Quick Before it Melts

Monday 18 January 2010

QBiM Q&A with Bronx Cheerleader

Full disclosure here:  Man-of-many-monikers Jeff Sauder (he was always “Sauder” to me) and I have a history.  We’ve known each other since we were about six or seven, attended the same elementary and high school, rode the same bus, lived in the same area of town and demonstrated an early passion for music (although I think he had it one up on me: I loved Tears For Fears and he was a Beatlemaniac).  Sauder is the  drummer for Bronx Cheerleader, another fantastic band grown in the soil of the Niagara region, and signed to Yummy Recordings.  Their 2005 album, Tough Guy Clichés is an underrated and under-appreciated study in style and substance.  It’s been awhile since there’s been any music out of the Bronx Cheerleader camp, but Sauder and co. got in touch a few weeks back to let me know that something would be coming down the pipes soon, and I thought what better way than to re-introduce them to the QBiM cognoscenti then with a Q&A, and they to us with a QBiM Exclusive cover of Pavement’s “In The Mouth A Desert” (link below).

QBiM: State your name for the record, and mention your record while you’re at it.
Jeffery Robert Sauder, but I also accept sodA, sodey, or just Sauder. Up to you. I have no convictions.

QBiM: Where are you from, how did you get here, and where are you going next?
JS: I’m from Welland, Ontario,  Dr. Tompkins delivered me and the next stop is bed.

QBiM: Who’s hanging out with you?
JS: I get to share sweet pickled short cut pork backs and play fun songs with my boys Carson Manette, Eron Stroud, Joe Lapinski and S.D.W.  This tune is just me and SD, mastered by Joe. We felt bad about promising a record for so long that we haven’t finished, so we felt like ripping someone off, warts and all. So here you are. Don’t say I don’t ever do anything for you.

QBiM: I can take a lot of good-natured ribbing about living in Niagara, probably because I can rattle of a decent list of what I like about being here.  What’s your take on the scene in Niagara as opposed to the bigger cities?
JS: I like the coziness around here. Everyone pretty much knows each other and stuff, it’s tight. It’s a good scene we have here, and between S.C.E.N.E. Music Festival and the second installment of IN THE SOIL coming up, it’s definitely a good place to be.

QBiM: How did the band hook up with Joe Lapinski and Yummy Recordings?
JS: We were introduced to Joe by Eron, who Scotty and I knew for a long time. E-killah and Joe played in Palooka together. Tough Guy Clichés was already recorded when Joe got his hands on it and rescued it. We put it out on Yummy and asked Joe if he wanted to join. He did…and after a bit of a break we’re hummin’ along again, almost done the LP…I’m excited to have Joe and Carson play on this record. The songs are great and we’re playing real good right now. I’m amped. We’re pressing it up on limited vinyl and we’re calling it Real Punks Don’t Sing About Girls. I’d say were about 3/4 done. Get ready, it’s gonna be a great listen.

QBiM: What’s the greatest invention of all time?
JS: The turntable.

QBiM: What is the one album you can go back and listen to over and over again, and what is it that brings you back to it?
JS: I’ll say Revolver, but any Beatles album. I was introduced to them by my late Auntie and grew up in love with their sounds and simply in awe of what they accomplished. A lot of great memories come flooding back to me whenever I hear them.

QBiM: I always remember how big a Beatles fan you were in elementary school.  That was so weird and cool at the same time, because I knew that you appreciated them in a way that the rest of us kids didn’t get, something just beyond the latest pop band.  Speaking of way back when, what was the first concert you went to see?
JS: Howard Jones at Kingswood (Music Theatre, Canada’s Wonderland).  Muah.
QBiM: I so remember you going that that show!  Man I was jealous!  I loved Howard Jones.  I take it that his influence isn’t felt so strongly on Bronx Cheerleader songs, so other than music or other artists, what influences you as a musician and songwriter?
JS: Emotions.

QBiM: What’s the one sound that drives you crazy?
JS: Cutlery scraping on teeth.

QBiM: Favourite breakfast food?
JS: Coffee.

QBiM: Which of your songs do you feel is your best song and why?
JS: We have a new one called “Camelot” which I really, really like. Its pretty sonic and it feels good to be sonic. I really like “Racing Time” from Tough Guy Clichés. Very pretty.

QBiM: What’s the last good book/movie/record you read/saw/heard?
JS: I like the new Circulatory System record. Oh and I liked Inglourious Basterds. Brilliant.

QBiM: Any vices?
JS: Records.

QBiM: What’s the one song you wish you’d have written?
JS: Dylan’s “Forever Young.”

QBiM: When was the last time you got in a fight?
JS: I’m a lover, not a fighter.

QBiM: Do you sing in the shower?
JS: If I’m not busy…

QBiM: Do you listen to your own music in the car?
JS: SD’s demos, yeah. Or when my boys demand it.

QBiM: Define “pain”.
JS: For me, it’s looking in the empty rear-view during the long drive home after dropping my boys off.

QBiM: Where does the name Bronx Cheerleader come from?
JS: We wanted to call it Bronx Cheer (after a Mercury Rev tune cuz we really like them) but SD found out some UK band used that name. So he said “Bronx Cheerleader!” And so it was.

QBiM: What’s the one thing our world could with less of and why?
JS: CEOs and greedy capitalists.  The people who make up the wealthiest 5% of the human race are worth more than the rest of us combined. Not right.

QBiM: Anything to declare?
JS: Globalization will be the end of us all. http://act.ly/1es.  Eeeeeeeeek!

MP3: Bronx Cheerleader “In The Mouth A Desert”
Myspace: Bronx Cheerleader

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by J. Di Gioia | 3 Comments »

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