By Tina Peek
LINKS:
You would think that it's tough enough spending almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with one of your brothers. You would think it would be tough enough to spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with your band mates. What if you took your brother, added your friends and their brothers to the mix, decided to form a band, and ended up being happier together than apart? Odd? Perhaps, but this is the strength of what drives Cold Driven. These guys have fun together. They play jokes on one another. They finish each others' sentences. They have a mutual respect for one another, and they all have one goal: to be the best rock band they can be, working hard each night to garner more fans, even "stealing" some from other bands along the way. Cold? No. Driven? Definitely.
I had a chance to speak to the guys during Canadian Music Week in Toronto, just prior to that evening's performance. Billy Nickell, lead vocalist for Cold Driven, who had been so ill the day before that they were forced to cancel their performance that night, decided to join us for the interview. I doubt the band would have wanted it any other way.
TINA PEEK: Cold
Driven has had quite an exciting twelve months, taking home no less than
five awards at the OMA's (Okanagan Music Awards) in 2007, including Group
Of The Year and People's Choice. Tell me about that and
what it meant to the band as a whole?
BILLY NICKELL: Winning the People's Choice was really special. The year before, we kind of got shut out a little bit. We got one award. So getting those awards was a bit of a shock. We were nominated for quite a few, but you hope for the best and expect the worst. So we were definitely happy to get five awards. And I mean, some of the awards we got were super kick ass, like these guys [points to Ben and Shane] got Producer Of The Year.
TP: I was just going to ask Ben and Shane about taking home the Producer Of The Year award, which is quite an honour. Was that a category you were expecting to win, or did that come as a total surprise?
BEN BOUTHILLIER: No that was a total surprise. We didn't even rehearse a Thank You speech or anything, because we totally didn't expect to win it. So we went up there completely dry and kind of stumbled through that one. We weren't expecting that one, but it was definitely a pleasure to take home.
TP: Did you guys also produce the first album Set In Stone?
BB: Well that was more Shane, than myself.
TP: Was it?
SHANE BOUTHILLIER: Yeah pretty much.
TP: How did you get into producing, how did that come about?
SB: I have no idea. It just started from working with the studio and recording our own songs and I did an album with a band that was from England, sort of in the meantime, between our two albums and learned a lot from doing that.
BB: I guess it's the success of being independent really. [laughs] Someone had to do it! [laughter]
BN: I think we all have an ear for what we want to hear, and if you just keep twisting and tweaking things, and we're all like, "Yeah, this sounds really good." They're the ones that gotta spend an extra twelve hours, then they bring a CD home and we're like, "Naa, that's not it." [everyone laughs]
SB: Okay, another day or two. [laughs].
TP: The band also won Songwriter Of The Year. Who writes most of the songs, or does everyone have a share in the writing?
BB: It's the whole group yeah. That's pretty much how it works.
DENNIS NICKELL: I feel like it's gonna be more, like...it was the core of us to begin with, the four of us, and these guys have come into the fold now. So, I believe that this new record will definitely be that everybody is going to have a huge impact on...
SB: Predominantly when we started, Dennis and Billy wrote the majority of the lyrics and then he and I wrote the majority of the music. But, it's started to shift, depending on how much everybody is learning.
BN: Especially when we start live jamming you know? Shane will come in and do the riff, or he and Bryn will jam out a song, or Ben and Bryn will jam something out, or...
DN: ...it's just kind of a mixed thing, sometimes we'll sit down as a group and just jam some stuff out or one of us will sit down on the computer and hammer out a tune.
BB: There's no predominant force though.
BRYN BIRD: Everyone brings a special touch to the song and that's what makes it unique, is everyone else’s little additions.
SB: It keeps us from getting stale, because we really don't have a single songwriter. If we're all working full-time, we can pump out thirty songs in thirty days.
BB: I think it keeps egos at bay, too. [everyone laughs]
TP: Out of all the awards the band took home that evening, which one meant the most to you as a group?
BB: People's Choice I'd say.
TP: Because it's fan choice and so it meant more?
DN: Well, and I don't know if I'm totally speaking for Shane, but to take home producer...like for me and for the group as a whole, it's People's Choice, but there’s also a little bit of, I don't know, self gratitude in being like, "You know what, I produced great music and a great record too."
BB: Yeah. But, People's Choice, because it wasn't just a board of judges, because a lot of times that can get political. But People's Choice, it's like everybody digs your music and that's it. So, I thought that one was the most important, personally.
SB: And taking Group Of The Year, it was fun taking that one from Sled Dogs. They beat the hell out of us the first year. Like the year before when we won one, they just pummeled us, they took like seven [awards] or something like that, so this year to come back and get the People's Choice, and I mean, they're a great band and stuff, but it was still a lot of fun.
BN: And the funniest thing was the Songwriter Of The Year, because song of the year we didn't even think we'd even have a chance, because we were against Daniel Powter that year and we just thought, "No way, at least we know we'll never win that one." And that ends up being the only one we won.
TP: How did you come up with the name Cold Driven?
SB: Well, I don't know Dennis's thought process, but he calls me up one day and says, "How about Stone Cold Driven?" And I was like, "Well, it's not bad, but Stone Cold?
BB: It sounds like a wrestler, c'mon!" [everyone laughs]
SB: Well the term was meant to be determined, to be successful, to be driven and the cold part is a little bit more about being calculating and stuff and focused.
DN: And I think it's kind of significant for this band too, because we were in a different project and we were getting our CD out there and stuff like that, and the baseline totally fell apart, but the four of us stuck together. And I mean, it was hard at times because we had to finish the record and there's just the four of us...
SB: ...each doing different things than what we started doing. Because we had started recording an album as a band called Crawl Space, and in the middle of that, we fell apart and I moved from guitar to drums. Billy moved from guitar to lead vocals, Dennis moved from vocals to bass...
TP: Was that more out of necessity?
SB: Absolutely.
DN: Yeah, like when we recorded the CD it was like, everybody picks up a guitar and writes and Ben does the samples and everything, but when it came to performing, it was like, "Okay, everybody shift".
BN: The biggest practical joke ever, like we're all so talented, "Here you go, you just go on this, you do that, you stay there". [laughter] Let's pull a Sloan here [laughter], you do your thing...
DN: And so in a big way it was just pulling through that and just saying that no matter what comes our way, we're going to just power through it and just keep playing.
TP: How did all the band members meet? I know this will probably be a long story because there are so many of you guys!
DN: We can make it really short!! [laughter]
TP: It's okay, take your time!
SB: We're three sets of brothers, and we all lived in Armstrong [British Columbia]. Bryn and I grew up playing together, Ben and Billy were the same age and went to school together. Dennis and I met in the last couple of years of high school
DN: We met in a bar. [laughs]
SB: And we actually spent about six months drinking together at this bar...
DN: Yeah we met in a bar. These 3 guys walk into a bar and...[everyone breaks out in laughter]
TP: And the quiet one over there? [I'm referring to Kalen Bird]
DN: He was just this bored kid and we said, "Meh, we'll give him a shot!" [much laughter]
SB: Well Kalen was also more of a necessity, because Ben had stopped playing all the keys and stuff and took over playing guitar for me when I switched to drums, and I was triggering all the stuff Ben was doing, using a digital drum set. It was getting to the point where I needed three arms to make that happen. And so after bringing Bryn in, it was like, well we might as well bring in three sets of brothers. And we pulled Kalen in, and he's really good at it in our live shows and what he adds has become somewhat of a big part of our stage presence.
TP: It's really unique having three sets of brothers. I've been wracking my brain, but I can't think of another band that has three sets of brothers playing in it.
SB: Yeah we've also been wondering about that.
TP: When I first read about you guys, it got me to thinking about it. Three sets, I just can't think of any other band off hand.
SB: And here's another interesting fact, there's no middle born children in the band. It's all oldest and youngest brothers.
TP: Really...
SB: Yeah and it creates a bit of a higher oracle feeling, the three oldest against the three youngest and the three youngest just take the shit from the oldest.
BB: Why are the youngest the biggest, the strongest and best looking then? [everyone laughs]
TP: I've read that you all come from very diverse musical backgrounds. Can you elaborate on that a bit?
DN: Well musically, as far as me and Ben are concerned, we used to noodle on acoustic; it's just, that's what we did, you know what I mean? We'd be jamming on acoustic all the time, and then you've got Shane, who comes from punk to metal to you name it and pretty much he could play it.
BN: Well and going farther with that...
SB: Come on country boy...
DN: Well, Ben's a classical guitar guy, Billy's a country boy...
BB: I was in a jazz band.
TP: Were you?
BB: Yeah, I played sax in a jazz band.
DN: You should hear him play the harmonica!
TP: Really?
BB: Yeah our musical background was definitely spawned from our old man, because you go into his bedroom and it's like a frickin' museum of instruments. The guy plays everything himself. So that's where my inspiration came from.
SB: Yeah, we were pretty much screwed from the get go, we were born to play. It was the only thing in our house!
TP: And did you all come from musical backgrounds?
BRYN B: I definitely did. My father used to listen to everything from the Beatles to Nirvana, just everything that was cool at the time, he just picked up everything and he showed me so many different musics, and so I was basically influenced by everything.
BN: Yeah, we listened to a lot of Dwight Yoakam.
TP: Did you really? Is that why Shane was calling you country boy? [laughter]
BN: Well that's the biggest thing with us, there's no musicians at all in our history, in our background.
SB: Well that kind of boils down to the roles we all play though, right? That's why you guys are more lyrical writers and Ben and I are...
BN: And that's maybe why we learned, at first getting together in a band and well sometimes you do this...well, now we're learning to be able to just blend our roles together, creating so many different things.
SB: And then you've got Bryn, who can basically play like any guitar ever made. It doesn't matter if it has any strings or if they're an inch and a half off the frets, he's still going to try and play it.
TP: Who were some of the band’s musical influences, I'm sure that varies because as you mentioned, you all come from different backgrounds.
BN: I think it's almost just sonically. Like if you listen to our record, we're influenced by just sonically sounding things...
SB: You and I are specifically, but Ben probably not so much based on what he likes to listen to.
TP: What do you like to listen to Ben?
BB: I like listening to a lot more blues, jazz, soft rock even. You can catch me listening to Opera. Symphony. And I never listen to hard music. Like what we do, I never listen to, as a matter of fact, I find it really irritating to listen to, so I just don't do it. If we're in the car driving along, I'm like, "Dude, turn this crap off".
TP: Seriously?
BB: Yeah, I just don't like it. I love playing it, but I just don't like listening to it. I find it influences me. I don't even own any CDs.
TP: Whaaaat? You don't own a single CD?
BB: No, nope.
TP: None of you do?
BN: Oh, no, no. [The rest of the band makes it clear that they DO own CDs.] We're all musical junkies.
BRYN B: We just love picking up new music all the time.
KALEN BIRD: I like blues and jazz, but I'll listen to metal, like Mudvayne or Bullet For My Valentine or whatever.
BN: The thing is, we all appreciate just music in general, and so I think that's what helps create such an eclectic sound for us.
BRYN B: We all bring different elements of all the things that we enjoy to listen to.
BN: And if you can listen to one another's voices and what they're saying and it invokes this kind of music, then you create this sonic thing I was talking about.
TP: Okay cool. So Steel Chambers is your second album release, did you do anything differently on this album, the writing or recording, compared to the first, Set In Stone?
BN: We wrote it more together, and I also feel we were way more focused on this one. Like with the first record, we were still finding ourselves, but with the second record, we knew pretty much who we were, as people, as a band, as musicians and this was what we wanted to do. So, it was more of a “Get in, we know these songs are good.”
BB: Yeah, and they were more pre-polished when we went in this time.
SB: ...and there wasn't really any guess work.
BN: Yeah you basically had your whole life in that first record and then to follow it up, we're obviously playing it now, but we wanted two records to go cross Canada, obvious selling features, we could get into some headlining spots, and with an hour and twenty minutes of original music, we feel that's really good.
TP: Have you started writing for the third album yet?
BB: Oh yeah, definitely. Right where you're sitting!
TP: Am I sitting on it? [laughter and bantering] Okay, so you've opened for some incredible bands such as Cheap Trick, Tokyo Police Club, Metric, Chilliwack and Lynyrd Skynyrd, to name a few. What, if anything, does Cold Driven take away from those experiences?
BB: Fans! [much laughter]
TP: Great answer!
SB: Personally, I would say that that's impossibly hard to answer, because some of the bands that we've played with, we've had a chance to learn from, but I've found so far, the bands that we play with and learned the most from, have been smaller bands along the way.
TP: And why is that, why do you find that?
SB: Because they bring elements that we haven't seen before, specifically with the line-up of these bigger bands that we played with, they're not in the same vein as we are.
TP: Right, and they bring in an older crowd...
SB: Yeah, I mean you watch them, and yeah, they're great musicians and stuff, but it's not doing anything for our live presence. So it seems to me, that the younger bands that have an element in the same vein as what we're doing, is where we've taken more and learned more from.
BN: And I also feel that some of these bigger bands, we're playing in such earlier spots that you don't even get to meet them. I mean, you're not sharing gear, you're definitely not sharing a beer.
TP: So you've never met or spent time with any of the guys you opened for? They never took you under their wing?
SB: Well K-OS was cool and shit. He was cool, we had a drink with him.
BB: Corb Lund was a cool dude.
DN: Yeah and Corb was really cool. But, we did share a beer with Tokyo Police Club actually. We shared all of our stuff, our gear... [laughter]
BB: Yeah, nice guys.
DN: And we learned that our music isn't limited to a certain age group or genre. Like opening for Corb, we got a really good response and people were wearing cowboy hats, a whole stadium full of cowboy hats.
BB: And they're all bobbin' their heads.
TP: And you guys were well received, even with the cowboy hats?
BB: Oh, yeah
BN: Absolutely, it was really cool.
TP: Excellent. So if you had the chance to go out on tour with anyone, who would it be?
BN: That's a tough question.
SB: Well, I'll try and answer that personally, I can't speak for everybody, but Puddle of Mudd, Three Days Grace and somebody in the Theory-Of-A-Nickel-Fault group.
TP: Oh my God! Theory-Of-A-Nickel-Fault?! Oh geezus! [much laughter]
BN: And Linkin Park.
SB: Oh yeah, yeah, Linkin Park.
DN: Oh yeah, Linkin Park, that would really be in our vein.
SB: Just someone that's in the vein that we're in to some degree that's...
DN: We wouldn't have to work as hard to really, fit in, I guess, and get the crowd going.
TP: Because so far, the band has had to work a little harder to fit in with some of the artists you've opened for?
DN: It's always been really well received, but it would be really nice to share the stage.
SB: And you feel a little bit different, like when you're playing, because it's always this, "Okay, how are we going to approach this tonight?" Because you just don't know.
BN: I think another one would be Killswitch Engage, because the people themselves and the fans. That would be really cool. Adam and Howard would be hilarious.
TP: Bryn, what about you? You're very quiet.
BRYN B: Yup, I'm just listening, ya' know, but definitely these guys pretty much said a lot of the bands that I'd love to tour with.
BN: It would just range, because some stuff, I don't know if it would translate, but we have such a broad musical spectrum. Like, we could load up our songs and play the heavier side of it, we've played like death metal...
BB: And Metal-Fest...
BN: And then we could lighten up our set and we can still play slower songs.
BRYN B: It's definitely been a lot of fun playing in front of shows like that, where they're all metal kids and putting on a good show and making them our fans.
DN: And winning over the crowd.
BN: And I think those are the hardest people to win over, completely country or completely metal.
TP: What's the band's favourite song to play live and why?
BB: Everyone's got a different one.
SB: Actually my favourite song is "In Stone", because it's my favourite drum line...
BN: Yeah, but vocally, it's challenging for me because most of the song is really high in my range. I love the song and I love playing it live because it's got so much impact live, but...
TP: So what would your favourite be Billy?
BN: I probably have a couple of different ones, I love opening with "Breaking Condemnation" because it gets us in the zone and it's like, "Okay, we're bringin' it in" and I like "March Out Of Line", because we always put it at the end of the set and it's such a great song and it's perfect for the last song.
BB: For me it's "Cries Become The Silence" because I'm a guitar fan and I like the techie stuff.
BRYN B: I definitely think that "Cries Become The Silence" is my favourite song too, because it basically has every element of our band in that song. From heavy stuff to soft, finger picking, guitar harmonies to great vocal harmonies. It's just a really fun song.
TP: Who's the prankster of the group?
BN: You're looking at all of them!
TP: I don't know why, but I keep thinking it's probably you, Shane.
SB: Me? No, no, not me. I'm more with the, "Stop with the fuckin' pranks already," type of guy.
BRYN B: Yeah, I think I'm the master at irritating Shane!
DN: He's had years of practice!
BN: Mostly followed up by his younger brother...
BB: And then put them together and they irritate us all!! [laughter]
BRYN B: Like on the days when Shane comes to jam practice and I'm there with my guitar and every time he tries to say something, I'm like [pretends to play guitar and makes guitar sound] "ah" "ah" "ah" [everyone breaks into laughter]. He says something, I play a note, he tries to say something again, I play another note. [more laughter]
SB: And Bryn, you've taken more than one drumstick to the head!
BRYN B: Yeah, I've gotten really good at ducking drumsticks [laughter] You know, actually, it's kind of funny, because I don't think he's thrown a drumstick at me since I've joined Cold Driven. [lots of good natured bantering at this point]
TP: What's the best thing about being on the road?
BN: Being on the road!
DN: You know, it's funny, because with a lot of bands, that's their breaking point, is they can't get along and they just destroy each other. For us, when we're on the road, that's when we're happiest, that's when we get along the best! We've actually become way closer.
TP: And even the brother combos? You all get along together?
SB: Well it's your brother, like, like what are ya' gonna do? You know, there's three sets of brothers here, but I think we're all brothers, ya' know?
BB: We've all got moms to call, to sort it out on the other end.
BN: And even the first night, when we pull the bus up to the house, we'll all sleep on the bus, we all come one by one, back into our bunks. [much laughter]
DN: We do pretty much everything together.
TP: So even when you're not on the road, you still hang out?
BB: Well, we all live together.
SB: Except for me. I'd like to point out that I like my personal space slightly more than everybody else, so when everybody's going out to do something, I usually do something else.
BN: Well Christ, being sick for the past two days and then seeing him today, it was like I hadn't seen him in a month.
SB: I don't mind hanging out and spending time together and stuff, I just like...
BN: ...he needs it...
SB: ...yeah, just a few days, just to defuse myself and stuff.
TP: Okay, what's the worst thing about being on the road, or is there one?
BN: The food.
SB: His is the food, my complaint is the facilities issue.
TP: Oh yeah, no number two on the bus right? [much laughter]
SB: Well, every club you go into, somebody, by 8:30 at night, has totally done something rank to the bathroom. Every single club! It's like 8:30 is the key point and after that, somebody has done something brutal. It's like, "Aaaah, I just wanna' go to the bathroom!"
TP: What about you guys? Do you miss your families, or is there something else?
BRYN B: Well, we all miss our families, but there's so much happening all the time on the road.
TP: You don't have time to think about it.
BRYN B: Exactly, you don't really have time.
BN: Like, if you ever get that 5 minutes out of every day, you just want to have some time to breathe.
SB: I think the worst thing about being on the road is the lulls.
BB: Yeah, that's true.
SB: Like when we have any time off and not playing.
BB: You can't stretch your legs, you can't even get out.
SB: ...and you're driving along and it's like, boring!
DN: But we have taken advantage of it. We crack the studio open...
SB: ...yeah, because we've started to get back into writing mode and we're starting to get focused again, but I mean...
BN: And if you get sick or something, like vocally, if you get sick...we get nine days off, at one point we had nine days and you get to the point where you're going, "Okay, this is crappy". And we're calling this the "Husky Tour". [laughter]
SB: Yeah, the "Husky Tour", we renamed it.
TP: What's the "Husky Tour"?
BN: Oh, you know the gas stations?
TP: Oh yeah, yeah I know...
SB: You know the map, on the place mats? The dinner place mats?
TP: Yup
BN: Yeah, we've been to every single one [laughter]
BB: We stayed at one in St. Catherine's for about ten days.
BN: Yeah, they fell in love with us. They were like, "You're not leaving us are you?"
BRYN B: The best thing about that was the free showers!
SB: No the best part was Ben. There was this one guy, a cook back there, and he had a guitar.
BN: Ben plays it for like two seconds, starts to play a jam, breaks the guys' strings and the guy was like [uses a small whispered voice], "Thank you, thank you."
BS: And we were like, "You broke his string, you jerk!"
BRYN B: Yeah, I thought, "We should get him a string off the bus dude".
TP: So what's next for the band? What are your future goals?
SB: A whole lot more touring!
BN: We'd like to spend some time in Europe I think.
TP: Any American dates?
SB: America for us, is sort of the last market I think we want to tackle...at this point.
TP: Can I ask you guys why, because I know for Canadian bands, it's really difficult for them to cross into the American market and it seems to me that, in order to make it as a Canadian band, you actually do have to break the U.S. market and if you don't, you're always going to sort of, unfortunately, languish in Canada, so why save the U.S. for the end?
BB: You wanna go in with a bit of momentum though.
BN: Yeah, I think we need the momentum and to gain the experience. Financially, I think...Europe would be a great place for us, because you can hit fourteen or fifteen countries in no time.
TP: Well yeah, you can basically take a train from one country into another.
BN: So basically, getting all that experience going there, becoming...
SB: ...it also seems a bit easier to generate excitement in Europe for us right now, than in the States
BN: Because we're a little different, you know?
SB: If we're going to go into the American market, we have to go in swinging, because the market is so saturated and it's so full of crap and we don't want to get lost in the shuffle. We want to come in hitting. So if we already have 100,000 albums sold, 2 singles in different markets, then we're gonna' come in strong.
BN: Yeah, it'll be easier to play those dead shows, knowing that we're not going financially broke trying to get to the next venue, you know what I mean?
TP: Yup, totally.
BN: Every band incurs a lot of expense and it'll be a little bit nicer if we sold "X" amount of records in Canada, "X" amount of records in Europe and it keeps generating some revenue. You might play your one or two dead shows in a week or two, but you're not like, "You better go home and get a job".
TP: So is there anything else the band would like to add, anything I haven't asked, or messages to your fans?
BN: Check out our Myspace and Website!
DN: Find us on YouTube! We'll be up there after tonight’s show.
BRYN B: I would definitely like to thank all our fans for their support they've been giving us. We definitely have a lot of underground support and please keep building it up, because it definitely drives us.
BN: Plus we want to thank 101.1 or 102. something, The Edge here...[popular and highly rated rock station in Toronto]
TP: You mean 102.1 The Edge? [laughter]
DN: Hey we're from Vancouver, it's a fog out there [laughter]
TP: I know, it's all good.
SB: It's a language barrier [laughter]
TP: Is it a bit of a shock to you guys coming in here with all this snow and cold, coming from Vancouver?
SB: Well no because we're not actually from Vancouver, we're about 5 hours north of Vancouver, so this is actually pretty mild.
BB: Yeah this is mild...
TP: Really?
SB: Yeah, it's like snowing and everybody's like, "Aaaah, it's a storm!!" And I go outside and there's this much snow [shows approximately 4 inches with his hands]...and I'm thinking, "At least we can make a snowball now!!"
TP: Well thanks alot guys!!
BN: Thank you!
[all the guys chime in with thank you's]