The Remedials Vs. Minnie Musique

Never before has punk rock sounded brighter. Deviating from my usual musical tastes, I decided to see the band in concert, after having given their last album “Drop Outta School” a good listen. I had been struck by how synchronous they sounded, as if there were strength and friendship concealed beneath their boyish charm.

The band consisting of Gabriel Gill, Lionel Cloutier and Dan Gillis have pounded the floor with their infectious choruses, like the songs ‘Marilyn Monroe‘ and ‘Claire Is Clairvoyant’. Surely many of these lyrics were written tongue in cheek, with an innocence that could veer towards Pop, infused with a good dose of three-chord punk rock.

They formed in 2004 by their former bass player Punk Rock Wayne. They started playing the reemerging Vancouver punk scene to a small, appreciative and eclectic audience. I lost myself to some of the simple guitar work making the melody an easy listen. Gabriel performed the singing and before Dan stepped onto the scene, Wayne was there to round off some fun tunes.

Gabe’s voice is only matched by his outstanding stage presence, putting the lyrics into a punchy context. Gabriel sings with an energetic but steady pace, never reaching the unbearable screeching some bands ascribe to.

The Remedials were an entertaining concert experience, with Lionel losing himself to the drums, Gabriel pushing the max and Dan playing some excellent chords.

Gabriel and I had hit if off immediately at The Cobalt in Vancouver BC, Canada. I didn’t even notice the sleaze there that night, by jumping frantically to this sound. As I had a primarily electronic music background, I thought this band would be an excellent deviation to improve my writing skills, and diversify my electronic music tastes. I can appreciate a good solid rhythm and a catchy melody and The Remedials had struck a chord that night.

Gabriel invited me to go to the Bon’s Off Broadway restaurant, having promised me the best breakfast in town! Intrigued by the idea of talking with Gabe during the daylight, and perhaps being able to dig through their flavorful ideas for my article. I was also lead by the enticing smell of bacon.

I made sure I made this trip at the beginning of their launch of their new song ‘Test Tube Baby’, and anticipating their new album to be recorded and released sometime this year, I wanted to catch the lead singer before The Remedials got too big for Vancouver, and I happily succumbed to the idea of a good breakfast, if he would promise me some time to interview him.

The coffee was late, as it was an extremely busy greasy spoon, but after a red eye flight, it was the perfect start to the day, the red in my eyes eased, once the coffee had arrived. Gabriel and me fell into energetic conversation right away, and his infectious personality allowed for frantically fun conversation.

Minnie: What was the idea behind The Remedials?
Initially, it was just to play shows! Playing shows at first was the primary goal and then eventually to record. In the beginning, that’s all it was! Now all I want to do is to continue to write music that I dig and play shows to record more albums. So things really haven’t changed much over the years.

Minnie: What feelings are you trying to convey through your music to your audience?
The feeling I want to convey with the music is just to keep things simple, fun and upbeat! Since the lyrics are funny and rather witty, if I can make someone laugh, jump up and down and have a good time then I have achieved what I wanted to. I really just want people to have fun and be happy! That’s it! Straight up!

Minnie: Who are your influences?
My influences for this band are The Misfits, The Ramones (of course), Hanson Brothers/NOmeansno, The Queers, Screeching Weasel/The Riverdales/The Mopes and NOFX, more recently Teenage Bottlerocket/The Lillingtons, The Muffs and Leftover Crack/Choking Victim. We mainly have our roots in punk rock and metal, although we listen to all kinds of stuff.

Minnie: Who writes the material?
When I write songs I usually do both the music and the lyrics. Our first album “Songs For The A.D.D. Generation” was recorded in 2005. I worked on about 80% of the material on our first album with Wayne writing the rest of the album. On our second album “Drop Outta School” which was recorded in 2007, I would say I contributed to about 60% of that album. Wayne and Lionel wrote the rest of the songs. It always amazes me when I bring a song to the table where it ends up after everyone puts their spin on it!

Minnie: Was production difficult?
Both our albums were recorded at The Hive Studios in Burnaby, BC. I was totally stoked to work with the uber-engineer, Jesse Gander (d.b.s., Operation Makeout and Plus Perfect) and he was my first and only choice to record with. He’s fun to work with and has a great ear for music and all his suggestions usually make it on the album. Jesse recorded, mixed and mastered both our albums in two days, which I think is pretty phenomenal! It was such a streamlined process, and for about $600 dollars for each album, the money was well spent and a great deal. I have heard most albums take about a week minimally to anywhere from a month or longer to complete! I love being able to complete the process so quickly. In and out! Done!

Minnie: Any plans to change your musical direction in the future?
In terms of our future direction, I know for me, I just want to continue playing in a punk band. For me it’s the easiest to play, it’s easy to record and it’s fun to do, I’m a big fan of quick and easy. As far as musical direction I really dig what we do and what I write so that’s not gonna change. We have more people in the band writing songs that will take the music in other places I didn’t expect and in slightly different directions but still within what The Remedials are all about. If we had more money and studio time that would be nice to maybe throw in some lead guitar or keyboard to accent parts. We’d always still play punk rock though with a bit more production value, this way we can take our time in the production process and complete our albums not as quickly. That’s probably why our albums sound the way they do, is that we just make the most of what we’re dealt with which is fine with me. I think we really do squeeze blood from a stone in the way we roll!

Minnie: What are your plans for the band?
We are currently working on our next album and we have a new bass player, Dan Gillis aka Jerry Demon from the POGs. Right now I am just writing some new material and so is both Lionel and Dan and it’s pretty amazing what we’ve come up with. We are shooting for recording sometimes in October or November and we’re all absolutely excited about this album and totally eager to record it! We might be able to record a demo in May of three or four songs before heading back to The Hive for another full album.

Minnie: How do you find it playing in Vancouver?
Vancouver has an amazing punk scene, which you can probably call a community, it’s really cool to be acknowledged and respected, and I find this scene so exhilarating since there are so many great bands in this town. For example, we have participated in two V.P.A.F. compilation albums and there is some great talent on there, 25 bands on Vol. 1 and about 28 bands on Vol. 2! For the longest time we couldn’t book a gig to save our lives now we have to sometimes turn some down, it boggles my mind how far we’ve come as a band! It really, really does!

Minnie: Who is your hero? Who would you like to meet?
Well, it’s not a musician! The person I have always wanted to meet is Jackie Chan. Ever since I was a kid as far as martial art flicks it was always Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan who were the masters. Then eventually Sho Kosugi and Chuck Norris. I think he’s an amazingly funny guy who can kick the crap out of anybody and can hang off the side of a moving bus with an umbrella! That’s one guy who doesn’t write a cheque with his mouth that his body can’t cash! His movies are phenomenal as well, have ya seen Police Story 1&2? I talked to someone who actually met him and apparently he is a really cool guy, which is reassuring, because usually you don’t want to meet your heroes in case they are total jerks. The dude still can’t speak English very well or sing at all but I’d never tell him that cause I would never want to have to throw down with him!

Minnie: I have noticed you have a slightly supernatural bent to your music? Can you explain what motivates you to write about this?
I listened to a lot of Art Bell on Coast To Coast AM on the radio when I used to work night shift, and still do with George Noory, which inspired me. I have always been drawn to the paranormal, the occult and the extraterrestrial even as a kid! There’s so much to sing about with that subject matter which I think make for great songs. With ‘Claire is Clairvoyant’, it was actually about an ex girlfriend who was psychic, ‘Abduction’ getting taken by aliens and ‘Succubus’ was about sleeping with a ghost, the last two haven’t happened to me yet though. I basically just write stories about experiences with the paranormal and supernatural. I think I have portrayed the situations in a clever way, and that the paranormal can be totally funny sometimes! Well, I guess the kind of music I write is “Paranormal Punk Rock”! I just write music for myself and don’t really care what other people think about it, but it’s always kinda neat when people come up to you after a show and dig what you do or a song that I wrote! My standard response when people say “You guys are great/amazing/awesome!” is always “Really?!” Cause I really don’t know, it’s just what we do now!

Thank you so much to Minnie Musique for taking the time to come to Vancouver check out The Remedials and put together a rather extensive interview! If you wanna check out more of her work with electronic artists do yourself a favour and click on the link here: Minnie Musique MySpace