Propagandhi – Jord Samolesky
Posted on July 04, 2009 at 12:00 am by Luke
A couple weeks ago long-running Canadian punks Propagandhi came through London, Ontario’s Music Hall while promoting their newest album “Supporting Caste”. A few hours before they took the stage I had the opportunity to talk with drummer, and one of two original members, Jord Samolesky. Our chat lasted over an hour and we touched on things like hockey, musical influences, the new album, hockey, Todd’s lack of voice, very interesting books and organizations, hockey, and much, much more! Jord actually has a lot to say about some of the activist groups he’s involved in, and even more to say to kids who want to learn more about social and political issues. So sit back and enjoy our conversation from one sunny afternoon in one of the many backrooms of the London Music Hall!
WayTooLoud!: First I just wanna know what influenced you into playing music?
Jord Samolesky: My mom actually, she more or less forced me to take piano lessons at an early age for a certain number of years, that kind of got me kick started, listening to their old vinyl albums, they had a lot of music around the house. Abba, The Beatles, Boney M. sort of opened the door, later on getting into Kiss, Van Halen, Judas Priest, that kind of stuff, then when I was fifteen… I met Chris [Hannah – vocals, guitar] when we were in high school in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, and we shared a class for one year and he was getting into a lot of underground metal. We’d go to this record store in Winnipeg and pick out metal albums, then I saw this gig poster for D.O.A. and a couple of friends of mine, we took a bus and went to that show and that certainly steered me in the direction of getting involved in underground music. That was definitely a pivotal point for me!
WTL!: Tell me if I’m correct, is this your second time around with Bill Stevenson?
Jord: For our fourth album, “Potemkin City Limits”, him and Jason [Livermore] mixed that album, they didn’t do any recording, so with “Supporting Caste”, they did the whole thing.
WTL!: I see, was it easier working with them for a second time, I know you worked with Ryan Greene before that, was it just time for a change?
Jord: Well we did two albums with Ryan and “Potemkin City Limits” was kind of recorded in a bunch of different places; we did the drums in Vancouver with a guy named Blair Calibaba and he came to Winnipeg and we were doing some sessions out of Chris’ basement and things just… there was problems with voices and stuff like that, and what ended up happening, I think the guitar, vocals and bass were just done in little chunks in Chris’ basement, then we took the mixing down to [Jason and Bill].
I think we’re kind of keeping our options open all the time, I don’t think we have a set in stone relationship with any producers or engineers, it’s very much a case by case basis. Working with those guys though, they’re very, very organized and they put you to the test, that’s for sure! A very draining experience, but they sure know what they’re doing!
WTL!: How long did it take to record “Supporting Caste” ‘cuz I hear you used both your own Illegal Combatant Studios and the Blasting Room, why both studios?
Jord: A certain, minor amount of prep was done it Illegal Combatant, and just a small amount of production, the bulk of it was done with those guys. It’s just the convenience of being able to work out of Chris’ basement, obviously the technology is more accessible, he’s got a pretty good handle on it.
WTL!: Did you guys have any goals in mind when writing and recording “Supporting Caste”?
Jord: I think the number one goal was trying to work on music together in a way that is satisfying to all of us. We’re not really a group of people who just wanna churn out product. It’s something that we, I don’t wanna say pride ourselves in, but we’re more or less uncomfortable with moving ahead with stuff that we’re not into. Now that we have a second guitarist in [David] “Beave” [Guillas], this is our first album writing as a four piece, it was really fun! I enjoyed the process of assembling the riffs together. So I think that was the main goal, to come up with stuff that we’re all into.
WTL!: What prompted the decision to add another member in David, and is it different being a four piece compared to the usual three?
Jord: We were sort of in a period of hiatus for a little bit, and I think Chris and Beave were just hanging out. We never went out and did auditions for a fourth member, it was just a slow realization that “hey, maybe we should start jamming with this guy and see what happens!”, and it really, really clicked! He’s a really excellent guitar player and I think that the stylistic differences that he brings to the table gives us a lot more depth and way more options! Obviously live we can now play a lot of the older stuff the way it was recorded, with two guitars. I think he just makes us a better band!
WTL!: Does he help out with any writing?
Jord: Yeah, a lot of the riffs on the new album are what he came up with.
WTL!: What’s the writing process like for the band now?
Jord: It’s kind of evolving, I think part of it was due to the certain sense that we each had secondary work interests, to kind of pay the bills back in Winnipeg, when we were writing [the album]. So getting all four of us together at the same time was difficult, we ended up having to break up into little groups and working on stuff when we could. Todd [Kowalski - bass] would have days off and come over to my place, then I’d have a day off and go over to Chris’ place and jam with him and Beave, just fill in the blanks with our schedules and just get together as a four piece when we had the time. That working situation forced us to break things up, and we kind of managed the time somewhat efficiently, managed to make it work.
WTL!: How has the writing changed from early Propagandhi?
Jord: In our early days it was just Chris and I basically, in his parent’s basement. His fuckin’ cat pissin’ all over my drums whenever I left the house! (Laughs) All my stuff just reeked of his family’s cat’s piss.
WTL!: You can’t get that out either!
(Laughs)
Jord: Yeah, those days were pretty tough! It was hard for me to get over to his parents place from where I was living, so it was a lot of times just spent tryna make things work.
WTL!: What influenced the change in Propagandhi’s musical style a couple records ago, and is there another musical direction you guys wanna venture into or try out?
Jord: Certainly the different line-ups that we’ve had over the years have definitely contributed to the sound. Since Todd joined the band, it was really down a road that I think Chris and I were first into before starting. I think we always felt that we wanted to achieve a heavier sound, and Todd’s influences were a little bit closer to ours than our previous bass player, and I think we meshed a lot better. We all like a lot of different styles of music, I don’t think we think like a metal band or a punk band, which is obvious as the new material spans both genres quite a bit. We’re not looking to incorporate a lot of other stuff just for the sake of trying it out, prog rock, metal and punk are our three main influences. I can’t see us doing any hip-hop or electronic stuff.
(Laughs)
WTL!: Nationalism, militarism, and ice hockey, where did “Dear Coach’s Corner” come from?
Jord: Chris, Beave and I are pretty avid fans of the game [of hockey], I’ve played it almost my entire life, I still play beer league hockey. We love the game and I think as kids playing pick-up street hockey, really having that kind of fun, and seeing the game you really like, and anything that size being put through the corporate ringer, I think when it gets to that point other interests start creeping in. It’s just very, very analogous in NFL football broadcasts, fighter jets flying overhead, flags all over the place. Anything with a large audience with interest in something, those interests legitimize themselves. “Dear Coach’s Corner” in particular, we’ve been watching Hockey Night In Canada since we were little kids, and Don Cherry for many, many years, and you kind of take his stuff with a grain of salt, there’s a lot of stuff that I personally disagree with what he’s saying, but when it gets to the whole war in Afghanistan, I think average Canadians perceive what were doing over there, I don’t think we have any business being there, I’m against that whole effort, it’s sickening and disgusting that it’s portrayed as promoting democracy and humanitarianism, it’s just a complete cover for imperial warfare, which it is in my opinion, and just seeing a guy like [Cherry] with his knee-jerk reaction just backing the troops night after night after night in such a blind way, it’s disgusting. That’s the basis to where those lyrics sort of sit.
WTL!: You’re a hockey fan then?
Jord: Yeah, I enjoy playing it more that I do watching it. I watch it from time to time but I don’t have as much time as I used to.
WTL!: Did you watch the playoffs?
Jord: I managed to catch parts of it, I only got to see about four periods for all seven games when it got to the finals, I wanted to see more! I saw like eight minutes of the very last game, and actually that game I won my playoff pool by one point! It was all coming down to the wire, driving to something that I agreed to go to with my girlfriend and I was in the car trying to pick it up on the radio, cuttin’ in and out… “ I think they won, I think I just won the playoff pool!”.
(Laughs)
WTL!: What’s your beer league and NHL team?
Jord: This is my team (as he shows me his t-shirt), Nuclear Winter. I’ve been a Philadelphia Flyers fan my entire life. My mom’s side of the family are French Canadian and all Habs (Montréal Canadiens) fans and they couldn’t stand me ‘cuz I was youngest of all the cousins and here I am, a snotty kid cheering for an American team and they couldn’t understand that, then I realized what a fucking ass Bob Clark is in real life and I couldn’t cheer for them anymore, then we lost the [Winnipeg] Jets, so I don’t really have a team that I really root for. Now it’s all about the hockey pool, that determines who I cheer for!
(Laughs)
WTL!: Alright, back to the interview. Instead of me asking you why the track “Potemkin City Limits” isn’t on the album with the same name, I’m going to ask why it was shelved, and why did you come back to it for this album?
Jord: I think that’s just an example of taking a concept from a previous album and re-presenting it on the new album. We did work on that song during “Potemkin City Limits”, but it really didn’t have a title until it got on the album, it was re-titled as “Potemkin City Limits”, I think it’s relevant to the lyrics.
WTL!: How did the track “Human(E) Meat (The Flensing of Sandor Katz)” come together?
Jord: I can’t speak to directly about that, but Chris read a book by Sandor Katz, I haven’t read the book, but as I understand he agreed with 95% of it up until this point, making a distinction between the brutality of the meat industry and the mega factory production and the humane way of producing the same thing, and that kind of being an oxymoron, to an extent, humane killing. That coupled with certain trends that we see going on from town to town, the cool organic foods and collectives and co-ops and that kind of stuff, struggling to stay afloat, and people getting onboard with all this “humanely produced meat”, and whether it’s necessary to have.
I don’t think it’s direct attack at [Sandor], it’s more about the argument and issue of a healthy lifestyle and the traditions that we have being morphed into this corporate monstrosity, and this alternate to that which is essentially the same thing. Producing the same result with a more kinder touch, but it’s still the same thing. We’ve been vegetarians and vegans for a number of years now and I think it’s just knowing that you can get around it, that we don’t really need it, then it becomes an issue of want rather than need or a necessity.
WTL!: Does the album have any sort of theme?
Jord: I don’t think there’s a general theme, it’s not a concept album or anything, I think that all of the songs are sort of slivers… I guess you could make a case that it’s all related to a supporting caste overarching a generalization, but it wasn’t initially constructed like that.
WTL!: Where did the title “Supporting Caste” come from and was the song with the same name written before the album was titled?
Jord: Yeah. It kind of ended up being the title. There was a couple other titles that we were throwing around and once we starting going down the road and figuring out the artwork, actually the artwork was decided on very, very last minute, we didn’t know if we would have the permission to use what we have, and when that came through I think it seemed like an appropriate title.
WTL!: So was the “The Triumph of Mischief” something you just seen and wanted to use it?
Jord: Yeah, he had an exhibit that came through Winnipeg. At a main city art gallery and another first nations art gallery as well, and I just think it’s great that [Kent Monkman] was kind enough to extend permission that we could use it, I think it’s an incredible piece of art and it’s nice for us to work with an indigenous Canadian artist who obviously has an insane amount of talent.
WTL!: Do you have a personal favorite track on the new album?
Jord: I can’t really say I have a favorite, after working on all of them to different degrees, it’s kind of hard to pick one out. I think there’s a few that we’re missing that we’re not playing in our set that I think would be fun to play live, like “This Is Your Life” would be fun to play. Sometimes we occasionally play “The Funeral Procession”, that’s another one that I really like on the record.
WTL!: “This Is Your Life” is like a minute, I’m sure you could fit it in!
(Laughs)
Jord: Actually Todd can’t sing, he blew his voice in the studio and hasn’t recovered. He’s tryna see the right people to remedy the situation but so far, this is like seven, eight months after… I hope his situation improves.
WTL!: Are you guys a band that writes twenty-five songs and narrows it down to twelve, or do you write maybe ten and have to write two more in the studio?
Jord: We had one or two that didn’t make the record, and one or two more that we didn’t bother recording to just save time, but, yeah, we had about another ten minutes of material. We definitely didn’t go in thinking “let’s record an hour and ten minutes and we’ll take the best fifty minutes”, it was pretty clear to us that we had to use the time spending it on what we knew for sure was gonna be on the album.
WTL!: For the leftover songs, will we see an EP in the future, or you gonna leave them until your next record?
Jord: No, I think the songs that we have leftover we might try and restructure at some point, maybe when we do some more songwriting, hopefully this winter.
WTL!: What’s next for Propagandhi?
Jord: We’re reluctant to put a timetable on it ‘cuz we’ve never operated like that. With Beave in the band things are moving quicker then they used to, at the same time we have touring commitments that keep us busy throughout the year, but definitely I think that when we have some down time back in Winnipeg we’ll try and keep ourselves busy and keep things moving ahead. We don’t wanna wait five years between albums, but at the same time we don’t wanna rush anything.
WTL!: How did you hook up with Smallman Records, was it just time to move on from Fat Wreck Chords?
Jord: Yeah, I think there’s a few different reasons, the main one being we live in the same city as them and we know Rob and Jason, we’re not super close friends but we know what they’ve been doing, we’ve been in touch with them for a number of years, we used to see bands that they used to play in way, way back when we first were getting together. They’re honest guys and we trust them, it’s a relationship that’s really based on mutual respect, and we’re in the same city so we’re connected in a really positive way. That coupled with the new era of the music industry, I think that having regionally based labels around the world instead of having one conduct the whole thing, I think we made the right decision. We have two labels in Europe, one in Australia, something being worked out for Japan right now, it seems like people know their own regions and territory’s and I think it’s working pretty good!
WTL!: A year ago G7 Welcoming Committee announced it will cease to release new material, “Supporting Caste” has the G7 stamp on it, is your record company back up and running?
Jord: That’s kind of just keeping the label profile alive a little bit, as it is now it’s just an audio archive, the back stock is available, they’re not gonna work on anything like new releases, but that could change in the coming years. The label slowly whittled itself down to where there’s only two people working on it, Chris and Derek, who came on board with us around 1999, 2000, and I ended up leaving around 2004, 2005. Running a label in today’s age is almost impossible to do, as a paid job, it’s very, very difficult! There was a point where we were able to have a very small staff of people where we were all working a similar amount of hours and sharing a lot of responsibilities, but in today’s day and age, people just don’t buy albums anymore. It’s kind of a side hobby thing now, so the Smallman guys did pretty much all the work.
WTL!: What’s the scene like back home, how has the Winnipeg, or Manitoba, music scene helped you with your upbringing?
Jord: When we first moved to Winnipeg, I was like eighteen years old. I don’t know what it is about Winnipeg, maybe it’s the really cold winters but there’s a whole lot of different musicians there and a whole lot of different genres of stuff. In the late ‘80’s a teenager could go out almost every night of the week and there was something going on somewhere, it was pretty exciting, I was just going out to see whoever played to satisfy my burgeoning music interests. There was a pretty active musical community there, and that continues to today, I don’t go to too many shows anymore, I find it kind of hard to, coming off the road, the last thing I wanna do is stand in a room with a bunch of loud music going on, my ears have taken a beating over the years too. Definitely a lot of musicians there though!
WTL!: Do you or anyone else in the band have any other projects currently on the go, like other bands or jobs back home?
Jord: Beave and I threw a little cover band together for my sister’s wedding a couple years ago, and that was a lot of fun! Played lots of ‘80’s hard rock covers, I’d love to do that kind of stuff again actually, just music that you can have a couple beers, not like you’re sweating or it’s hard to pull off, just a lot of fun. Outside of that I just recently quit my day job ‘cuz we’re so busy, I tried to do both for a while but it’s just impossible. We’re tryna make a go living off the band, seeing how far we can extend that. Last year I was working and doing the band and an activist project in Winnipeg, and now I’m just doing those two things, [band and activist project].
I’m part of the Winnipeg Haiti Solidarity Group, it’s an affiliate of a national organization called Canada Haiti Action Network. We work to expose Canada’s goal and most recent chapter of Haiti’s multi-century struggle for independence, which they haven’t achieved yet due to the Canadian government, the US government, and the French government, and it’s one of the most saddest stories I’ve come across. It’s our government’s corporate interests keeping one of the poorest of people in the whole hemisphere starving to death to make cheap gadgets for us and it’s just absolutely pathetic. Our money and tax dollars are going to the wrong people down there, it’s thoroughly disgusting, trying to break through some of the mythology that Canadians have, giving themselves a pat on the back thinking we’re doing the right thing out there in the international community when it’s just a fuckin’ bogus lie! I feel that understanding the situation a bit, I feel obliged to try and spread the word about it when I can.
Their national website is CanadaHaitiAction.ca. There’s also a new book by a Montréal based author by the name of Yves Engler who released an excellent book and he’s just finishing a country wide speaking tour, it’s called “The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy”. That one book alone can potentially shatter a lot of illusions for Canadians who should understand what their tax dollars are going into.
WTL! That kind of reminds me of my uncle who’s running an operation called O.T.E.S. (Operation Temporary Emergency Shelter), just a group that travels to third world countries and puts up shelters instead of sending money they just do it all themselves.
Jord: I think there’s a very interesting relationship between aid-money achieving corporate interests, sort of paving the way for companies to come in and exploit resources, labor resources or something like that, and they put this happy face on it and say they can help provide social services and that kind of stuff, and it creates this weird situation of dependence on charities, where in Haiti people can do their own things themselves but they’re prevented from doing their own thing, it’s just very disillusioning.
WTL!: Have you been reading anything else lately?
Jord: Yeah, [apart from] the book I just mentioned, we have a group with us called Substance that’s trying to promote the reality behind the Tar Sands exploitation in Alberta and in the context surrounding that, oil and that kind of thing, so I read a book about that which I just finished yesterday actually, called “Stupid To The Last Drop”, by a man named William Marsden, and I think that’s an important book as well, just a completely bizarre, logical extension of greed that’s reaching… it’s almost out of a weird science fiction novel, how insane and short sighted those interests are, how well rooted they are in the government and industry, it’s like they’re not allowing the truth to get out about these things, it’s fuckin’ scary what they’re getting away with and what they’re tryna do! They’re poisoning the few things that we have left, and they’re going ahead with it 100%, it’s sickening. Those are the two most recent books, and a couple other about Haiti that have come out recently, “Damning The Flood” by Peter Hallward, kind of an indispensable book about anyone who wants to learn about the international players and sort of a history… it’s more focused on the Haitian struggle for independence. The events that surrounded the shipping of a progressively minded leader out of the country in favor of a hand picked guy that the Haitians had no say in whatsoever. It’s pretty unbelievable, it’s a pretty big book on that subject.
Propagandhi performs “Supporting Caste” live at Metro Theatre, Sydney, Australia
WTL!: Do you have any other hobbies?
Jord: Pretty much the activist stuff, that’s a huge priority for me, obviously being away from our city a whole lot, finding continuity is difficult, but outside that and the band; reading and gardening, actually.
WTL!: Gardening?
Jord: Yeah! I’ve got a nice little garden going! With tons of shit, more and more every year!
(Laughs)
WTL!: You’ve mentioned a couple already, but is there any other organizations that you currently support?
Jord: There’s probably different Solidarity and activist groups around the country, in Winnipeg there’s CanPalNet.com, Canada Palestine Network. There’s one about Cuba, I find the Cuban revolution to be a really amazing piece of history and very inspiring. There’s so many causes out there, environmental causes, and I back most of those groups, the ones that are actually genuinely grassroots, bottom up kind of groups as opposed to the ones that are connected to the government in some way. So there’s a ton of groups out there that are worthy of support and getting involved.
WTL!: So what have you been listening to lately?
Jord: When I’m on the road I’m usually giving my ears a rest, I can’t handle a whole lot of headphone listening in a loud van. At home I’ve been listening to a lot of Peter Tosh, I like the music to kind of counterbalance things, if it’s loud, heavy and thrashy all the time, [it’d be too much]. My brother’s a classical pianist, I’ll listen to that kind of stuff, some jazz music. I’ll usually keep my radio on to the local campus station, an excellent radio station we have in Winnipeg, CKUW. So Peter Tosh, reggae music, and a lot of my old albums. Actually “British Steel” is an album I listen to a lot, Judas Priest, that’s one of the albums that got me into heavy metal, listen to that quite a bit, and old punk records.
WTL!: The dude who runs WayTooLoud.com is very metal, he asked me to ask you if you remember the “Reanimation” video by Sacrifice?
Jord: Chris and Todd are mega Sacrifice fans, and actually Joe Rico came to our show last night in Detroit! But, yeah, I remember those days of waiting around for a whole hour in a show just for one metal video that they play at the end.
(Laughs)
WTL!: I recently read somewhere where they labeled you guys as “punk legends”, what are your thoughts on that sort of statement and what are you thoughts on other bands citing Propagandhi as a major influence?
Jord: I’ve never considered us as a major influence, and again we never set out to be a punk or metal band, we just like loud rockin’ music, it’s difficult to pigeonhole yourself with a certain title. I think with this band, the bands that really spoke to us in a meaningful way were bands that had a social or political commentary attachment, late ‘80’s era, we kind of contributed along with that as part of the little sliver of music that keeps that tradition going, and that’s a certain measure of success, I guess.
WTL!: Who would you like to tour with who’s both feasible and not obvious?
Jord: You know Strike Anywhere are a really good band to tour with! I think it comes down to who you get along with on a personal level, I enjoy their band, and as people I don’t have any reservations on their character or embarrassing us in any way. It’s hard, there’s a few bands out there that we may get presented with “hey, why don’t you tour with these guys, it’ll work out for both bands”, and I’m just thinking “fuck that, there’s no way I can get along with those people!”, that way I’m kind of picky, and I don’t think we’re ever gonna try and climb the latter by associating ourselves with those people that we don’t really respect.
WTL!: Okay, same question but minus the feasibility, you can pick anyone!
Jord: If there was a situation where Sacrifice was going back on tour, or Voivod, for me in particular, would be amazing! It’s all so hard with older bands ‘cuz people have families and that kind of stuff, so it’s difficult to achieve, road mates.
WTL!: Is there anywhere in the world you’d like to tour?
Jord: Yeah, with us doing this regionally based set of labels, we want those relationships to work so our touring is prioritized around our record being released, which is essentially first world countries. We’ve never been through a lot of Eastern Europe, but I’ll never forget one guy inviting us to play in Serbia, and attached to his offer, we’d have to go see what our NATO bombs did to their country. I’ve always been very curious about that, and I’ve always wanted to go to Belgrade at some point and play there. Also if things open up a bit more, we did some shows in 2007 in Central and South America, that’s another interest of mine. At some point in my life I wanna learn how to speak Spanish! Get a little bit more in tune with what’s going on down there, I think there’s a lot of interesting social things going on in Central and South America. If we ever had the chance to play in Cuba, specifically that’d be a very interesting possibility!
WTL!: Bands get asked about their band name all the time, so my question is do you have any good lies you’ve told about your and name or what it means?
Jord: To tell you the truth, we had our first show booked in Winnipeg at a place called the Royal Albert Arms, and we didn’t have a band name and we needed one really fast! We had a couple that we threw around, and that night we picked [Propagandhi] and ended up sticking with it. I think the meaning of it is related to how people perceive themselves. I don’t think it’s really throwing it out there, really pacifist propaganda kind of synthesis, or something like that. I respect civil disobedience and people willing to put themselves on the line, some of the most inspiring and courageous things have come from people who are pacifists, but at the same time I wouldn’t call myself a pacifist.
WTL! That’s all of my questions, any last words for today’s youth?
Jord: I think that we’re living in a very interesting time, there’s a lot of crazy shit going on on the planet and only a certain amount of time to get out of this bind, and if people are upset, disillusioned or alienated from the fuckin’ bogus mythology of the country they come from, Canada or United States, then instead of drinking your time away– and this is coming from a person who loves to drink, beer, wine, rum especially– don’t take yourself out of the game, there are opportunities for a lot of productive, progressive, positive things to get into and you don’t have to look too hard for it! There’s a ton of stuff going on in different cities and localities all over the place, even if you come from a small town, with the internet and all that stuff you can make the choice to engage yourself in a positive, progressive, grassroots [way].
WTL!: Thank you so much for this interview!
Jord: Thanks for the opportunity, I appreciate it!
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