“Here’s hoping. We’re gambling on this one a bit.”

by  Zack MacRae

“So coming out of the gates with a big show in Toronto is kind of a suicide mission, but we seem to roll that way.”

Lately, Jason Collett has been pretty busy. With a brand new album released earlier this week, and an upcoming North American tour that began last night in Toronto for Canadian Music Week, the only breaks that Collett gets are spent talking to journalists.

“The last couple weeks have just been nuts,” an exhausted but persistent Collett tells. “It’s been crazy. But good you know? They’re good problems to have.”

On Tuesday, Collett released his fourth full-length album called Rat A Tat Tat, an album that firmly plants him in a sound that is fully Collett. His vocals are there, his characteristic geological musings are there and in the background, Zeus is there too.

Like a well oiled machine that plays really good rock music, Zeus helped Collett in the studio when they weren’t working on their newly released album Say Us, and along with Bahamas, will back him up on the road too.

Currently, the three groups are embarking on a rather unique tour. They’re calling it the Bonfire Ball Revue. The tour will have all three groups playing each other’s songs together over a three hour long set with no breaks.

To get everything to flow right, over the past couple of weeks this gang of musicians has been rehearsing whenever they aren’t shooting videos or releasing albums.

“Here’s hoping,” laughs Collett about the outcome of these shows. “We’re gambling on this one a bit, but I think it’s going to turn out great.”

The Bonfire Ball Revue will roll into Guelph tonight at the eBar. If you don’t have a ticket yet, you should get there early and hope they will be selling at the door because this one is going to be a doozie.

Earlier this week I had a conversation with Collett about the Bonfire Ball and a couple other things he’s been up to lately. Calculated and at a relaxed pace, Collett answered my questions like a gentleman.

The Ontarion: So you’ve been pretty busy in the past couple of weeks.

Jason Collett: Yeah, the last couple weeks have just been nuts. We’re trying to rehearse. We’re shooting videos, its just been kind of crazy with Zeus’ record and my record coming out at the same time, its been crazy. But good you know? They’re good problems to have.

TO: I guess releasing a record is a pretty heavy thing.

JC: It can be, yeah. It really can be. And that’s kind of what you want.

Lately we’ve been rehearsing this revue show to support the album. So it’s not just rehearsing your own thing, its rehearsing as three bands trying to figure out a show that flows and that has nice interchange between all the acts back and forth. Now we have to do it in two days and we are just taking a deep breath hoping that we can pull it off. It’s the kind of thing that’s going to get better as we go along. We’ll tweak it as we go. So coming out of the gates with a big show in Toronto is kind of a suicide mission, but we seem to roll that way.

With the Guelph show coming the day after, we’ll already have a show under our belts so it will inevitably be better.

TO: What will the Bonfire Ball Revue be like?

JC: Each band’s music will be well represented. And then there will be some overlap where everybody will play. Then sometimes it will just be me playing alone, and sometimes it will just be Bahamas, just Afie and his drummer. We work like this on so many other levels. Carlin from Zeus has a studio where both of our records were recorded. There are a scene of folks that just sort of drift through the studio on a regular basis. So with the revue shows we are just taking that to its logical conclusion. We just kind of said, ‘Well, let’s do what we do in the studio on the road. Let’s take that same spirit and lift the show to a whole other level.’ And I think audiences will respond well to that. Your not just getting three separate bands with three separate sets. Your getting a combination and when you get three bands combining you get a whole other story. It’s not just their three stories, but the story of everybody working together.

TO: What is your relationship with Zeus? How did you meet these guys.

JC: Well, half of Zeus used to be a band called Pesamino. And that was my backing band previous to Zeus. And Afie from Bahamas was part of that band, but Afie left to play with Feist. At that point Pesamino unraveled. All these guys grew up in Barrie together essentially, so they’ve got that history together.

TO: I find that a lot of Canadian artists are afraid to admit that they’re Canadian. But with your music it seems important for you to tell your listeners where you are. Is this true?

JC: I don’t have a real agenda about this, it just comes out in the songs. I’m pleased with it. It’s been fun to just make the references. Most interestingly, is that people outside of Canada seem more intrigued about it than people inside of Canada. Really, I’m just trying to communicate ideas and shared experiences and the geography of this country is just one big shared experience. It’s handy for me to make those references and get quickly into peoples heads or hearts, it’s a direct route. Often I’m just writing a story that is just a shared experience. Maybe it’s something that’s happened to me, but has happened to other people too. So people can relate to it and that’s all music is really about anyways. I just try to keep it personal and that’s what comes out.

TO: Do you take inspiration from your city?

JC: Toronto does inspire me but not so obviously in songs, its just a good place to live, its my home, I love coming back here. I love how small Toronto actually is once you get to  know it.