Toronto based quartet, The Flatliners are just about one of the most exciting bands to see live at the moment. Their shows are full of energy, anthemic tunes and diverse musical arrangements from reggae jams, rock n roll and straight up hardcore and punk rock numbers. We caught up with they boys in the midst of their latest European tour to talk festivals, donuts, and broken down vans.

A big hello from the UK, how the devil are you?

Things are great. Constantly recovering from hot shows and strong drinks in Europe.

For those not in the know, give us a run down on where the Flatliners are today and how it all started.

We’ve all known each other since childhood, so naturally we all started playing music together. We’d book our weekends in high school solid with shows and then once we were out of there we just hit the road and haven’t stopped. We are currently in Germany on our way to Luxembourg to play with The Aggrolites, in the 4th week of our Summer Euro Tour.

As well as wider Europe you hit the UK shores late August to play the Reading / Leeds festival, doing a few dates here and there with A Wilhelm Scream, Strung Out and the Mad Caddies. It seems your relentlessly touring again like you did for your last record! How has it compared to the last time round?

Our world of always driving, always playing shows and always meeting new, rad people seems to never end. That’s the best part. We consider ourselves very lucky to be able to do what we do, and get the opportunity to play with these great bands that we’re all big fans of. It seems each time we return to a city as well, we’re met my more and more people, so hopefully we’re doing something right hahaha. We were blown away when we heard we’d be playing Leeds and Reading this year. I remember my brother always reading NME magazine when I was growing up, and every year I saw the epic line up for each respective festival, and thinking “holy shit, how do all these incredible bands play together?” And now we’re a part of it. And that, is truly mindblowing.

How is the new record coming along? I’ve heard that there’s going to be a few surprises in there! When will it be released?

We finished recording our new album 2 days before leaving for this European Tour, so we’re in the mixing stages now and then we’ll get rolling on the artwork and everything. We’ve definitely got some tricks up our sleeve, involving some good friends of ours with rad voices. But I can’t reveal any more info yet. We’re secretive bastards! As it stands now, it looks like it will be out early 2010, so we’ve got some plans right now to do something cool this fall to get people stoked for the new record.

You’re very proud of your canadian heritage, what are the things you miss on tour and what are you glad to see the back of.

We all miss Tim Hortons like it was our favourite place on earth when we’re away. Its a coffee/donut shop that is massive in Canada. And the coffee is like fucking crack. We all miss our beds too. Sometimes its weird sleeping with a different pillow every night, but oh well. That’s life.

It was great to see you release a split with the snips for the fantastic Paper + Plastick!

Vinnie Fiorello is a great dude, and we’re stoked to be working with him on that split. The Snips are our homies too, they’re great. That split has been in the works for something like 4 years now. I remember playing a show with them in 2004 and we were all sitting around drinking, talking about the idea of doing a split where there were only short songs. 5 short songs rolled into 1 weird jam. And it finally happened!

What is your opinion on this crazy dispensable digital age of music?

Some bands will shoot it down like Metallica did Napster, some bands will deny that people downloading music actually helps your band. We’re not the kind of guys that really lose sleep over the fact that people download our music. I think things like MySpace and file sharing help bands more than they even know. Sure, people are buying fewer and fewer records every year, but look at the times we live in. The general population’s pockets are scarily empty, and they’re priorities may not involve buying a new CD for $15. We’re lucky enough to be a part of the Fat Wreck family, who share our ideals of making music as cheap as possible. We sell our CDs for $5 at shows, and I cant even count how many people I’ve talked to after our shows who have said something like “I downloaded your record, listened to it over and over again, came to this show and then had to buy the CD because it was only $5.” Fat Mike knows what he’s doing.

Which other bands are you currently enjoying?

There’s a band from England called The Living Daylights, who I just learned about a few months ago. And they’re awesome. We made friends with a band from Exeter last year called OK Pilot, and they’re like The Bronx meets Hot Snakes, but dirtier. I love that band. The Snips, of course, are a band everyone should check out. Same goes for our buddies Hostage Life from Toronto.

Who would be your all time favourite band you would like to play live with?

We’ve been lucky enough to play with a lot of cool bands, of which some are my favourites. I’d have to say one band the four of us would shit our pants over to play with would be Rocket From the Crypt. Although, they are no more… which makes it even more desirable.

How do you chillax when you finally get time out?

Get home from tour, do all my laundry, sleep for a week straight, wake up, hang out with my girlfriend, family, cat and buddies from back home, roll up some of Canada’s greatest export up and get real lazy. Oh, and then the four of us will likely jam a shitload.

Visual art

With all the cities you see on tour and bands you play with, you must come across a lot of of urban art, merch design and cultural images. Whats the most awesome thing you’ve seen? And would any of you have the desire to be visual artist if you had time away from the band?

Europe is covered in graffiti and I love it. I do a lot of merch design for our band, so I’m always looking around for cool shit and Europe has some incredible street artists. Its tough to pin it down to one or two sources, but I will say that its easy to be inspired when we tour over here.

Debate

What’s really ticking you off at the moment?

We just had to say goodbye to our tour manager’s amazing Sprinter Van. We got in an accident last week, so we’ve been touring in a rented Sprinter for a bit. We’ve done 3 tours in that van and its the best. RIP Duckmobile.

What are your “buzzing” and totally happy about?

We’ll be in England in 2 days. I love it there. Whenever we get to the UK this feeling passes through me like I never want to leave.

What would would the flatliners do to change the world we live in?

All we can do is write songs and enjoy life. People should love their lives rather than try to find ways to always to improve them or change them around. I think the human race is just so used to making advancements in all aspects of life at this point that we’ve forgotten that sometimes you’re OK just the way you are. Love your life.

Go see the flatliners play in your European city this summer!

Full details of the Tour are on the The Flatliners website.

Other links

The Flatliners on Fat wreck Chords
Listen to the Flatliners on spotify

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Here’s a great video from the guys over at Punk Rock Vids of the legendary Bouncing Souls at their recent gig in Liverpool. Check out halfway through the vid where Greg Attonito spices things up!

Check out the video of Bouncing Souls at the 02 Academy Liverpool.

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One of my favourite bands the Swellers have today signed to Fueled by Ramen Records which I can imagine will be the start of beautiful relationship. The Swellers will release their new 7″ Welcome Back Riders, then return with a full length album towards the end of this year.

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Positive hardcore punks Set Your Goals recently used Twitter to generate a marketing frenzy for the new album which is due out on 21st July 2009.
They asked all their twitter followers to retweet the following message:

RT @therealsyg Check out our new song on Myspace! http://www.myspace.com/setyourgoals – New record in stores July 21st! – please RT!

In return, as a sneak peak, they would unlock one of the new tracks off the new album “This will be the death of us”. A simple but effective viral technique, which I think more bands will make the most of in time…

Go visit the Set Your Goals myspace and listen to their new tracks or even sign up to their street team if that’s your thing…

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