Show & Tell - S&T chats with Rob of Noise Therapy

ROB THIESSEN of NOISE THERAPY
11.02

There is perhaps no more difficult task in today’s musical climate than coming up with an original sound. Noise Therapy, Canada’s latest musical export, comes as close as anybody.

With clever hooks and infectious melodies, Noise Therapy’s sound is both catchy and lingering; the kind of songs you find yourself singing during the first run through.

Show & Tell spoke up with Noise Therapy bassist Rob Thiessen as they took to the road with Otep and E-Town Concrete..

Show & Tell: So how and where are you?

Rob: Good. We’re in Chicago right now.

S&T: Really? You guys were just in New York – You’re coming back to Jersey by way of Chicago?

Rob: We kind of go all the way around. We’re headed out west right now, out to California, and then we go back through Texas and Florida and then back to Jersey.

S&T: And you guys have a bus or a van?

Rob: We’re on a bus.

S&T: That’s a plus.

Rob: Yup. It makes life easy.

S&T: Yeah, I’d imagine. On the subject of touring, what’s touring in Canada [where the band is from] like as opposed to down here [in the States]?

Rob: Well, we’ve toured Canada like so many fucking times. There’s not nearly as many people in Canada, so it’s kind of weird - you can do a Canadian tour in like ten days and pretty much play everywhere you need to play. We’re just focusing on down here for now. We’ll probably play some Canadian dates after Christmas or something, but we’re trying to stay down here as much as we can.

S&T: You’re still based out of Vancouver though, right? Your families and you guys live up there?

Rob: Yeah, we still live in Vancouver, but we’re not there very much right now.

S&T: We’ve spoken to some musicians from England, and they’ve talked about the pressure on them from the media, like, "You’re not really big until you get over to the States and hit it." Is there anything at all like that [in Canada]?

Rob: Not really. Like, there’s no real pressure. Definitely, you have to make it in the States to make it bigger in your own country, which is kind of unfortunate. We don’t get a lot of respect in Canada because it’s not a big place for heavy music. [Heavy music] is way more popular down here. We have a hard time getting on radio and stuff up there.

S&T: What would you say is the genre that they most listen to up there?

Rob: They play lots of stuff like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, that kind of stuff. And they play hits that are coming out now and everything, like Nickelback and stuff like that, but as far as heavier stuff, like our first single, "Get Up," they play it on the metal shows or they’ll play it at night or something like that, but it’s hard to get them to spin it during the day. They’re scared.

S&T: Down here’s weird too, man. You have your little local stations that maybe play a little heavier stuff, like WSOU here in Jersey, but by and large there’s no real place to go for hard rock. And the real crazy thing about it is [rock music outsells every other genre] by at least 2 to 1, yet you can’t get a video played, you can’t hear it on the radio…

Rob: Yeah, I know. Probably specialty shows and shit like that.

S&T: We like the album by the way. They sent it over a while ago and it’s been in regular rotation at our office since we got it.

Rob: Cool. Right on.

S&T: One of the things that [Americans] do is we listen to music and we have to kind of categorize it, like you’ve got to fit your music into a nice, neat little box. "This band sounds like that band." What I really appreciated [about Noise Therapy’s latest release] was that I had such a tough time doing that with you guys.

Rob: Yeah, I know. People ask us that all the time, like, "Who do you sound like?" And I can’t even answer that. I’ve tried to and I can’t ….

S&T: Now is there a concept behind the name? I know your music is very much experimental in nature and you push for being a little bit different…

Rob: Yeah, definitely. I think we are different than a lot of bands that are in the same sort of category that we are, you know, like aggro-rock or whatever you want to call it. The name Noise Therapy’s been around for a few years. There’s not really any deep meaning behind it, it’s just something I thought sounded cool, that kind of describes what music makes us feel like.

S&T: Got it. Your record label, Redline, isn’t really a hard rock label. I know Prince is signed to them, and Pete Townshend…

Rob: Well, they’re kind of new, so they’re kind of just making a name for themselves [like] we are. They were looking for a heavy band for like a year-and-a-half and they met us up in Vancouver and they just fell in love with us right away and we just basically had a handshake deal two days later.

S&T: That’s excellent.

Rob: Yeah. We were with A&M before, and so we were kind of just totally jaded by the major label thing and we didn’t want to do that again. So this has been really cool and everybody’s cool at the new label and they totally support us.

S&T: Sometimes, with a major label, it really just depends who you work with. Because if you get lucky and your rep is high on you guys, you’re good to go. But if not, man, you get lost in the shuffle…

Rob: And there’s always the annual housecleaning, where your A&R rep gets fired or something, and you’re hooped.

S&T: Exactly. So these guys gave you a lot of room?

Rob: Yeah, definitely. Like, creatively and stuff like that, we pretty much did what we wanted to do.

S&T: Was that something you talked about in the beginning? Like, "Look, we’d really like to sign, but…"

Rob: Yup. Definitely. I mean, we had a vision of what we wanted the record to sound like, and the next record will be different again. We want to move on. We don’t want to make the same record three times in a row, so we’ll experiment with some different shit next time for sure.

S&T: What about as compared to the stuff you guys released in Canada – was it three albums?

Rob: Uh, yep, yep.

S&T: So did you sort of pull stuff off of the old albums and re-do it, or is it a completely different sound?

Rob: No, all brand new stuff and yeah, a completely different sound. We have a different drummer now and we added a keyboard sample guy, and working with [producer] Rhys Fulber, he brought in a lot of electronic kind of stuff. We’d dabbled in that before, but we didn’t really have too much of it. But yeah, this record’s totally different than our older stuff. I mean, we’re doing one old song in the set right now out of like eight songs.

S&T: Otherwise it’s pretty much the new album.

Rob: Yeah, definitely.

S&T: I read, I think Dave [Ottoson, Noise Therapy’s singer] said it, the title of the album [Tension] is based on the vibe you guys had in the recording session. Was he making that up, or is that legitimate?

Rob: No, that’s kind of legitimate, ‘cause we had four producers, our A&R guy there, and then there’s five guys in the band, so there was a bit of tension going on. I came up with the name one day at home. I thought it was just a totally cool title, and it kind of represented all the angst we had about making the record and about starting our career up again, ‘cause we took like a year off, so…

S&T: You guys took a year off thinking, "Let’s take a break and come back at this?"

Rob: Um, our guitar player, Kai, was playing with Methods of Mayhem, Tommy Lee’s band, for a year. So we tried to find another guitar player, but we were like, "Fuck this, let’s just relax for a year," and we didn’t have a record deal, and we just wanted to step away from each other and come back with a fresh attitude.

S&T: What did everybody do on their year off?

Rob: Everybody kind of did different stuff. I produced some different up-and-coming bands up in Canada, so I was in the studio a lot. And everybody else kind of did their own thing, but we still hung out and partied and saw each other and stuff, but it was good taking time off and not rehearsing and writing songs together, so we had a bunch of fresh ideas when we got back together.

S&T: Right. And how did the time off affect your music?

Rob: It’s similar, but I think it’s a lot more dynamic and a bit heavier than what we were doing before. But it’s similar. I mean, you could still put on our old record and say, "Yeah, that’s Noise Therapy."

S&T: Why four producers? Who wanted so many bodies in there? That sounds insane.

Rob: Well, Mike Plotnikoff is one of our best friends, so he’s done all of our records. And then we brought Rhys in because we wanted the electronic vibe that he got on the Fear Factory record. And then those two guys brought in Igor, who was only there for a couple of weeks, and he just helped with vocal melodies. Each guy had their own job. And then the label brought in Mike Wanchic, um, just because they’d worked with him before and he actually turned out to be really cool and worked with Kai on guitar stuff. So it was basically, everybody had their own separate job. There was a bit of headbutting, but only for a couple of weeks when everybody was there, and the rest of the time it was just two guys or one guy in the studio.

S&T: That’s kind of cool, ‘cause this is such an ego-driven industry and since everybody’s way is the "right" way, it’s unbelievable to me that you could have four producers sitting in a room together.

Rob: It was pretty strange, dude, but it was cool. We’re happy with the result …

S&T: What kind of involvement do you guys have with your web site?

Rob: We basically have a guy named Rafa who runs our site out of Phoenix and we basically just e-mail him with suggestions. But we’re totally happy with what he’s doing – he’s like, totally interactive. We e-mail him and shit’s up there like five minutes later.

S&T: How important do you think it is, given the dynamic of rock music now, for you guys to have a website that’s accessible?

Rob: I think it’s totally important. I think it’s one of the most important things. Eventually, we hope to have streaming video on there, where you go and click on it and see our show that we’re playing that night, and watch stuff anywhere in the world. We’re working on it and we want it to be fast and easily accessible so kids can go on there and just bop around and go wherever they want. I try to do a journal update every day or two when we’re on tour to let people know what’s going on. We go on our message board and answer questions all the time and stuff like that – we want it to be totally interactive.

S&T: That’s good. We talk a lot about how it’s changing the music industry completely. Like, back when we were growing up and going to concerts, we were lucky enough if the band came out after the show to kind of hang out. Maybe in a small club, you’d be able to run into them if you were lucky and stuck around long enough, but otherwise the only contact you’d have with your band was when they came around once a year or twice a year to the arena.

Rob: I was thinking about that last night, because we go out after the show and we sit at the merch[andise] booth and we sign whatever people want, you know, like CDs that they buy or shirts or whatever. And I was thinking, like, ten years ago, nobody did that. And now every band does it, like you have to do it, you’re expected to do that. And if you don’t do it, you look like a dick.

S&T: Exactly, and you know what? Everybody’ll hear about it the next day.

Rob: And then they’re like, "Oh you’re too fucking big for us, you’re too much of a rock star to come out and hang with us fans for a few minutes."

S&T: It’s made it a very small world. You’re expected to be accessible.

Rob: Yep.

S&T: That could also be bad, though. I mean, it plays to how much work it is, what you guys actually do.

Rob: Yeah, totally. It’s not all fun and games. [laughs]

S&T: What about file-sharing and that kind of thing? What’s your stance on that?

Rob: When you’re a band like us and you’re just trying to get your music out there, I totally think… Like, we put out a couple of our songs right away as MP3s, not the entire song. I definitely think it’s hurts, but it’s also a good thing. There’s good points about it and there’s bad points about it.

S&T: My partner always makes the comment that that’s how we got music. Your friend would buy an album and tape it, and you’d trade cassettes in school and stuff. Obviously, this runs a bit more rampant than running tapes around, but still….

Rob: If it gets to the point where you’re losing so much in album sales that you can’t make a living and this is what you’ve done for twenty years, and you just want to make enough money to maybe buy a house someday and not have to be on welfare when you’re fifty years old, then if it gets to that point then it’s definitely a bad thing. But if it’s just kids sharing and it just makes the band’s name bigger, then that’s totally cool. I think eventually, the government or somebody’s going to have to regulate something, but I don’t know if they’ll ever be able to do it.

S&T: Well, you know what? I think the music industry had a chance to sort of look like the good guys, and they blew it.

Rob: They blew it. That’s pretty much par for the course. [laughs]

S&T: The guy in the ivory tower was like, "Destroy file-sharing," but then was like, "Whoa, I had no idea file-sharing was this big." But anything they come up with, there’s gonna be some fifteen-year-old kid in his mom’s basement who’s gonna be able to figure out how to beat it!

Rob: Exactly. Exactly.

S&T: I was going to ask Dave about his musical influences, because on his bio he lists Faith No More and the Police on there. And then Pantera’s on there, and I’m like, "Wow, what an eclectic group."

Rob: We all kind of listen to everything, you know, to all different stuff, so…

S&T: Wow, you really do. I’m looking at the site now, look at this. Mötley Crüe, Seal, the Police and…what do you have on yours here? The Misfits, Metallica, Phil Lynott…

Rob: He was the bass player from Thin Lizzy. I really liked his style and stuff when I was a kid.

S&T: …and Accept.

Rob: Yeah. I’m kind of an old-school metal guy.

S&T: I’ll say. How old are you?

Rob: 35.

S&T: Okay, now these make sense. I’m 34 and I’m reading these thinking this is what I was listening to growing up. Frontline Assembly, Static-X, Fear Factory. Do you guys fight it out on the bus what you’re going to listen to? This is pretty all over the place.

Rob: Um, we all bring different CDs and we throw it on, like last night we were listening to S.O.D and Flaw and stuff like that, and some nights we’ll put on Depeche Mode or whatever, whatever the vibe happens to be.

S&T: Well listen man, thanks for your time. I really appreciate it.

Rob: No problem.

interview by Scott Sisti