Mockingbird WIsh Me Luck

Beat Noir's Patrick McEachnie asked us some questions for The 1rst Five.

Heres the interview, check out the site for more punk rock sort of stuff.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Mockingbird Wish Me Luck is a four-piece punk rock band from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. In the summer of 2009 they released the Goodbye Debris EP, which has since been rereleased by Dine Alone Records as a digital download. Mockingbird Wish Me Luck just signed to Dine Alone Records in the Spring of 2010, and Patrick McEachnie recently had the chance to meet up with them after a gig to discuss some questions regarding, but not limited to, their recent signing.

Mockingbird Wish Me Luck, interviewed July 15th, 2010 at the Mansion House in St. Catherines, Ontario. Interview by Patrick McEachnie.

Amos LeBlanc – Guitar

Bishop Wierzbicki – Bass (vocals)

Kyle Krische – Drums

Mike Arnott– Guitar (vocals)

Patrick McEachnie – Your name, Mockingbird Wish Me Luck is an obvious reference to the Charles Bukowski book of the same name. Was there a certain part, theme, or idea behind the book that made you want to name to band after it?

Bishop – We were I think between 16 and 18 when we started the band and Buks persona aligns with the art we were trying to make, which actually probably doesn’t mean much. After we wrote the first batch of songs some of the themes and maybe a bit of the style he worked most of his career seemed to cross. So, not that book in particular, although it did have some of my favourite poems. But I mean it was cool to have a name from a book, and like Hot Water Music did it…

(General laughter)

PM – I was just going to say, “It wasn’t the Hot Water Music thing!?”

Bishop – It’s weird, if we weren’t already invested we’d probably change it. It’s grown its own meaning to me now, I actually almost like it because it’s sort of long and hard to remember so it’s kind of challenging, hard to type out. You get some effort from the listener. The Hot Water Music thing was sort of half conscious. You know, I feel like when you’re a 17-year-old kid and you have to name your band, what else do you do?

PM – When I was 17 my band was named “Robots Unite”, and I think I’d rather be in a band named after a book.

Kyle – I don’t know, I like Robots Unite!

Amos – Yeah, I like Robots Unite.

Mike – Kyle’s got a pretty lively career of band names.

Kyle – Yeah, I’ve got some great names!

Amos – Just name them off right now. Necrocarcass first off.

PM – We’re skipping straight to question #6 here!

Kyle – Okay, well I’ve got to start from the very beginning.

Amos – Okay, this is a list of Kyle’s band names.

Kyle – Zombie Rave was the first one, The Filthy, Shoelace Paparazzi, then Mockingbird Wish Me Luck came in there, Confusion Bolts, Necro Carcass, Wayfarer, Fathers Day, what else have we got? Is that all of them? I can’t even remember.

Bishop – That’s still a shit ton for six years.

PM – You guys call Kitchener, Ontario home. Are you all Kitchener locals, or natives?

Amos – Yeah.

Kyle – We’re all from there. I live in Guelph during the school year. Kitchener, Toronto, Oakville or whatever.

Bishop – I live in Ayr

Kyle – Yeah, Ayr, which is a shithole.

Bishop – It’s not a shithole!

Amos – There’s nothing there!

Kyle – it’s just a gas station and Bishop’s house.

Bishop – Yeah, that’s true. It’s a place for artists.

PM – So it’s boring?

Bishop – Its farm country, I don’t know if it’s boring.

PM – You guys just finished a two month tour of Western and Central Canada, and some of the Northern United States.

Bishop – Two Week, a little bit less.

PM – Do you have any funny anecdotes, or border stories?

Amos – We bought a bunch of fireworks.

Kyle – Yeah, we had a bunch of fireworks basically in one suitcase, and the dude at the border made me empty our van and give him our bags, and I knew the one had all the fireworks in it. So I put a pillow overtop of it just hoping that he wouldn’t be able to see it. And it actually worked! That was the only bag that didn’t get searched.

Amos – Which is bullshit, because the pillow went on top of this giant foot deep suitcase. And it’s just a pillow on top of a bloody bag! He looked under the floorboards and everything, but when it came time to look behind the amps, he wasn’t up for it.

Bishop – Yeah, once he saw the amps he was just defeated, and was like “Aw, I’m not searching through anymore shit”

Amos – The only personal bag that didn’t get checked was mine, and it was full of illegal fireworks, and alcohol.

Bishop – If he had even peeked in the bag he would have seen them. There were thousands.

Amos – Probably about 3,000 individual fireworks.

Kyle – And we lit off most of them in the van. You know, in celebration of getting over the boarder.

PM – So how was the response and turnout at the shows?

Kyle – The American shows were good.

Amos – Better than we expected is generally what it was like.

Kyle – We go into everything now expecting it to be awful.

Bishop – We just aim low.

Amos – We have a booking agent now, but the shows we booked in the US were all booked by us, mostly Bishop. We figured “whatever, that’ll get us to Calgary so we can make some money”

(General Laughter)

Amos – Sorry, Get some money so we can pay for gas!

Kyle – Not punk! Not punk!

* Enter Timur (Show promotor)

Kyle – Fuck Timur. Put that in the interview.

Timur – Yo, you guys know about the bet [Kyle] lost, right? Wayfarer played that June 8th show here…

* This is where Amos spills his beer all over my notes

Kyle – This pretty much sums up out band.

Timur – Anyways, Kyle lost a bet because they were kicking a football into a trashcan, and Jason Whitney got it in.

Kyle – A guy who can’t play fucking sports for his life!

Timur – Kyle has to get my face tattooed, Jason’s face tattooed, and Derek’s face tattooed.

PM – So getting back to you guys playing shows in Calgary, you’ve played four big festivals in the past little while. Sled in Calgary. Scene here in St. Catherines, Radfest in North Carolina, and North by North East in Toronto.

Amos – Definitely more than we realized.

Kyle – Yeah, I just realized that.

PM – So did Dine Alone Records have anything to do with getting you onto these festivals, or did you playing them get the attention of Dine Alone?

Kyle – NXNE, yes.

Bishop – Joel from Dine Alone, founder, registered us for NXNE.

Kyle – Radfest, the dude just emailed us. Sled Island, our booking agent had a part in that. And same thing for Scene Fest.

PM – How did you first come in contact with Dine Alone Records?

Bishop – I believe in was Greg from Stuck in the City, who puts on some really great shows in Toronto. He sent them a link. the funny thing about that is he actually doesn`t book us now that we go through Kreeft (booking agent). Has sort of an ebb to it. Anyway Joel sent an email pretty early after we released the EP. We talked for a long time after that.

Kyle – Yeah, he came to see us play. About halfway through our set we all figured he wouldn’t like us; saw that coming!

Amos – The only impression we got off them was that we’ve got to make this show work! But then we played it, and it was like, “Fuck!” Even though they said it was cool, they just left after.

Kyle – He must have gotten drunk one night and thought to himself “I feel like losing a lot of money, lets do this!”

PM – It’s pretty well known that Dine Alone has a lot of big, active bands. How does it feel to sort of be in the same group of friends with them?

Mike – I didn’t think we had any friends on the label.

Amos – Well we just played with Alexisonfire. Who were the nicest dudes ever. They pretty much sat us down and gave us the whole “this is what it was like when we were small”. Even though we’re probably going to stay small, they appreciated us as if we were going to appreciate ourselves. It feels weird, but we had an interview. No, we had a meeting this week. Am I fucking this up?

Kyle – Yeah, pretty hard.

Amos – But we had a meeting!

Bishop – (cuts in) Lets just say it’s pretty cool being on the same label.

PM – Okay, so tonight you’re playing in St. Catherines with The Menzingers, then you’re heading East to Montreal tomorrow for a second show. Other than those two shows, so do you have any tours, or even shows planned?

Kyle – Well we’re going down to The Fest in October.

PM – Touring all the way down?

Kyle – A little bit, because three of us are in school right now. So we’re touring down with our friends Vicious Cycle. They’re playing Fest and we’re coming back up with them. That’s really the only thing. We’re trying to write a record, kind of.

PM – So how about recording plans?

Kyle – We’re right in the middle of a 7” right now, I finished recording the drums two days ago. We finished Mike’s guitar tracks last night. So we’re working on that. It might be a 7” or it might be a split. We don’t really know. After that we’re taking August off to start writing the full length.

PM – And are those both coming out on Dine Alone?

Kyle – The 7” is still up in the air, but they are releasing the full length, yes.

Bishop – Well, if they want it.

Kyle – We’ve got to give them demos, and if they suck they’ll just tell us to fuck off.

PM – Who has been your favorite band to play alongside?

Kyle – That’s tough.

Bishop – Well I think The Menzingers tonight.

Amos – Cavaliers!

Mike – Leatherface for sure.

PM – Who would you love to tour with?

Amos – It’s kind of like, if we were good enough we’d tour with a lot of bands. But right now we’re not going to tour with anyone.

Kyle – Menzingers for me.

Bishop – Any of the good upcoming punk rock bands; Menzingers, Banner Pilot.

Kyle – Dear Landlord, even.

Bishop – Oh, Forgetters too. That’s the new Blake Schwarzenbach band. I could quit music if I got to play a show with them.

Mike – I’d like to go on tour with our friend Steve, who has his own project called Hinindar. Essentially I would want to be in a van with my friends, so I’m really looking forward to the shows with Vicious Cycle.

PM – Records of the now. What have you been listening to a lot lately?

Kyle – Menzingers – Chamberlain Waits, Dear Landlord – Dream Homes, Banner Pilot – Collapser.

Amos – Infinite Arms by Band of Horses just came out, and that one is really cool.

Bishop – Yeah, that Band of Horses album has been driving me nuts in the van.