TINA PEEK: Hey Luke, how are you? I'm glad we were finally able to chat today.

LUKE METCALF: Yeah, sorry about that, I was in Spain for 17 days.

TP: Were you really?

LM: Yeah, it was awesome!

TP: Cool. Were you guys performing there?

LM: No I just went there to visit a friend and have some fun, basically.

TP: Really? That's amazing.

LM: Yeah, it was sweet.

TP: So how did you like Spain? Was it good?

LM: Oh yeah, the Spanish definitely know how to party!

TP: Okay Luke, I've got a lot of questions because you're a young guy, but you've lived a lot of life in those years. So I guess we should start by going back a bit, because I know it was during your high school days and the things that were going on in your life back then, that shaped who you are today, and were also the experiences you took from that time, to write the songs that made it on your self-titled debut album, Sound And Fury. So tell me about your high school years and what life was like for you back then?

LM: Ah well, I did a lot of partying and caused a lot of hell. [laughs] I had some good times and some bad times you know, I got kicked out of a bunch of high schools actually, and that was kind of funny [laughs], because most of the lyrics I write are about my experiences in high school and right after, actually, and yeah, a lot of partying and a lot of pretty wild times.

TP: Okay, can I ask you why you were kicked out of high school three or four times?

LM: Well one of them was just because I was never showing up. Well, I would show up to meet up with my friends and then we'd all go get wasted in the park, so I didn't last too long at that one. And then I was also caught with various substances, etc etc, numerous legal problems. [laughs]

TP: And then you got kicked out of your house.

LM: Yeah, I got kicked out of my house, too, after high school. I actually finished high school, which is astonishing, but then immediately after that I got booted out of my house.

TP: I thought you got kicked out of your house because you weren't doing well in school and were having trouble there? But it was for an entirely different reason?

LM: The whole school issue certainly lead to a lot of tension, [laughs] but then it was just like...yeah, lots of other stuff going on. [laughs]

TP: So basically the road to get to where you are today, seems like it was a tough and well travelled one by the sounds of it?

LM: Yeah, well after I got kicked out of my house...the way I got kicked out was that I was given 24 hours to leave, and I had no money and no job and no credit and nowhere to live. No nothing! So that certainly was interesting. I basically drifted around for a year and a half, mainly down in the States, in California and Berkeley, East Oakland and places like that. Then I went out to the desert, and I actually just lived in the desert for a while in Arizona. So it was a lot of crazy adventures, just kind of drifting around, with no money really and going wherever life took me.

TP: And you even squatted for a while, you and your friend and his dad out in L.A.?

LM: Yeah. When I got down to California, I met up with a buddy of mine and his father who were literally being evicted out of their apartment the day I got there. And so we lived in a car. They had this car that we lived in, the three of us for a while. Then we found this like, group of homeless punk kids and got together with all these different people. I think there were like fourteen of us, and we all rented one motel room. I still remember it. It was Fireside Motel in Berkeley, and there was like, fourteen of us living in one motel room for I think almost two months, which was kinda interesting, because it was literally, you'd walk in at night and there wasn't even a square inch on the floor, you know what I mean? Everyone was just piled on each other trying to sleep. But I met some really cool people, and I had some pretty fun times, too. It was pretty wild.

TP: It was a learning experience, too, right? How old were you then?

LM: I guess I was just...nineteen and twenty and well, that took me right through, off and on, took me through my twenty-first birthday.

TP: Really. Can I ask you then, have you made amends with your family?

LM: Oh, I get along great with them, yeah. It's just, I can't live, we just can't live with each other. [laughs]

TP: I totally hear you on that one. [we laugh] So you've made amends and I guess they must be pretty proud of you because you've done a lot, grown a lot and grown up a lot, well, in some ways maybe.

LM: Sort of. [laughs]

TP: You're probably still a party animal though, right?

LM: I'm still--well I guess my mother's like a typical mother, she's still like, "When are you going to University and get a real job and get married and settle down?" And I'm still, well I'm still basically the same I was when I was sixteen. I don't really plan on changing. [laughs]

TP: The thing I found really amazing was that you recorded all the tracks on your own in the beginning, by playing the drums, bass and rhythm guitar and when it was all said and done, you had about 45 songs finished for what you hoped would be recorded on an album in the future.

LM: Yeah.

TP: For a guy who went through so much, you basically came back to Toronto and did all this yourself in a basement. Tell me about that time, because I find it very interesting. I love music, but I would never have known how to record my own music, laying down tracks and doing all the stuff you ended up doing, even thinking enough to leave open parts for a solo guitar to be added in later. So tell me about that time in your life and how you came to doing all that on your own.

LM: Well, I originally started out as a drummer. When I was thirteen I started playing drums. And then off and on I had played in a bunch of bands, and I could never find a band that was playing the style of music that I wanted to play. It was really frustrating and so finally I got fed up and I was like, "Well, I'm going to have to start writing my own music, because I can't find anyone else that's writing the music that I want to play." So, I taught myself how to play rhythm guitar and I started working on vocals and writing down lyrics and all that kind of stuff. I got a bunch of ideas together and that's the main reasons I came back to Toronto, is that after about a year and a half of drifting around, I was like, "I wanna put something together, I want to get something going." Ya know? I got tired of just wondering around aimlessly, so I came back and I started to work on a bunch of tunes and it took a while to get everything together, like it really took quite a while.

TP: How long did it take?

LM: Well you know, the thing is, I was working on random ideas over a few years, while I was in high school even, just having ideas, right? It was just random ideas over a number of years until I actually decided that I've gotta get my act together and put these things down properly and put some actual songs together and do this, ya know. So once the real work started, basically yeah, I spent a solid year in this. It was just a really simple set up. I had a drum set and I borrowed a guitar off a friend and a bass. I bought this crappy amp and I also borrowed a real, total old school Fostex reel-to-reel 8-track, and just a little mixing board. Basically, I had all these ideas and I started trying to put them together in songs and once I had this kind of loose, I mean, these were very rough demos, a loose structure for a song and I'd hit record and I'd run over to the drum set and I'd try to play through the whole song by memory on the drums until I got it done. I'd get that done and then I'd sit down and put the headphones on and play the rhythm guitar track over that, and then the bass guitar and then I'd do the vocals, and yeah, I would leave like spaces where there were no vocals, usually after a second chorus, just crank out the rhythm for a few bars and just leave these spaces for lead guitar solos. I don't play lead guitar, so what I did was, when I had all these really rough demos done, I called up a buddy of mine from high school, Griffen, who I personally thought was the best guitarist in the city and I asked him to come over and just play some solo's over my songs and he did. And then we started talking about putting a band together and to make a long story short, we auditioned some people and we found John (Kerns) and Chris (Avalos), a bass player and drummer, who'd played in a band before, so it was really great to find a bass player and drummer that had played together.

TP: Well John Kerns actually played with his brother Todd in Age Of Electric and Static In Stereo...

LM: Yeah exactly. And both guys are really good and really great guys and all of us have similar tastes in music too. We like a variety of stuff, but we really love hard rock and seventies punk and stuff, so then all we needed was a rhythm guitarist and eventually I got a manager and we were having a really tough time finding a rhythm guitarist, so I asked him to kind of put the word out to all the agents and managers that he knew all over the world, saying, "We're looking for a killer rhythm guy". And the first day we got over two hundred email applications for the gig, from all over the world. We also went through all sorts of different video footage from people and there was this one guy from New Zealand who was living in Australia at the time who was really killer. And I basically just called him up in Australia and was like, "Hey, you wanna audition? Come in to Toronto!" And so he (Daz) flew into Toronto and auditioned and got the gig.

TP: Wow. That's awesome, that's an incredible story.

LM: Yeah, that's crazy eh?

TP: Yeah it's really crazy. So just to go back to what you said, how you'd have to run back to the drum kit and stuff, how did you know how to do that, because obviously this wasn't something you learned in school, laying down tracks and recording, so how did you figure it out on your own?

LM: Well as far as the playing goes, I mean, I'm totally self-taught, all my favourite musicians are self-taught, but as far as the recording goes, I taught myself to play by just playing along to my favourite bands, I'd put headphones on and I'd play the drums along to Zeppelin and stuff like that. As far as the actual recording goes, I just asked the guy who lent me the 8-track. He is a buddy of mine who has done quite a bit of just, basement recordings and he taught me how to use the 8-track, and I just did this dirt simple, I’d literally just hung up one microphone, just hanging from the ceiling in the room and I'd hit record and I’d just play the drums and I'd try and memorize the whole song and just play the drums all the way through and then I'd go over and I'd just set the mic up in front of the amp and plug the guitar in and then hit record and it was just really simple, an utterly simplistic set up.

TP: That's truly incredible, because you had been kicked out of school and I didn't know if you had finished grade 12. Did you graduate grade 12?

LM: I actually graduated! [bursts out laughing]

TP: Get out! Did you really?

LM: [laughing] Yeah, and I absolutely astounded everybody, even myself!! [we're both laughing]

TP: I bet! I wasn't sure, because all I've ever read is that you were kicked out of school, but no one has ever said that you actually graduated!

LM: It was my fourth high school, is when I finished. [laughs]

TP: Well anyway, that was going to be one of my questions, was were you self-taught on drums and guitar and...

LM: Oh yeah.

TP: And so you're self taught on every instrument you play?

LM: Yeah totally.

TP: That's impressive, really impressive. Okay, so I've gotta tell you. The debut album? It's awesome.

LM: Oh thank you.

TP: It's so good, I can't get it out of my player.

LM: Thank you!

TP: Oh you're welcome. It's very rock and very raw and has a lot of punk overtones to it, which I love. You produced the album as well, right?

LM: Yeah, I had a lot of help though from a buddy of mine, Christian Collingham, and then also the guy who did, who was basically our engineer, Adrian Gorzan, and they really helped me out a lot, because we just recorded it in our rehearsal space. And my buddy Adrian's got kind of a recording set-up next door in this rehearsal space that we were in so, we just recorded it all there, which was great because it gave us, like, you're not on a clock, like being in a mega-studio and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean, we were really able to take our time and re-do things over and over again if they weren't right.

TP: And you obviously learned a lot, like how to produce and stuff, because it seems that you've had a role in everything from the beginning to end in the making of this album, from writing, playing, singing, producing, everything and it's really quite impressive.

LM: Well thank you.

TP: [The song] "18" is one of my favourite songs off the new album and you just released the video for it, which is really kick-ass! What was the experience like doing the video, let alone filming it in an abandoned cop shop in Toronto?

LM: Oh I loved that! We all thought that was hilarious!

TP: It is pretty ironic.

LM: Yeah, we shot it in an abandoned cop shop and we all got completely wasted!! It was a blast!

TP: I bet. So what was that experience like for you, because you'd never done a video. Who did the video? Were you involved with that as well?

LM: No it was directed by this guy, Sam Welsh, who I think did a great job and he did it for real cheap. He's just a really cool guy, a really creative guy, and he brought in this great lighting guy who actually does Linkin Park's lighting and stuff, he's a buddy of his.

TP: You know, I just saw Linkin Park last night and they were fucking awesome!

LM: Nice!!

TP: They were playing down at Downsview, for Edgefest?

LM: Yeah, yeah, right.

TP: And STP played. They were incredible, but Linkin Park blew me away!

LM: Wicked!

TP: The light show they had was unbelievable.

LM: Wicked, those guys are awesome!

TP: I only mentioned it because you said you had the guy who did the lighting for Linkin Park in, and he does an incredible job, because their light show was amazing!

LM: Cool! Yeah, the guy just did a killer job on the video and as I said, they cut us a great deal and it was really awesome. It was just awesome for us to have people that had talent working with us; it was really cool.

TP: I think it also says a lot about you as a band too, the faith they had in you. And the video is awesome, your energy on that stage, and all the guys looked great--it's a great video and a great release for your first single.

LM: Thank you. Yeah, we were totally blown away when we saw the work they had done, really, "Wow!"

TP: Obviously, I'd like to say the Sex Pistols and The Ramones must've been quite a big influence on you because it shows in your music. So who were your musical influences?

LM: Oh yeah, huge Sex Pistols fan, The Ramones, The Misfits and also AC/DC and I'm a DC fanatic and Sabbath, Zeppelin, you know, all that kind of stuff.

TP: Definitely the Sex Pistols and The Ramones show in your music, because your music has a lot of punky overtones to it.

LM: Yeah, yeah.

TP: And a lot of straight-up rock. It's a great album.

LM: Aw thanks.

TP: No problem. So what's in your CD player or iPod right now? What are you listening to these days?

LM: Well actually, I'm listening to a lot of stuff, but I guess most recently I've been on a bit of a Misfits binge. [laughs]

TP: Have you?

LM: Yeah, lots of Misfits over the past couple of weeks.

TP: Okay, who do you think is running the music industry today, the kids or the industry?

LM: It's still a combination. Like I mean, the industry is still very much entrenched and it's taken a beating, but they're still in control of a lot of what gets on TV and what gets on radio and stuff. But there's a lot of kids that are rising up and kicking ass too, which is just great ya know? It's getting much more scattershot, you know? There's bands in every direction doing stuff now. It's not all focused in one small group of people. So, that's good.

TP: Yeah, and I find a lot of bands that don't fit the mold, that don't fit into a specific genre. They just go indie and are trying to do more on their own, and they are having some success. A lot of these bands that are doing this on their own and having success are because kids are speaking out and saying, "This is what I want, this is what I want to hear".

LM: Yeah exactly. That's the key to it. It's still pretty tough, I mean there's pros and cons as well, because now there's like a million bands right? And just to get heard is difficult, but that's the key. It's a helluva lot better than just having two or three people running the whole show, you know what I mean?

TP: I agree.

LM: So that's the key, is just getting out there so that people can check you out in the first place, and if you're good enough, they will start talking about you. It's only natural.

TP: If they like the music, the fans will support you; they'll come out in droves.

LM: Oh, yeah.

TP: Okay, the album cover. I've gotta bring it up, because I think the artwork is fucking WICK-ED!! The last time I loved an album cover this much, was when Priestess released their debut album a couple of years ago! Who did the artwork for your new disc, because it's really elaborate. It has it's own case and you pull it out of that and it's three-sided and it's got a little poster on one side, and the artwork itself, just the whole thing is just awesome wicked!

LM: Yeah, mind blowing, eh? Yeah, we were totally blown away by it. It's this group called Liquid Nine, in Kansas City, actually.

TP: Really? And did you give them any ideas, like, "This is what we want or what we're looking for?" Or did they come up with this on their own?

LM: No, what I did was, I was like, [laughs] "I want a lot of really killer old school punk imagery and I want rampaging teenagers, like total rock n' roll rampage and I want lots of skulls." And they were like, "Okay." [starts laughing] And that's what they came up with! [laughs]

TP: It's incredible, it's one of the best album covers I've seen in a long, long time.

LM: Yeah, absolutely! It kicks ass!

TP: Oh it totally kicks ass! And the other thing is your merch, I think your merch is awesome. I was on your site checking it out and there was a t-shirt, the x-ray t-shirt with the head of the guitar that turns into the middle finger. I wanted to buy that, but it was sold out! Who designed your merch, did you have a hand in that at all?

LM: Ah, no. Well, that design was by this artist named Emick out of California. We've got a few designs by the guys who did the album cover as well, and yeah, that's where most of the designs came from.

TP: People don't think merch means much, but that's the kind of stuff that gets kids buying the CD and merch. If it's bland, who gives a shit, right? But that guitar head, I wanted it right away.

LM: Yeah, yeah, I love that one.

TP: Tell me about your live shows and what it was like for the band to go out on tour with Sum 41? The experience must've been incredible, especially when you went to Europe.

LM: Oh yeah, it was wicked. The audiences were amazing. It was incredible to be playing in England, one of the best rock n' roll markets in the world. The English are rock and roll fanatics; I loved that audience. It's was just an amazing experience all around!

TP: I was talking to Jonny Hetherington from Art Of Dying and he told me when they went to England, nobody had heard of them, no one knew who they were, but when the doors were opened, the fans just rushed up to the stage and they just went crazy. They were so into the music, and they're so into rock.

LM: Exactly!

TP: And like you, they loved the experience and said the people were incredible.

LM: Yeah, the UK rules.

TP: So you're definitely going to want to go back there again?

LM: We are. We're touring with Airbourne there in November and December. We're opening for Airbourne throughout the UK and Europe, and we're also opening for Airbourne across Canada in late August.

TP: Right, I knew that. It was actually my next question because I know you're doing some upcoming shows with Less Than Jake in the U.S. this month and then Sound And Fury are coming back to Canada to do shows with another band I love which is Airbourne. I absolutely love those guys. Their music kicks ass.

LM: They're awesome.

TP: Yeah, I was going to ask you, how stoked you were to be going out with them, with those two bands?

LM: Oh unbelievable. I love that band, I love their music. I'm totally excited!

TP: That's cool. I didn't know you were going back to the UK with Airbourne. So are you just doing the UK or other places in Europe as well?

LM: Yeah, we've got twenty-two shows in the UK and then another ten across some countries in Europe, I'm not exactly sure which ones though.

TP: That's great Luke. So is there anything else you'd like to add that I haven't asked you today, or any messages to your fans before we end the interview?

LM: Yeah. If you're fucking looking for a party, you've fuckin' found it!!! It'll be a fucking rampage!!

TP: Right on. You sound like a terrific guy and I really appreciated you taking the time with me today Luke.

LM: Thank you.