PHONE INTERVIEW: IMAGINARY CITIES

Oh man, Canadian musicians are super nice, especially when you give a really awkward interview (that happens to be your first ever). So thanks to Rusty Matyas of Imaginary Cities for talking tours, sci fi and digital music with me. Here’s the chat.

Andrew Tape (SCENE): Hey, is this Rusty?

Rusty: This is Rusty!

SCENE: This is Andrew, how’re you doing?

Rusty: Hey, I’m good man, how’re you doing?

SCENE: Good, just hiding up in my workplace office for some peace and quiet… oh, I’m recording you right now, just so you know… (creepy laugh)

Rusty: Right on.

SCENE: So, I guess to start with, and I, uh, don’t mean to sound offensive, but how did you snag the opening slot on the Pixies’ Doolittle tour? You guys haven’t been around that long, your debut album dropped just recently… so how did you score that gig, it seems really super awesome

Rusty: Yeah, it’s really super awesome actually. There’s probably hundreds of bands that would have… thousands that would have loved to be on this tour. Somebody who works at our label used to work with the Pixies’ manager, or somebody in their management. So we kind of had our foot in the door there, and we’ve also got a really good booking agent in Canada. And from what I understand, I believe the Pixies were shown about ten seconds of six different bands, and they picked us. So you know, they didn’t search us out or anything like that, but we’re just thrilled and totally humbled and priviledged to be on the tour.

SCENE: You guys have been on the road for a long time, since like last September? Have you been on the road consistently since then or..?

Rusty: Yeah, we’ve been pretty consistent. We’ve been back home for short periods of time, but pretty much since September, we’ve done Canada three times, this might be the fourth, and then we went across to Europe, mostly Germany, in January. So yeah, it’s been pretty steady for quite a while. But we have a month off when we get off [tour] in a few days, so I’m pretty excited about that.

SCENE: Whats the reception like in Europe when you played?

Rusty: You know what, we were pretty presently surprised. I play in another band called the Weakerthans, and they have connections with this label called Grand Hotel Van Cleef out in Germany and they’re putting out the imaginary cities record out there. They did a really good job promoting and organizing this tour. We were so shocked, the first show in Germany, it was a packed club and people knew the words. We were confused and pleasantly surprised. (laughter)

SCENE: That’s gotta be totally weird, foreign people singing along with you and everything.

Rusty: Yeah, you know it was like Ashton Kutcher was gonna come around the corner and say “gotcha”, because our album wasn’t even out in Canada, it wasn’t out in Germany. People did their research and came out and enjoyed it, and we were pretty thankful for that.

SCENE: With the highly digital nature of the music industry right now, people are connected to things now.

Rusty: Yeah, you can hear a band almost instantly if you want. Lots of people can go on their iphones and search for a band and listen to them right away. It can be advantageous for sure.

SCENE: It’s kinda cool too in Canada, with [CBC] Radio3 and everything, helping promote Canadian bands online.

Rusty: Yeah yeah, definitely thankful for that too

SCENE: Your album, Temporary Resident, I really dig, especially the title track. It kinda hit a nerve with me with all its talk about a life in flux and all. Is that one of the things you were going for [thematically] on the whole album or…

Rusty: There’s no significance to that song being the title track. I like it when albums have a title track. I think we just chose it cause I liked the sound of the title the best out of all, of to be honest. It kinda had a spacey sound to it, a Radiohead sound to it, and I kinda like that. I’m kind of a sci-fi nerd so I enjoyed that.

SCENE: Oh, what’s your favourite sci-fi book?

Rusty: Sci-fi book? I’m reading Ender’s Game right now actually.

SCENE: My friends have been telling me about that book… oh, have you ever heard of the Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGwinn?

Rusty: (inquisitively) No!

SCENE: Oh man check that one out, it’s about this dude who can change reality…(proceeds to explain plot poorly)

Rusty: Nice, what’s it called?

SCENE: Lathe of Heaven, L-A-T-H-E.

Rusty: Lathe of Heaven, right on cool, I will check that out, definitely.

SCENE: Alright man, well I gotta get back to work, so I’m gonna leave you with a pre-planned non-sequitor question that just happens to be really pertinent: if you were abducted by aliens, and they gave you a chance to send one last message to the world, what would it be?

Rusty: (laughs) Oh man, hopefully I’d say “It’s super sweet on this new planet I’m on, wish you guys could be here”…

SCENE: “There’s totally no anal probes…”

Rusty: Yeah. (laughs)

SCENE: OK, well, super awesome talking to you man, hope your show goes well tonight!

Rusty: Thank you so much for talking to me man, have a good day.