...I know the one guy I never want to make angry...EVER (Interview with Chris DeMarcus of Stiff Valentine - WTII Minifest II hype #6)

Stiff Valentine

Stiff Valentine from Vancouver is one of the recently signed bands on WTII Records. Their latest release "America Bleeding" is out now. I had a chance to do some correspondence with Chris DeMarcus and ask him about SV, Deathproof, audio engineering and battles with sea creatures and large mammals. If that doesn't make you want to read this interview, you're dead inside.


Falken: Thanks for agreeing to do this, I know we've met in the past. We had a conversation about this a few months ago. You were doing sound for 16 Volt when they were touring with Left Spine Down and Chemlab.


How did that all come about, is sound engineering your "day job"?

Chris: Vancouver is a very close knit music community. I moved to Canada fromthe US in 2002. After touring with Dismantled as a keyboard player I got into sound engineering. I was hired to build a massive studio that now goes under the name of Harbourside IT. I'm a workaholic, so I
quickly became the studio manger and head engineer, which took a lot of sacrifice. As the music industry turned to more of a consumer model, the studio became an audio institute and I became the Dean. Unhappy with being in the private sector of education, I decided to branch out on my own and run my own production company.

Nowadays big studios are pretty much obsolete, which is sad, because they provide a great meeting place for dedicated musicians. I'm glad I was around for the end of an era. I got to work with amazing people from all sorts of genres.

The year before my band Stiff Valentine had done a tour with SMP and got along really well with Jason Bazinet, who was playing drums for 16volt at the time. We did some audio work together for SEGA and a remix for 16volt. This ended up becoming Deathproof (www.deathproofmusic.com). I met Eric on that tour and got along with him. I'm also a 16volt fan. Eric asked me to do sound for 16volt. Chemlab and Left Spine Down wanted me, too, so it turned into a busy trip. It was a good tour, but the most physically draining I've ever done. I was mixing 3 bands, stage managing, and sometimes breaking up
fights in the clubs!

My day job is engineering for records. I love live sound and find it to be more gratifying. If you see me mixing live, I'm always moving things around, using EQ for effects, panning effects, all with my hand
on the vocal fader. I'm a musician, so I have both a technical and artistic approach. Right now I am mixing a record for Slave Unit, and Deathproof has an EP coming out soon, as well as half a dozen remixes. I'm also working on some guitar tracks for SMP, as well as a re-master of 'Stalemate' and another SMP single.

Falken: I've heard that about Vancouver. I'm going to have to visit some time and pick up some mixing tips from you as well for my own work...or just hire you.

You've mentioned Deathproof a few times to me now. I never really "got" what it was until after looking at the site. I had imagined it being another band you were in, but it's a full on production group. Nice work.

So, you touched on touring and how crazy it can get out there on the road. I know you've seen quite a bit. What are the things that the normal "every day" guy on the streets would have no clue goes in to a band touring?

Chris: Mixing is like any other skill, or trade. It takes a lot of practiceand dedication to get good. Most of the time you're better off hiring someone to do it, but there is little cash flow for bands to hire a good mixer. Fans don't care for quality like they used to. In the 70s through the 90s we had awesome hi-fi sound, huge speakers and people took music really seriously. Now we have these huge 3D TVs and amazing gaming consoles, but people listen to music on their phone and prefer simplistic musical expression over anything that may be perceived as complex. We'll see if the pendulum swings back, but it seems humans are wired to judge something on looks over sound.

Deathproof is a full production group, but to confuse everyone we've decided to make our own record. It's a boombastic and violent sounding album so far. Heavy music for the gym, or re-modeling another country via tanks.

I've seen a lot on the road. I fought a shark in Florida, the shark won. I've seen people bleeding out on the streets and in the clubs. I got sent to the hospital once after a bar fight for 23 stitches and a bruised jaw bone after a guy took a bike lock to my face. Most of the things I see on the road is reality getting right up in my face, but most of them are fun and comical. I really enjoy hanging out with my friends, talking music tech, and the unreal technical challenges I face in some of the lower end clubs.

People don't realize the amount of effort from the bands. Every dime you pay to see a show goes into that shows production. People risk everything to get out and do these tours. It takes a lot of skill, preparation, and endurance. There is such little money in North America for music acts right now it makes for an almost impossible scenario. There is almost no time to party. There are no girls on the bus. The food is horrible. The fans and fellow musicians are awesome. The highest paid guys on the tour are usually the bus driver and the sound guy. Bands break even by the merch they sell, so buy a shirt! I remember on my first Dismantled tour I feed myself by collecting fast food coupons for free cheeseburgers. Hard work will always beat out image and substance abuse on the road. Sunglasses can only get you so far!

Another mis-conception for the bands I work with is how much bed tracks, or pre-recorded parts, are heard. If I'm mixing, and there is a real drummer, you are going to hear the real drummer over anything else. A lot of guys don't do that, but of coarse you need a good drummer like Bazinet, or Wailing. If you know what to do you can get the kick drum thumping without triggers, back tracks, or samples!

Falken: Note to self #1: Don't make Chris angry in Chicago.

Note to self #2: If I happen to make anyone angry in Chicago, get Chris on my side.

With am.psych we've always talked about touring but we're all quite new on that front. So the most we've done is three days locally. Even that was a hige thing for us. Taking off of work, figuring out who drives where, times to get to clubs, sound check times, where do you eat. It's quite different from a normal daily life.

Let's get in to some Stiff Valentine. After all, that is what is in the forefront for you for the WTII Records Minifest II. I can't wait to get my hands on the album. What's the history with this group? Who are all the members and what do they do for SV?

Stiff Valentine -America Bleeding

Chris: Touring is more addictive than heroin, though. Once you do it, you probably won't ever stop. I've gotten to the point where I don't even want sound checks as a performer and I pack a lunch of protein shakes!
Stiff Valentine began as a band joke. An experiment to see if anyone would show up and see a band with such a silly name. I was living in in the US about ten years ago and a lot of industrial bands were coming through my town with no opener, so I put a project together. It started as a one man electro act with lots of video and props. Kind of a Terrorfact meets Throbbing Gristle thing. I opened for lots of bands and had a good time. I moved to Vancouver and kept it going. I learned guitar and got more into writing solid songs. We opened for KMFDM last minute when Acumen Nation couldn't make it. We played to a sold out crowd of 600+ people, just me and former FLA drummer Adrian White on guitar. I had a stand-up drum kit, which later fell into the audience and cut some people up.

Something really weird happened; the audience loved it. I had hundreds of people asking me for a record and we didn't have one! So the joke turned into something else. I didn't want to be another sucker with a laptop, so I started putting a band together. For the first couple years it was mostly Craig Huxtable on keyboards, Craig Jensen on guitar, and myself. Kerry Peterson had done a couple guest shows with us on keyboards and a sampler. Since I work in recording studios and tour with bands I had a lot of friends and musicians joining us on stage. From that a core of the group emerged; which is now myself on vocals and guitar, Galen Wailing on drums, Craig Jensen on guitar, and Kerry Peterson on keyboards and sampler.

On America Bleeding there are a lot of other musicians and that's a theme that we'll continue to explore with more releases.The label and press like to push our connections with bigger bands like Front Line and 16volt, which is fine, but Stiff Valentine is not a Bill Leeb project! Chris co-produced the record because he's a great friend of the band. Mike Balch and Chris Peterson were my first friends when I moved to Vancouver and was living out of my car. We're close on a personal level more than a professional one.

We're a machine rock band, a term that Jared Louche from Chemlab came up with. We are more guitars and muscle than laptops and big hair. We are mechanized and part machine, but we push the musical boundary into having a soul as much as possible. Our songs are about people, not chemicals. We'd rather use technology than idolize it. We play live to express ourselves and artists, and we play hard. No one on stage is miming, or faking it. Kerry has to deal with that mis-conception the most, since you can't see her keyboards from off stage and 90% of industrial bands fake it. She plays most of the bass lines along with sampler parts and effects. Having a computer play your parts for you is now accepted as a cultural musical norm. I think it's more akin to karaoke, and it's not our thing. I'm blown away by how many people love the laptop bands and simply don't care if it's all fake. Maybe that's the way of the future, but six strings and live drums are so much more fun!

In an ideal world we would have everyone that is on America Bleeding playing live, but the logistics of doing that are impossible.

Falken: Chris, you've given me quite a bit of information out of only a handful of questions. I think it's time we throw you in to...

THE LIGHTNING ROUND! - Seven Questions, seven answers. You can make them as long or as short as you like. I'm going with a grab bag of questions from past interview because I think they are relevant this time around.

1) Favorite place you've ever played :
2) Project you've mixed/mastered/worked on that has surprised you the most?
3) Favorite album, hands down that you can listen to start to finish no matter what mood you're in?
4) Band you're looking most forward to seeing at the WTII Records Minifest II?
5) You've already fought a shark. Do you think you could take a grizzly bear?
6) Social media in today's music scene is :
7) If you had to use one word to describe Stiff Valentine, that word would be?

Chris : Thanks for the interview. I got confirmation that I'll be mixing16volt on the KMFDM tour this August, so I'll be very busy this summer.

1.) Everywhere. Every show is a victory. From a mixing engineer perspective I like The Roxy in LA.

2.) The Slave Unit record I am mixing right now is blowing me away. Recording Bill's vocals for FLA surprised me. He comes very prepared and doesn't waste time.

3.) Miles Davis - All Blues. Unless it's time to party, in that case it's Morris Day and The Time - Ice Cream Castles. My buddy DJ Pyxis does a mash up of "Jungle Love" and Skinny Puppy's "Assimilate." It's the coolest thing I've heard in a club.

4.) Chris Analogue. I'd like to see Am.Psych, Ludovico Technique, Gothsicles, and Ego Likeness, but I have to fly to Vancouver the day after Stiff Valentine plays.

5.) I'd most likely end up spraying bear mace into the wind and my own face.

6.) Muddy.

7.) Heavy.

Falken: Thanks for the interview. I'll be out there to support you guys in Chicago. Thanks again for all the time you spent answering my questions.

You can catch Chris with Stiff Valentine at the Abbey in Chicago on Friday, June 10th for the WTII Records Minifest II