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Rufio
Interview with The Band on Nov 30, 1999 by Archive Bot
Just in case, because I can’t objectively tell whether or not it comes across clearly or not, but Rufio are the best. You think you know but you have no idea how awesome they really are. They all get high fives. The interview took place November 16th after their show at The Pheonix in Toronto. If you haven’t already, check out their album Perhaps, I Suppose... and look out for the EP on Nitro Records to be released sometime next year. For more info and tour dates www.rufiomusic.com. (on a sidenote, I took these pictures and if you want to see more go here photos.yahoo.com/yourzinesucks/).
PB: What’s the chemistry like between all the band members? Clark: Love.
PB: Was songwriting ever difficult for you? Like did you ever stuggle with it?
Scott: No.
PB: No, but be serious. Are you being serious?
Scott: No.
PB: Come on, it is just something that comes naturally to you? Or has it taken work?
Scott: No.
Clark: No.
PB: What’s the most important choice you’ve ever made?
Scott: No.
Clark: No.
Scott: No.
Clark: To be friends with Rob.
PB: Okay, your first tour was with Strung Out, your second tour was with Taking Back Sunday and Brand New and now you’re touring with The Ataris. What have you learnt from these bands? Because these are all well-established bands who have probably been through a lot to get to the point where they are at...like you have had the opportunity that a lot of new bands don’t get. Like I know personally I can see similarities within the overwhelming stage presence of these bands, did you take anything away from that? What?
Clark: No. We didn’t learn that from them.
PB: Well, what did you learn? How to drink? Clarke: How to drink! (Laughs)
Scott: Nothing.
PB: So what makes you happy?
Scott: Everything.
PB: You’re fucking this up. This was your idea...
Clark: No, okay I’ll be serious. Ask me...
PB: What makes you happy?
Someone: Alcohol. Alcohol. (Laughs)
Clark: What makes me happy? I don’t know, playing music makes me happy. Is that too cliché though, to say that?
PB: No. Who cares? If that’s what makes you happy then that’s your answer.
Jon: I can’t hear the questions, how am I supposed to answer them?
PB: Tell them to shut up. Okay, there is this theory that I learnt that says that meaning lies between things in art. So for example if you have pictures up somewhere, the true meaning of the pictures and of their message lies in the spaces between them and thus meaning the importance is not so much within the pictures themselves but in the order of them. Relating this to music, is it really important the order and placement of your songs on an album? Clark: Yes.
PB: Are you listening to what I’m saying?
Jon: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
PB: Listen to me. Meaning lies between things, in the grouping of them and in the choice of order or display. So therefore the meaning lies just as equally within the songs themselves and in the order of them.
Jon: No, we don’t fucking care about the order. They’re songs.
Clark: We just put them together the way they flow.
Jon: Yeah, that’s all that really matters. You can’t have two fast songs right next to each other, you have to make them flow. Mix it up.
Clark: You have to mix it up because that’s the way it keeps it interesting. Whatever is pleasing to the ear I guess.
Jon: Yeah.
PB: You’re so dumb, you just proved my point, you’re just not listening. You do put thought into the order and the order is important because you just said that certain things can’t go together. So, what you’re saying is it wouldn’t work for two fast songs to be right after one another because it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t fit. And if something doesn’t fit, everything gets fucked up and if everything is fucked up the meaning is lost and no one would pay attention or they’d think you’re a bunch of idiots. So just explain. So how does it go? One fast song, one slow song and it continues that way? How? Explain.
Jon: What? Explain how? Just how it feels. You have to feel it man, if you feel the song doesn’t fit there you change it. You can’t have the slow ones next to each other it doesn’t fit.
Clark: Yeah and you can’t go from too fast, to too slow either. Like you can have Still and Slow Dance after one another because one is fast-ish and one is slow.
Jon: And then you can’t put Still and Save the World right after one another because they’re both too fast. So you have to balance it with mid-tempo ones.
Clark: There is no pattern.
PB: Okay, but is there a specific way that you chose in order to give a certain feel to the album?
Jon: No, just how it flows.
PB: So, you’re essentially telling me to you it’s a mindless process of grouping things however they end up?
Jon: Yes.
PB: What kind of environment do you like to create for your live performance?
Jon: We just like to have a lot of energy. Like I grew up watching bands like Rage Against the Machine and bands like that. They’re fucking awesome live and seeing that live energy makes you like them more, I think. I don’t know.
Clark: Yeah like I was never that big of an AFI fan, like I was but I wasn’t. Then I saw them live and that was the best thing I’ve ever seen and heard. And it made me like the cd more because their show was so solid and they were running around like crazy. I like it.
Jon: It’s so much more fun to go nuts too. I like it when it’s nuts, it’s fun for us and fun for the crowd. It gets them going.
PB: So knowing that going nuts will make the crowd go nuts, do you find yourself going nuts on purpose, like consciously so that they go nuts? Or is it just something that happens and because it just happens it just works?
Jon: It’s totally unconscious and we’re lucky because the results of it are good.
PB: So you never say to yourself, "Hey it looks better to go nuts, so let’s go nuts tonight"? Jon: No, never. It just feels good.
Clark: Yeah, it feels good.
PB: Okay so talking about feeling and talking about feeling good, how do you feel when you’re on stage? Is it possible to explain and get into more detail rather than just saying you feel good up there?
Clark: It’s hard.
Jon: Well, I feel better when the crowd is moving. I move more when they move more and the more everyone moves the better I feel.
PB: So do you think you write music and play it for yourself or for the people listening to it?
Jon: Ourselves and if people like it then that’s fucking awesome.
PB: So what would happen if no one liked your music?
Jon: I don’t know.
PB: Fine, forget it you don’t have to worry about that anyways. So you recorded your EP? Is that correct? Am I correct in that?
Jon: The EP, yeah, you are.
PB: Explain. Why an EP? Why?
Clark: We didn’t have time to do an album, so that’s why we did an EP.
Jon: We didn’t have time to make a full length.
PB: But why the hell are you waiting so long? What are you waiting for? Make time.
Jon: We just want to sound good. It’s going to be a big release for us. We’ve been touring so much so we just can’t make the time.
PB: Yeah. So what’s more important? Huh? Making the album or touring? I guess the answer is obvious...
Jon: Well touring because we have had opportunities that we have had to take. This Ataris opportunity was one we had to take.
PB: Why?
Clark: Because it’s The Ataris.
Jon: Because it’s good exposure.
PB: So what? You had major exposure with the first two tours.
Jon: But this is a totally different crowd.
PB: How is exposing yourself to so many different crowds a benefit for you? What does that kind of exposure result in? Do you feel you’re a band that can gain acceptance from a wide variety of different crowds?
Jon: Yeah, we’re lucky that way. Hearing something different is always a good thing and a lot of people like it and playing for so many different types of crowds allows us to be something new and to play for people that normally wouldn’t listen to us and it gives us the opportunity to win them over. It’s awesome.
PB: It’s interesting to see how a lot of kids have heard of you in places you wouldn’t even expect, like here for example. You have never ever been here before yet you got the best reaction partly because so many kids have heard of you and like you and were so anxious to see you. Jon: It’s pretty fucking cool. It’s rad. I felt so great tonight.
Clark: We came here not expecting this at all.
Jon: I know.
PB: Why do you do what you do?
Jon: Because it’s awesome. To make music and to know that you can create something is the coolest thing ever. And you can put all these influences together and in this harmony and fucking make something. It’s rad.
PB: How do you get whatever is in your head out and make it sound right?
Jon: Well when we write we just hear these things in our heads and jam it out and it’s hard for it to come out exactly the way we hear it in our heads but we work with whatever does manage to come out. Hash it out and jam.
PB: Do you get time to do it on the road?
Jon: No, it’s hard.
PB: So where did you get the songs from for the EP because you were on the road so much before and you didn’t have that much time.
Jon: Well, some of the songs were things we had before. In situations like that though someone needs to come up with the idea and then bring it to the group and then we go at it from there.
PB: Do you see any difference between playing a show here in Canada and a show in the States?
Jon: I think it pretty much seems the same. It’s the same, it’s just fucking cold. It was rad, the kids were nuts.
PB: Yeah, they chanted Rufio. They yelled for you.
Jon: They did, that was so awesome.
