Divine Right

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This interview was challenging to say the least. I was to spend a few moments with Dead and Divine guitarist Chris LeMasters before his band was to perform at the Silverstein concert in Toronto last week to talk about their upcoming album, the recording process, song-writing, new “drummer boy” Kyle Anderson, mythical creatures—all that jazz. While partaking in pre-interview drinking, it occurred to us we had no idea how the hell we were going to do this interview. We needed a quiet place to sit down and talk, but such a place is a tough find at a rock concert. We ended up in the quasi-restaurant located within the Opera House. I had only a few minutes before Kingdoms was to take the stage and ruin my capability to record the interview.

No time could be wasted. So we sat down and the server looked displeased because we were there to just talk. No food, no drinks. So I ordered a Coke out of guilt and Chris promised to buy a hamburger after the show, although, in true Dead and Divine style, he never did. It was a total bullshit lie.

Dead and Divine is Burlington’s post-hardcore antithesis to the city’s more pop-punk or screamo acts, such as Boys Night Out and Silverstein, with an attitude to match the heavy music. “We’re not mature,” admits LeMasters, in reference to the video blogs the band has been making to document the recording of their new album, The Machines We Are. “Right when we started doing pre-production on the record, our label gave us a video camera, and they were like, ‘Just fuck around with it, dudes. Just go nuts.’ We’re all complete idiots so we always wanted to document how stupid we are all the time. Anything that’s remotely funny or remotely stupid goes in the video blog. Absolutely none of it has anything to do with the recording.” In the latest video blog, posted on the band’s MySpace page, perhaps the funniest moment was when LeMasters showed the infamous “One Man, One Cup” video to the album’s producers and engineers while at the studio.

But Dead and Divine is serious about one thing: establishing themselves as a heavy hardcore band, especially after the release of their first full-length record The Fanciful early last year. As LeMasters explains, the songs on the upcoming The Machines We Are are going to be “heavy as fuck.”

In order to get their desired heavy sound, they took an efficacious approach: actually taking time off to write songs. “We were touring a lot and we always wanted to write heavier stuff, but the last time on The Fanciful we were sort of mixing songs we had written two years ago with new stuff, so we didn’t really get a chance to write everything on the spot, you know, actually take time off to just write an entire record all at once. So this time around it was easier because we took time off and focused one-hundred percent on writing.”

The addition of drummer Kyle Anderson to the band also had an effect on the song-writing. Anderson, formerly of the Burlington pop-punk band Sydney, joined Dead and Divine after former drummer Ryan Leger left last summer. “He’s great; he’s definitely an influence on (the song-writing),” remarks LeMasters. “He’s a super tight drummer so it’s rad having a dude like that in the band.”

Indeed, a new drummer exemplifies the roller-coaster ride full of new experiences that Dead and Divine has encountered over the past several months. They recently signed with Distort Entertainment, the record label that boasts such acts as Alexisonfire and Cancer Bats. “It’s refreshing because we had been working with the same dudes for a really long time, so it’s always nice to be able to have new people working with the band,” notes LeMasters. “It could really help us get more exposure. Distort is a super great label.”

Recording for The Machines We Are is also the first time the band has worked with a professional engineer and producer, as Eric Ratz (Cancer Bats, Billy Talent) and Garth Richardson (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine) are lending their services during recording at Vespa Studios, a top-of-the-line studio which is also a first for Dead and Divine. “We haven’t recorded there before so everything right now is really neat for us,” LeMasters admits. “We haven’t recorded with Kyle and we just met up with Ratz and Garth. (The album) will be heavy, beautiful, melodic, and lovely.”

When asked which mythical creature he would want to be, LeMasters’ answer was fitting. “Unicorn, by far; they’re majestic. Fuck yeah, man, it’d be awesome!” Majestic, just like he maintains the new album will be. The Machines We Are is slated for a summer 2009 release.

It's Not Me, It's You

He's Just Not That Into You
Directed By Ken Kwapis. Starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Justin Long, Jennifer Connelly, Ginnifer Goodwin, Kevin Connolly, and Bradley Cooper.
2/5 Stars

I don't even think if He’s Just Not That Into You knows whether or not it's a romantic comedy. I know I don't.

Here’s the lowdown: Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) likes Conor (Kevin Connolly), but he is infatuated with Anna (Scarlett Johansson), who in turn has a crush on Ben (Bradley Cooper). Ben also likes Anna but he is married to Janine (Jennifer Connelly), making Anna and Ben’s relationship difficult. Janine is friends with Beth (Jennifer Aniston), who is in a relationship with Ben’s friend Neil (Ben Affleck). Neil loves Beth but won’t marry her (the old “If it ain’t broke then why fix it?” philosophy). Janine and Beth are friends with Gigi, who begins a peculiar friendship with Conor’s friend Alex (Justin Long). Conor, meanwhile, gradually develops an intriguing business relationship with Anna’s friend Mary (Drew Barrymore). Simple, see?

I enjoyed the first 20 minutes of this movie immensely. It started off as a film not about a romance but just a film about romance itself, and all of the paranoia, nervousness, neurosis, and idiosyncrasies that come along with courting and flirting in our modern-day world. Even all of the dialogue concerning technology’s relationship to romance was spot on. I am also a highly neurotic guy who has the tendency to over-think a lot, which helped me to sympathize with Gigi, whom likely would merely just come off as a pathetic, paranoid SWF to most other men.

The problem is, after the first 20 minutes or so, we get it. There’s nothing much more this script can do. It juggles back and forth between so many barely interrelated side plots that there is no real main plot, and none of the relationships can develop.

I was one of the few men in the theatre in which I saw the film. When Neil finally proposed to Beth towards the end of the movie (this isn’t so much a spoiler because there’s nothing much to spoil; like I said, there’s not really a main plotline to this film, just a dozen sub-plots instead) all of the girls “aweeed” and cried but I just didn't care. Not a lick. Why should I care what happens to Neil and Beth when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Anniston have so little screen time? The movie is unfair to its audience, as it expects us to make an emotional investment into the characters and their relationships without in turn giving us anything to care about.

This isn’t the actors’ faults. They are all good and are capable (and have demonstrated before) that they can handle more in-depth material than this. Ben Affleck, for example, can play any role. Kevin Smith would cast Affleck as the shark in Jaws 5 and I wouldn’t object. But the screenplay gives them all no room to move.

Even at times when a scene has potential, the screenplay cuts it short to jump to another underdeveloped and less important story. The troubled marriage between Ben and Janine was one of only two relationships that I had any amount of interest in (the other being Gigi and Alex’s), and only because it played out as drama instead of comedy. They are in a hardware store and Ben confesses his infidelity. There was a loud gasp from the audience. I watched in curious anticipation, and we see Janine react and we sympathize, and there is a brief exchange of dialogue, but not nearly enough.

The film's ending at least is somewhat admirable. Not everybody gets the happy ending; in fact, three of the nine main characters end up being alone and miserable. The moral: some people live happily ever after and others don’t. Who would’ve thought from a romantic comedy...I think?