Every single Marianas Trench fan can take pride in knowing that they were a part of the band’s success story. Marianas Trench knows it, and doesn’t take that fact for granted for a second, and it shows in the continued dedication they give in return back to their fans.
We had the chance to chat with drummer Ian Casselman to talk not only about their fans, but about the band’s plans to take over the USA, Tim Hortons, and… Glee? He also provided us with a great playlist, that you can check out here.
Enjoy the full interview! 🙂
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asapmusicblog.ca: I just wanted to let you know that Marianas Trench is responsible for about ¼ of the hits that we get daily for our blog – and that’s before we had this interview with you!
Ian Casselman: That’s huge!
a: To start things off, if you had to chose one thing that defines Marianas Trench apart from everyone else – what would it be?
IC: I guess it would be the vocals, or the harmony. A lot of the times we have a lot of four-part harmonies, they’re actually more musical parts – I think Josh [Ramsay], in his writing, he’s using it more as a musical instrument rather than just a type of a vocal. I think it just adds another layer to music, really.
a: I would definitely agree with that. One of the other things that I notice about Marianas Trench is that you guys seem to have a lot of fun – whether it’s doing interviews, or playing shows…
IC: Oh yeah, for sure.
a: … and that’s part of the chemistry that you guys have as well, because you guys have known each other for awhile.
IC: I think a lot of it too, some people hear interviews over and over and over again, you want to keep them [entertained] – it’s for entertainment, right? We’re supposed to be entertaining, so we don’t want to keep giving the same boring old answers.
a: So you guys have been currently making your way down to the USA. How has the response been so far?
IC: It’s actually been pretty good. The thing with the US is that there is so much competition – there are so many bands. A lot of the labels are trying to get all their bands on the radio, so you’re just kind of competing against… a lot of the times, you’re just competing against money. So the artist might not necessarily be that great, or the music may not necessarily be that great, but it’s the label that you’re competing against that’s spending a ton of money on it. It has a better chance of taking off because it gets more exposure. But 604 Records has been working really hard, and we’ve been giving it a good shot – so far the response has been quite positive.
a: I’ve seen some the stuff that you guys have been posting on Twitter with the US appearances. Have you guys been doing anything to represent Canada? Like bringing enough Tim Horton’s for everybody?
IC: (laughs) No, but we were laughing, because I think it was in Ohio, where I think there’s still a lot of Tim Hortons, Ohio or Iowa – I can’t remember exactly where, but we saw a whole bunch of Tim Hortons, and we were all laughing. Because we’re kind of tired of Tim Hortons – when you’re on the road in Canada, you eat so much Tim Hortons and you get so much Tim Hortons that it’s not funny. We should do a Tim Hortons endorsement, we’ve eaten there so many times.
a: Both Marianas Trench and Tim Hortons are making their way down the States, so you never know, kind of works!
IC: I think a lot of the times, Americans are pretty respectful of Canadians. When you get to meet a lot of, just the people, you find that you actually have a lot in common. I think a lot of Americans get a bad rep a little bit, just because of some international policies or their government or whatever – but a lot of the people themselves, they’re really really great people. When we go down there, we don’t go down as – I don’t know, we’re kind of funny cocky, but we’re not egotistical cocky, you know? I think because we don’t come across as douchebags, people think we’re alright.
a: With ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ you guys have had a few of the singles hit platinum with digital downloads, and the album itself has gone platinum. In recent interviews, you guys have talked about how when you’re in the US, you’re pretty much promoting the album again. How does it feel going back that mindset of album release?
IC: It’s pretty fun, because it’s kind of like how we were when we first started up here. You’re kind of at the bottom again, so you kind of have to be really hungry, you’ve got to really want it. We just did a radio show in Indianapolis, like we did every other show like when we were trying to make it in Canada. We’ll say, ‘Come meet us!’ and we’ll go out to the lobby and kind of hang out by the merch booth, because there’s space there, and you can meet people. But we can’t necessarily do that up here anymore because if we do that, everyone goes there and you can’t – usually the shows are like 3000 people plus, and it just takes you five hours to meet 3000 people – and you just can’t do it anymore. But down there, we can do it again, so it’s kind of fun.
a: Kind of funny that you mention that, because I remember back in 2005, you guys played a show at the Croatian Cultural Centre. You kind of answered the question – it was a benefit show for Reach Out, alongside Hedley and Limblifter, I think.
IC: Oh, it was like Alarm Bell or something? No, I believe it was Limblifter, yeah, it was. I remember that show – that was the first time a fan grabbed my ass! I turned around, and she was around 12 or 13, and I remember going, ‘Oh my god! I’m going to get arrested here!’
a: I’m glad you do remember the show, because now you guys sell out bigger headlining shows. You guys have a homecoming show, which will be the last Canadian tourdate in support of ‘Masterpiece Theatre’. How does it feel when you guys come home and play shows in Vancouver?
IC: I honestly just like playing everywhere, to tell you the truth. I don’t necessarily view my hometown as different. It sometimes feels a bit weird, because you’re a little out of tour mood because you’re actually in your apartment instead of a hotel room, and you can eat at your restaurants that you want to eat at, go to your local Starbucks or whatever it is that you want to go to. So that’s the only real big difference for me. In terms of the shows, it’s kind of cool maybe because – actually, I think I recognize fans and meet fans equally across the board that I know, so I wouldn’t even say that in our hometown, there’s more people that I know. It’s kind of neat that it’s your hometown, and meet some of your closer friends who know you’re on tour [and] can come check you out. For me, I kind of view all of the shows as the same – I love playing if there’s 3000 people in Saskatoon, to me it’s just as fun as 3000 people in Vancouver.
a: Like you mentioned, you guys do have a very dedicated fanbase and a lot of the people have been there since the beginning.
IC: Our fans are unbelievable, amazing.
a: As the holidays approach, did you want to give them a shout-out or anything like that?
IC: Oh yeah, for sure. Lately I’ve been trying to keep in touch with our fans – we’re doing a daily poll everyday on our Facebook, and I’m the one asking the questions and I read a lot of their responses. I think I stay in decent touch with our fans, because I also still do the Myspace and I still – believe it or not, answer all our Myspace e-mails.
a: That’s really awesome, not a lot of people do that these days.
IC: I’ll for sure over the holidays try and give them a shout-out. If you could give them a shout-out for me, that would be rad!
a: Yeah, for sure. I actually have a question that a fan wanted to ask you through our Twitter, and they wanted to know if you watched Glee?
IC: My roommate… I live with a girl, she’s my roommate roommate though, she’s not a girlfriend or anything – she got me into Glee. It’s pretty hilarious.
a: I think that Marianas Trench would be really good on that show, because you guys do have the vocal abilities. It would be cool if you guys someday got a guest spot on the show.
IC: I think if we got a little more exposure in the States, it’s getting there. ‘Cross My Heart’ turned into a hit, and as long as we get enough radio spins. That depends on lots of stuff, whether radio stations want to play it, how many requests you have to get into all the stations – those sorts of things. But if we get big enough, I could see us obviously doing something on Glee. It has to also be worth Glee’s while too, because they probably don’t just play any band. They’ve got only certain amounts of spots that they can play, bring in other bands, it’s quite limited. It would be an honour to play on there for sure.
a: Well Cory Monteith is Canadian as well, so you never know. Hopefully, someday we’ll see you guys on Glee!
IC: Yeah, that would be awesome if we could. Tell our fans to keep twittering #MTonGlee! Get ‘em on that! Our fans have been the secret weapon the whole way along. We’ve gotten a lot of exposure simply because of our fans, because they’re pretty sincere, and I try as best as possible to be as pure and as sincere back and not ‘I’m cool because I’m in a band’ and all that kind of stuff – because it can turn bad pretty fast if you use that approach. I think because we’ve maintained a close rapport with our fans, we just kind of have a strong bond with them, so they’ve been amazing just Twittering this, or e-mailing this and that, or requesting on radio – getting the word out for us.
a: Going back to talking about the holidays and the upcoming year, what does Marianas Trench have planned for 2011?
IC: We’ve actually never done much in the US, I mean, we’ve toured the crap out of Canada. We released ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ down there, so we kind of have to do a few tours. I think we’re going to do a small tour in the East with a band called The Ready Set. Other than [touring], we really gotta work on the new record. I actually just got some new drums, and I’m gonna take them down to Josh’s studio, and he a bought a new music console – it’s kind of like the big board with all the knobs, like you always see in all the pictures. We’re still in the writing process, but we’ve got to get recording pretty soon – we’re just starting laying down some of the tracks, anyway. I think the album’s about a third written, so we gotta make sure get everything entirely written. It takes awhile because ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ – we really took our time on, and we wanted to make sure it turned out really well. We really want to put out a good album, so we don’t want to rush it, so we gotta get working on that pretty quick.
