Tuesday 31 August 2010
QBiM Q&A with The Provincial Archive
(photo: Nathan Burge)
I never know what I’m going to get when I send an artist the QBiM Q&A. Sometimes it’s a curt, one word answer to most questions, other times, I get eloquent and well-crafted replies to my mundane questions. Craig Schram of The Provincial Archive wins the prize for taking what I’ve often thought of as one of the sorriest excuses for an interview question in the Q&A and turns it into the launching pad for a mini school-yard drama about marking one’s place in society and not being afraid to take on the big guys. Epic!
If you haven’t yet checked out The Provincial Archive’s excellent sophomore album, Maybe We Could Be Holy, here’s your chance to score a copy. CONTEST DETAILS: Simply drop me an email at CONTESTS [at] QUICKBEFOREITMELTS [dot] COM with “Get me into The Provincial Archive” in the subject line, and tell me all about the last fight you got into in the email body. One lucky storyteller will win a download code that will get you a digital copy of the record from Zunior.com. Awesomeness!
If you’re in Edmonton on September 11, you can join The Provincial Archive at the Roxy Theatre, 124 St. for their hometown Record Release show. You can get ticket information for the gig here.
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QBiM: State your name for the record, and mention your record while you’re at it.
Craig Schram: Name: The Provincial Archive. Record: Maybe We Could Be Holy. Pleasure to be here!
QBiM: Where are you from, how did you get here, and where are you going next?
CS: Sometimes we get in to heated debates about these sorts of things during long drives. Our answer to this question can best be summarized by considering the evolution of mankind: where our beginnings are marked by primordial grunts and primitive tools, and our ends marked by intelligent communication and rapidly improving technologies. The future is bright! If you know what I mean… We come from Edmonton, AB. (Currently driving to T.O.).
QBiM: Who’s hanging out with you (who else is in the band or working with you)?
CS: Right now the band consists of Bramwell Park (mostly playing drums), Ryan Podlubny (mostly playing bass), Nathan Burge (mostly playing some form of keyboard), and myself (banjo and guitar). We all try our hand at everything.
QBiM: There’s a clear growth and development between albums 1 and 2: was that the master plan all along or is it just part of the band’s musical evolution?
CS: A little bit of both! I think each of us have a short attention span. Therefore, to minimize boredom, it’s best to try new things all the time. The writing for the first recording was pretty focused in one area – in fact, we put it together as a three piece. As we went through the recording process for Nameless Places, it became clear that we would be branching out as we continued to write together. In this way, it was just part of our musical evolution. On the other hand, we have all talked and agreed upon the idea of approaching each writing phase completely differently: no rules. Moreover, all of the bands that we admire frequently abandon their past as they record subsequent material. It’s a challenge in which we take delight! We call this the “loosely guided evolutionary master growth plan.”
QBiM: From listening to your music, I get the sense that you’ve been very influenced by growing up in central Canada. Is that the case, and if so, in what ways specifically?
CS: I think you’re probably right, but mostly western Canada… I have a tendency to frame everything within the confines of my limited worldview, and maybe this is a weakness. I guess this involves all of the lyrical imagery I choose, and maybe the chord changes we run through. I like to re-interpret my history, and my history is set in prairie and parkland.
QBiM: What’s the worst bit of musical advice you’ve ever been given?
CS: Very recently, we were encouraged to play something happier. “Do you have anything more upbeat… you know, happier? You should play something… happier.” This definitely wasn’t the worst bit of musical advice, but it certainly was a funny one.
QBiM: What’s the best thing about being in The Provincial Archive?
CS: The best thing about being in The Provincial Archive is playing together. I suppose I could talk about the dedication these boys have to growth and how it makes writing something we look forward to, or how it’s nice to be accepted by a group of fellow nit-pickers – but playing together comes first.
QBiM: When was the last time you got in a fight?
CS: When I was 12, I had a ten-minute walk to school every morning. Often I would leave about 15 minutes early to hang out in the playground, or to meet up with my grade six girlfriend (we broke up that year – tragic, I know). One fateful morning I left early for the playground to hit up the swings. Unfortunately, a classmate had beaten me to the punch.
My swing was the middle swing of the left group of three. Of all the swings on the playground, this was the one that he had claimed? Our dialogue went something like this:
Craig: Hey! That’s my swing. Give it.
Classmate: Yeah?…
He slowed his pace to the tick of a clock.
Craig: That one’s mine. Come on! Give it!
Classmate: I don’t see your name on it! (It sounds made up! I know! But we were twelve, and I had heard that one before…)
For the record, he definitely knew that it was my swing and was being unnecessarily confrontational. Moreover, I had scrawled my name on the bottom of the swing with a knife earlier that year: grounds for a good scrap, if you ask me.
I approached the swing and pushed him backwards off of the rubber. He fell in to the sand. As he lay there, I lifted the rubber of the swing to show him the error in his ways.
Craig: C-R-A-I-G. Thanks.
As I began to take my seat on the throne, my opponent rose from the ground and pushed back. Although I would prefer to say that we faced off like the great heroes and villains of the movies, dashing and ducking the onslaught of fists, the truth of the matter is that we kicked and slapped quite a bit.
It was over seconds after it started, and resulted in two children with tears in our eyes, sand in our mouths, and dirty, stretched-out, white t-shirts. School was starting soon. We walked in the front door together, removed our outdoor shoes, and tied the laces on our scuff-free runners. Friends forever!
QBiM: What traits or characteristics have you inherited from your parents?
CS: My nose! Curses! And… much like my father, I think I’m becoming obsessively organized.
QBiM: What would be the one moment in time you’d go back and relive or experience?
CS: All of the moments… in sequence… I’m unsatisfied with my youth. I’d like to trade in my defective youth for a new one, please.
QBiM: What was the first concert you went to see?
CS: I am very proud to boast that for my first rock concert, I went to see Neil Young. This has forever changed my life. Mr. Usher, and his comrades in Moist opened the show. Classic.
QBiM: If you didn’t make music what would you be doing with your life?
CS: Developing safe methods for travel through time, naturally.
QBiM: We’re embarking on a new decade: what major change would you like to see in the world by 2020?
CS: In the next 10 years it is imperative that time travel be invented, approved and commercialized. We, the archive, imagine a world in which it is commonplace to go to work via the time highway, and return from work just before you left, but with a day’s wage in your pocket. Imagine the possibilities! Or at least imagine the chalkboard diagram that Doc Brown drew for Marty: this is step one.
QBiM: If you had to play one instrument for the rest of you life what would it be and why?
CS: Banjo, because it is the best one.
QBiM: What’s on the horizon for The Provincial Archive for the next year?
CS: We’ve been busy putting together more material. We’re on our way to having this ready, and we’re pumped about where things are headed! So the coming year will probably be dominated by a lot of writing, pre-production, and recording. As well, as we finish up this tour we’re beginning the planning stages of a very special second adventure across the country. Busy. Must always keep busy.
QBiM: Anything to declare?
CS: I declare a modest victory!
~~~
MP3: The Provincial Archive “Guided by Sundogs”
Myspace: The Provincial Archive
Facebook: The Provincial Archive
Twitter: The Provincial Archive
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