any band to tour with, it would be The Rolling Stones.

FOSTER: Then I would like to tour with Pink Floyd.

MIKE: Fine, U2.

CONFRONT: It keeps escalating?

Everyone laughs.

FOSTER: Yeah…I can’t do any better…The Beatles!

MIKE: Realistically though, if we could land an Anberlin tour anytime soon or uh…I’m good friends with the guys from Faber Drive and they’re great guys and I would love to tour with them as well.

CONFRONT: I would definitely go to that!

MIKE: Oh thank you!

CONFRONT: But if you do, you have to come back to Montreal!

MIKE: Oh we will.

CONFRONT: Being on the road for long periods of time, you’re in the van a lot so what do you guys do to pass the time?

FOSTER: You’re currently sitting beside an Xbox.

MIKE: There’s an Xbox there and we can hook it up to here and plug that in because there’s a flip up screen and we have three laptops.

FOSTER: Yeah three laptops on tour, we have a couple of books.

MIKE: We have the bunk bed system so people can sleep. Me and Ashton will have fights in German but we don’t know German but it sounds like we know what we’re saying.

FOSTER: Yeah it’s actually impressively funny. I will give you that.

MIKE: Um…throwing stuff…

FOSTER: I want to start a game where we throw potatoes at signs but they don’t agree with me.

Everyone laughs.

CONFRONT: So you guys have an Xbox, what games have you been playing recently?

MIKE: I play a lot of…I love violent games. Like, I LOVE violent games so Fallout 3, Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed, which is super cool because you have to kill people silently.

FOSTER: I play Pokemon.

CONFRONT: Aww! Yay! That’s so cute! (Please note that Lili is an anime fan)

MIKE: That’s one thing that I am struggling with on this tour is everybody in this van, besides me, has an obsession with Dragon Ball Z.

CONFRONT & FOSTER: YEAH! *laughs*

CONFRONT: You guys rock!

MIKE: I have to put up with that.

FOSTER: We watched an entire season on our DVD.

MIKE: And they listen with their ear buds too so I’ll be in the back and I’ll watch over. I have nothing else to do so I’ll be watching their screen so instead of listening, I just kind of make up a story in my head of what’s going on and I think my stories are way cooler than the ones that are really happening.

Everyone laughs.

CONFRONT: Do you guys have time to be tourists? When you’re in a different city?

FOSTER: Here and there…

MIKE: The odd time. If we have a day off, then yeah…like I got lost in Toronto yesterday.

CONFRONT: You got lost?

FOSTER: Yeah…he decided that he was too good for Canada’s Wonderland.

MIKE: So I decided to take a bus. I kept taking free busses and then I took a subway and I’ve never taken busses or subways in my life because I always drive a car.

FOSTER: I don’t know how he got there!

MIKE: I end up getting in downtown Toronto, Dundas Square, but when I got off the subway…

FOSTER: He dropped his phone.

MIKE: My friend tried calling me, I drop my phone and the trackball popped out and landed on the subway track. I was like “Are you kidding me?” So I went to so many stores, downtown Toronto, I’ve never been there and every place said: “We don’t sell trackballs, you’re not going to find any; you have to order them online”. Eventually, I found a place though and got that repaired. And I tried making it back and I couldn’t find my way back to where I was…

FOSTER: Basically, when we were supposed to be picking him up, I call him:

“Hey! Where are you at?”

“I’m on Young Street.”

And he’s really proud of it! Like: “I’m on Young Street!!!”

Everybody laughs.

MIKE: I was really proud of myself! It looked like a main road and the guy beside looked at me and shook his head and then Foster says: “You know that’s the longest street in basically all of Canada, right?”

“Ooh…”

So yeah…tourists; I don’t know. I should be supervised at all times.

FOSTER: We’re not letting him leave again. We have some time to actually tour Montreal tomorrow though so we’re really excited. We actually purposely took a day off so we could go to Old Montreal.

MIKE: I didn’t know this.

FOSTER: He doesn’t pay attention to the booking thing. He just goes around and goes “Oh, I’m Mike Burnard!”

CONFRONT: Be careful not to lose him tomorrow!

Everybody laughs.

CONFRONT: What has been your favourite city to perform in?

FOSTER: This tour?

CONFRONT: Yeah.

FOSTER: This is only our fourth show…

MIKE: Thunder Bay.

FOSTER: Probably…Thunder Bay. I agree. Thunder Bay was a lot of fun.

MIKE: The kids were so…

FOSTER: They were so into it. They were so receptive of everything.

MIKE: It was just so encouraging; it was…they seemed to really love us.

CONFRONT: That actually leads me to my next question, are the fans any different from the west coast to the east coast?

MIKE: We haven’t gone west as this band yet so we’re not positive but we went a little bit into the Saskatchewan area and in Regina we were…well I think the majority of the people there were thinking of killing us. And then Saskatoon, it was just a rare night, I don’t know…it just wasn’t a big turnout but there was one little gem place.

FOSTER: It’s not so much city to city. Personally, I find province to province has different…

MIKE: So far, Ontario was amazing to us. So…

FOSTER: We’re excited to see…

MIKE: We’re excited to see what it’ll be like in Montreal.

CONFRONT: It’ll be great. *laugh* So with MySpace and YouTube and all that, anybody can just put up their music online with the basic equipment. |Do you think that makes it harder or easier to get out there and get known?

FOSTER: It’s a give and take.

MIKE: I think it’s got its pros and cons. Now, there are so many bands that…or “bands” or “musicians” that put up music that just is so amateur that people, when you say “Check out my band”, people are becoming jaded because they’re like “Yeah. Everybody I know is in a band.” And then there’s the few bands that pour their heart and soul into the music that they write and then they’re not taken seriously because of all the other bands that aren’t…

FOSTER: Yeah and it’s also a big thing in touring. For example, it’s a lot easier to tour now, as a band. And it works out for bands that do pour their hearts and souls into it. But then again, there’s bands that don’t and they just go “Hey! Get this show. Get this show.” And they somehow get them. But then people go see them and they’re like “Oh well…that was disappointing…” So basically, it’s actually making less kids come out to shows. And there’s more shows but then at each show, there’s less kids to come to the shows so…Say five years ago, it was a special thing to have a show. Maybe not so much in a city like Montreal but let’s say we went to play in Gatineau or something like that. It would be a little more of a special thing because they don’t get it often, you know? But now, it’s just a more common thing.

CONFRONT: So do you think it’s easier to get picked up by a label or no?

FOSTER: No. Way more complicated.

MIKE: It’s getting way harder now. It used to be that you could play in a club and there’d be a scout there and they’d say “Hey, we want to sign you.” But now, there’s so much work put into it that we’re kind of…I wouldn’t say we’re avoiding it right now but we’re not…

FOSTER: We’re not focused on it.

MIKE: We know that we’re not ready to be signed quite yet so we’re just working really hard on that.

CONFRONT: Good luck with everything!

MIKE: Thank you.

CONFRONT: What would be in your dream music video? (at this point, Foster had left and Ashton had come into the van)

MIKE: Tornadoes, in space with cougars with missiles on their backs…

ASHTON: Robot sharks!

MIKE: Robot sharks…girls with space suits…

ASHTON: A guy, like Doctor Evil…with a cat and all…and a chocolate river! And oompa loompas!

CONFRONT: Wow! And what song would this be for? Because I have a lot of difficulty putting all these things together with a song. *laughs*

BOTH: Crush for the rush!!

CONFRONT: Ok…I guess I’ll have to listen to that one. *laughs* I’ll tell you what I think after!

MIKE: You’ll see. Everything will be clear when you listen to it!

Everything still didn’t become clear after I listened to that song though. But I did get a little information about each of the guys from Crisis Jane because I asked each of them to draw either a self-portrait or something that represents them. Here is what I got.

MIKE: (Mike’s drawing explanation actually drifted off to his eating habits a little as well) I drew a life jacket because when I’m on tour, I really take care of my voice and I make sure that I get sleep, I don’t party, I don’t drink because it’s bad for the throat. I’ll make sure I do my warm-ups all the time. I can’t have dairy, I can’t have citrus fruits. I avoid coffee. I have, like, Pop-Tarts, Oreos and ravioli. Most of the time, I don’t have a microwave so I just kind of eat it cold out of the can.

FOSTER: I drew a hockey stick and puck because I love hockey and love following, but when we are on the road it’s hard to follow just because we never have TV. We’re playing shows when the games are on, and we’re busy all the time. I was excited because Pittsburgh made it to the Stanley Cup final and for the past couple years I’ve been really into what they are doing. Kind of bummed I couldn’t be watching all the games. *laughs*

ASHTON: The rainbow clouds, I guess that would be my fun and happy side. And then there’s the missile that’s coming to blow them up, it could be my random “Oh god, what’s going on?” side. And then the cloud exclamation is my loudness. The only thing that would make it better is if I’d put a fish and a chocolate bar in there but that would spoil the motif of it.

BRENDAN: Everybody else decided to be a little more metaphorical. I pretty much just went straight up and drew a heart around some drums, kind of like you get a tattoo that says “mom” except it’s got drums in the middle. I like drums, playing them…I enjoy them…that’s probably the reason I drew that. I’m pretty much just straight up, no other answer for that one. *laughs*

KRYS: My drawing expresses how scatterbrained I am because my head and my thoughts move at millions of miles a second and it’s never organised in my head so that’s why my thoughts are all scrambled because it’s always like that and it’s hard for me to stay organized. My other one was supposed to be me playing the guitar but it worked for me because unintentionally, because of my scatterbrained-ness, I interrupt people so my picture’s going over everyone else’s but I didn’t mean to do that.

To learn more about Crisis Jane and to listen to some of their songs, you can check out their MySpace page : http://www.myspace.com/crisisjane