| One Bad Son |
| March 9, 2007 |
| Shane Volk, Adam Hicks, Ryan Serblowski, Kurt Dahl |
Katrina: How did you come up with the name for your band?
Shane: My brother came up with it just off the cuff one day when we were working out. Pretty boring story actually. He’s like “you know
what’s a really cool name, One Bad Son”, and I’m like that would be pretty sweet. I had that kicking around for a while before I met the
guys.
Kurt: We thought of One Band Son.
Shane: We get called it all the time.
Adam: We get called One Good Son in Red Deer.
Shane: So that’s pretty much it. I had it kicking around and we were looking for a name and it’s one of those things where a name is a
name kind of thing.
Katrina: Who are your musical influences growing up and have they changed?
Adam: I think my biggest influences growing up, probably my dad and some of his friends. I grew up in a musical family. First tunes I
learned were his jamming in the basement till six in the morning.
Kurt: Well Pearl Jam got me into music in the first place and bands like The Who made me a musician. Those were the first big influences
for me.
Ryan: My sister was a big influence on me. Introduced me into Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, but ultimately I share the same interests
as Hicks. A big name band would be Metalica, Cliff Burton’s bass solo is what got me playing bass.
Shane: When I was really young I didn’t listen to much just whatever, but when I really started tuning it was Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam,
Soundgarden especially. I always loved Guns N Roses and stuff like that. Which are still my biggest influences for me. Audioslave, Rage
Against The Machine I love.
Katrina: How do you write your songs and where do you get your ideas from?
Shane: Well we write them as a band. It’s not like one of those singer/songwriter, where one guy writes the songs and everyone plays it.
As far as riffs go and stuff we all sort of write them and whatever ideas come up. Once we got an idea Kurt lays down the drums for it and
Hicks makes the guitars and I do melodies and lyrics over that.
Adam: On the new album a lot of the songs come from jamming. Kurt would be like that’s sweet let’s jam that and it would turn into a
song or train wreck.
Kurt: We got that grant from Rawlco so we just released our first album so it was a really cool situation. We had three or four months to
write a bunch of songs and have them recorded by the deadline. So some bands might deliver some shit if they had that much time to
write an album. We all live together in the same house but we’re always jamming and working on ideas so the pressure kind of made us
write quickly and really solidly and we had tons of songs and picked the best.
Shane: Early on it was like I had songs of my own and Adam had songs of his own and Kurt had ideas of his own and we had another
bass player before. When did you join up?
Ryan: A month before the cd release of the first album.
Shane: So it was kind of just like, we just sort of put songs together for the first album and they worked out pretty good but lately it was
like Hicks said, we just would jam and ideas snowballed. We don’t really mess with each others parts. No one tells Dahl what to play and
no one tells Hicks what solos to play.
Kurt: The last bass player told me what to play one time and now he’s not in the band. So lesson learned.
Shane: It’s a group effort we’ll put it that way.
Katrina: What’s your favorite venue to play? (Outdoor, club...)
Ryan: I think right now mines the Urban Lounge.
Shane: It’s cool there. Personally I love outdoor shows. I was lucky enough to play Craven when it was still big and it was one of those
things where it’s huge open air, it was kind of the classic concert scene. I think for the band and for myself I don’t know if I have a favorite
bar. Bud’s has been fun because mostly pretty good crowds. But as far as a good room to play the Urban Lounge is always pretty sweet.
Kurt: I’ve always wanted to play an airport hanger. Like Tap.
Shane: We’re Spinaltap fanatics.
Adam: I don’t know. Doesn’t really matter the venue, the crowd if there’s a nice turnout it’s fun.
Shane: I guess the thing is if you’re playing a dump, if the crowds awesome it doesn’t really matter.
Katrina: What’s your most embarrassing moment?
Adam: I don’t think it’s us but bands we played with.
Kurt: We feel embarrassed for them. So we go on stage with red faces embarrassed.
Adam: Like them damn Coyotes.
Shane: Nothing to bad has happened. Me and Hicks collided hard in Red Deer one night.
Adam: I just got wireless so I’m all over and Shane’s all over and one time we hit hard.
Ryan: Or one time in Lethbridge when you were rubbing that lemon on that drumstick?
Shane: No that was in Grande Prairie. It was a super boring show like bad crowd and stuff so I was trying to get Kurt worked up and
stuck this lemon on his drumstick and put it on his leg while he was trying to drum. He didn’t miss a beat. I’ve bit it on stage a bunch of
times. Wiped out, passed out a couple of times but nothing too embarrassing. Never had a huge screw up or anything like that. Not yet.
Katrina: What’s your most memorable moment?
Kurt: I’d say opening for those damn Coyotes. That still brings out the best in me.
Shane: They were a really bad band. I think Serb’s bass smash was pretty cool.
Kurt: Yeah he smashed a bass at The Odeon.
Shane: That was pretty cool, it was fun. I think for me last time we were playing Bud’s when I saw a bunch of people starting to sing the
lyrics and stuff which is kind of cool when it’s your first time really seeing a bunch of people that you don’t know. It’s always cool to see
it. I mean that’s how they respond, you can tell people are actually listening to the stuff and not showing up for no reason.
Katrina: What’s your favorite song to perform?
Adam: “Crazy Bitch”.
Kurt: No we don’t do that.
Shane: That’s an inside joke.
Kurt: We are all inside jokes. Every band out there covers that song. We don’t play that. We’re not a cover band, we don’t want to play the
modern hits of the day. If we do any covers it’s because we have to at venues like this. We do ones we love, not ones that are hits. Our
focus is always on originals. Sometimes you get bars like we’ve played out of town where the crowd seems to be liking it and we find out
from the owner the covers didn’t work and wasn’t exactly what they were looking for. They want more mainstream covers. But it’s a
positive thing, we realized we don’t want to play those bars. We want to play originals like bands like Pearl Jam or Zeppelin. They weren’t
playing all covers. But to make it you have to play originals. Definitely for me I’d say either “Brooklyn” or “Hell Town”, they’re both so
intense songs and after the songs I’m spent.
Shane: My favorite cover to sing is probably “Yellow Ledbetter” or “Welcome To The Jungle” because I get to do some Axl style stuff.
But for originals I don’t know. I dig the new tune we got. It’s hard to narrow down because there’s no songs we really hate playing. Not
yet anyway.
Adam: “Hell Town” is always my favorite. But it depends, it’s “Hell Town” unless something goes drastically wrong.
Ryan: I’d have to say “Brooklyn” is my favorite to play. The intensity is pretty over the top.
Shane: That’s another brand new tune.
Adam: It would be something like “Hell Town” or something totally different like a stripped down song.
Katrina: Who causes the most trouble in the group?
Shane: Depends what you mean by trouble.
Kurt: I’d say no one in the group causes trouble but sources outside the group, not people but our ambitiion.
Shane: What he’s trying to say is depends on how much alcohol we have. What stage your at. The bands pretty close-knit.
Kurt: We all live together so we’re very tight.
Shane: It’s not that it’s a boring experience for us but I know me and Dahl, we’ve played with bands where you have outlandish, the idiot
who’s not fun anymore.
Kurt: So you ash who’s trouble and it’s like oh that guy ha ha ha as a musician he sucks when he drinks a lot.
Shane: There’s no real trouble makers, we lose Hicks from time to time.
Adam: I tend to go missing. But I recently acquired a cell phone.
Shane: We did have nights where it’s like where’s Hicks? He’s like a horse or dog that always comes home, because he gets hungry.
Kurt: He shows up.
Katrina: What advice can you give to people who are wanting to create a band?
Kurt: I’d say, don’t do it. Turn back while you still can.
Shane: The first thing is you got to decide why you’re in music because starting out if you want to do what we’re doing, and you’re trying
to play original music, like we talked about before, there’s so many venues that don’t want you to play. They want you to play covers that
you don’t want to play and stuff you don’t want to do. So if you want to be in a band like this you basically got to realize you’re gonna eat
a whole bunch of shit. We’ve been together for two years which is nothing in a life span of a band. Even still up to this point so much
stuff, a lot of people would be like the hell with this. Bar managers trying to stiff you, you always get people hating you because like Dahl
said they want you to play their favorite songs and you’re like no we’re an original band so they tell you to fuck off. But you get tons of
highs also from this stuff. If you’re a musician that want to just play, my only advice is just go and do it. I’d say no matter what your skill
level is there’s nothing better than getting out of your bedroom and getting a band together if you can. That in itself is a blast. Doesn’t
matter if it’s a cover band or an original band. That’s a great time but if you’re going to go to the next step and try to do what we’re doing
the rewards are way bigger. Because anybody can learn “Enter Sandman” and the crowd will love you for it, you could play the worst
version of it and they think you’re the shit and that’s a charge. But one you’ve written a song as a band and like I said the first time I saw
people actually singing one of our tunes it’s a so much better feeling. It’s something you as a band put and it’s a huge high. So I’d say the
first thing is just that, stick with it, practice non stop. We jam 2-3 times a week, play shows anytime. Especially now we’re going out of
town and some of our shows are awesome and some are terrible. Sometimes the crowds hate you and sometimes they love you. The first
thing for any band starting out, no matter what your age or your skill level is just go. If you got something you believe in, you think what
you got is great, just take it out. Don’t let anybody tell you that you shouldn’t do it. Everyone of us have had people going why aren’t you,
like Kurt has a law degree and they’re going why aren’t you doing that and making tons of money. It’s not the same, the pay-off in this is
such a bigger level than that. My advice is stick with it, you gotta take peoples criticism like you gotta listen to them obviously. If you do a
show and everyone hates you, you have to think maybe I have to change something. But bottom line is if you’re doing something you
love , like for us we know people are into the band, we don’t need to be validated all the time. We’ve had tons of great responses so most
of the time when we go out and people hate us, it’s just a one-off thing. We don’t take it to heart, we’ll just kill the next town. That’s the
thing, any musician will tell you, it’s the big cliche, chase your dreams, you really got to. If you got the dream like us and want to be
successful musicians, we don’t let anybody tell us not to. So that’s kind of the biggest thing.
Shane: My brother came up with it just off the cuff one day when we were working out. Pretty boring story actually. He’s like “you know
what’s a really cool name, One Bad Son”, and I’m like that would be pretty sweet. I had that kicking around for a while before I met the
guys.
Kurt: We thought of One Band Son.
Shane: We get called it all the time.
Adam: We get called One Good Son in Red Deer.
Shane: So that’s pretty much it. I had it kicking around and we were looking for a name and it’s one of those things where a name is a
name kind of thing.
Katrina: Who are your musical influences growing up and have they changed?
Adam: I think my biggest influences growing up, probably my dad and some of his friends. I grew up in a musical family. First tunes I
learned were his jamming in the basement till six in the morning.
Kurt: Well Pearl Jam got me into music in the first place and bands like The Who made me a musician. Those were the first big influences
for me.
Ryan: My sister was a big influence on me. Introduced me into Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, but ultimately I share the same interests
as Hicks. A big name band would be Metalica, Cliff Burton’s bass solo is what got me playing bass.
Shane: When I was really young I didn’t listen to much just whatever, but when I really started tuning it was Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam,
Soundgarden especially. I always loved Guns N Roses and stuff like that. Which are still my biggest influences for me. Audioslave, Rage
Against The Machine I love.
Katrina: How do you write your songs and where do you get your ideas from?
Shane: Well we write them as a band. It’s not like one of those singer/songwriter, where one guy writes the songs and everyone plays it.
As far as riffs go and stuff we all sort of write them and whatever ideas come up. Once we got an idea Kurt lays down the drums for it and
Hicks makes the guitars and I do melodies and lyrics over that.
Adam: On the new album a lot of the songs come from jamming. Kurt would be like that’s sweet let’s jam that and it would turn into a
song or train wreck.
Kurt: We got that grant from Rawlco so we just released our first album so it was a really cool situation. We had three or four months to
write a bunch of songs and have them recorded by the deadline. So some bands might deliver some shit if they had that much time to
write an album. We all live together in the same house but we’re always jamming and working on ideas so the pressure kind of made us
write quickly and really solidly and we had tons of songs and picked the best.
Shane: Early on it was like I had songs of my own and Adam had songs of his own and Kurt had ideas of his own and we had another
bass player before. When did you join up?
Ryan: A month before the cd release of the first album.
Shane: So it was kind of just like, we just sort of put songs together for the first album and they worked out pretty good but lately it was
like Hicks said, we just would jam and ideas snowballed. We don’t really mess with each others parts. No one tells Dahl what to play and
no one tells Hicks what solos to play.
Kurt: The last bass player told me what to play one time and now he’s not in the band. So lesson learned.
Shane: It’s a group effort we’ll put it that way.
Katrina: What’s your favorite venue to play? (Outdoor, club...)
Ryan: I think right now mines the Urban Lounge.
Shane: It’s cool there. Personally I love outdoor shows. I was lucky enough to play Craven when it was still big and it was one of those
things where it’s huge open air, it was kind of the classic concert scene. I think for the band and for myself I don’t know if I have a favorite
bar. Bud’s has been fun because mostly pretty good crowds. But as far as a good room to play the Urban Lounge is always pretty sweet.
Kurt: I’ve always wanted to play an airport hanger. Like Tap.
Shane: We’re Spinaltap fanatics.
Adam: I don’t know. Doesn’t really matter the venue, the crowd if there’s a nice turnout it’s fun.
Shane: I guess the thing is if you’re playing a dump, if the crowds awesome it doesn’t really matter.
Katrina: What’s your most embarrassing moment?
Adam: I don’t think it’s us but bands we played with.
Kurt: We feel embarrassed for them. So we go on stage with red faces embarrassed.
Adam: Like them damn Coyotes.
Shane: Nothing to bad has happened. Me and Hicks collided hard in Red Deer one night.
Adam: I just got wireless so I’m all over and Shane’s all over and one time we hit hard.
Ryan: Or one time in Lethbridge when you were rubbing that lemon on that drumstick?
Shane: No that was in Grande Prairie. It was a super boring show like bad crowd and stuff so I was trying to get Kurt worked up and
stuck this lemon on his drumstick and put it on his leg while he was trying to drum. He didn’t miss a beat. I’ve bit it on stage a bunch of
times. Wiped out, passed out a couple of times but nothing too embarrassing. Never had a huge screw up or anything like that. Not yet.
Katrina: What’s your most memorable moment?
Kurt: I’d say opening for those damn Coyotes. That still brings out the best in me.
Shane: They were a really bad band. I think Serb’s bass smash was pretty cool.
Kurt: Yeah he smashed a bass at The Odeon.
Shane: That was pretty cool, it was fun. I think for me last time we were playing Bud’s when I saw a bunch of people starting to sing the
lyrics and stuff which is kind of cool when it’s your first time really seeing a bunch of people that you don’t know. It’s always cool to see
it. I mean that’s how they respond, you can tell people are actually listening to the stuff and not showing up for no reason.
Katrina: What’s your favorite song to perform?
Adam: “Crazy Bitch”.
Kurt: No we don’t do that.
Shane: That’s an inside joke.
Kurt: We are all inside jokes. Every band out there covers that song. We don’t play that. We’re not a cover band, we don’t want to play the
modern hits of the day. If we do any covers it’s because we have to at venues like this. We do ones we love, not ones that are hits. Our
focus is always on originals. Sometimes you get bars like we’ve played out of town where the crowd seems to be liking it and we find out
from the owner the covers didn’t work and wasn’t exactly what they were looking for. They want more mainstream covers. But it’s a
positive thing, we realized we don’t want to play those bars. We want to play originals like bands like Pearl Jam or Zeppelin. They weren’t
playing all covers. But to make it you have to play originals. Definitely for me I’d say either “Brooklyn” or “Hell Town”, they’re both so
intense songs and after the songs I’m spent.
Shane: My favorite cover to sing is probably “Yellow Ledbetter” or “Welcome To The Jungle” because I get to do some Axl style stuff.
But for originals I don’t know. I dig the new tune we got. It’s hard to narrow down because there’s no songs we really hate playing. Not
yet anyway.
Adam: “Hell Town” is always my favorite. But it depends, it’s “Hell Town” unless something goes drastically wrong.
Ryan: I’d have to say “Brooklyn” is my favorite to play. The intensity is pretty over the top.
Shane: That’s another brand new tune.
Adam: It would be something like “Hell Town” or something totally different like a stripped down song.
Katrina: Who causes the most trouble in the group?
Shane: Depends what you mean by trouble.
Kurt: I’d say no one in the group causes trouble but sources outside the group, not people but our ambitiion.
Shane: What he’s trying to say is depends on how much alcohol we have. What stage your at. The bands pretty close-knit.
Kurt: We all live together so we’re very tight.
Shane: It’s not that it’s a boring experience for us but I know me and Dahl, we’ve played with bands where you have outlandish, the idiot
who’s not fun anymore.
Kurt: So you ash who’s trouble and it’s like oh that guy ha ha ha as a musician he sucks when he drinks a lot.
Shane: There’s no real trouble makers, we lose Hicks from time to time.
Adam: I tend to go missing. But I recently acquired a cell phone.
Shane: We did have nights where it’s like where’s Hicks? He’s like a horse or dog that always comes home, because he gets hungry.
Kurt: He shows up.
Katrina: What advice can you give to people who are wanting to create a band?
Kurt: I’d say, don’t do it. Turn back while you still can.
Shane: The first thing is you got to decide why you’re in music because starting out if you want to do what we’re doing, and you’re trying
to play original music, like we talked about before, there’s so many venues that don’t want you to play. They want you to play covers that
you don’t want to play and stuff you don’t want to do. So if you want to be in a band like this you basically got to realize you’re gonna eat
a whole bunch of shit. We’ve been together for two years which is nothing in a life span of a band. Even still up to this point so much
stuff, a lot of people would be like the hell with this. Bar managers trying to stiff you, you always get people hating you because like Dahl
said they want you to play their favorite songs and you’re like no we’re an original band so they tell you to fuck off. But you get tons of
highs also from this stuff. If you’re a musician that want to just play, my only advice is just go and do it. I’d say no matter what your skill
level is there’s nothing better than getting out of your bedroom and getting a band together if you can. That in itself is a blast. Doesn’t
matter if it’s a cover band or an original band. That’s a great time but if you’re going to go to the next step and try to do what we’re doing
the rewards are way bigger. Because anybody can learn “Enter Sandman” and the crowd will love you for it, you could play the worst
version of it and they think you’re the shit and that’s a charge. But one you’ve written a song as a band and like I said the first time I saw
people actually singing one of our tunes it’s a so much better feeling. It’s something you as a band put and it’s a huge high. So I’d say the
first thing is just that, stick with it, practice non stop. We jam 2-3 times a week, play shows anytime. Especially now we’re going out of
town and some of our shows are awesome and some are terrible. Sometimes the crowds hate you and sometimes they love you. The first
thing for any band starting out, no matter what your age or your skill level is just go. If you got something you believe in, you think what
you got is great, just take it out. Don’t let anybody tell you that you shouldn’t do it. Everyone of us have had people going why aren’t you,
like Kurt has a law degree and they’re going why aren’t you doing that and making tons of money. It’s not the same, the pay-off in this is
such a bigger level than that. My advice is stick with it, you gotta take peoples criticism like you gotta listen to them obviously. If you do a
show and everyone hates you, you have to think maybe I have to change something. But bottom line is if you’re doing something you
love , like for us we know people are into the band, we don’t need to be validated all the time. We’ve had tons of great responses so most
of the time when we go out and people hate us, it’s just a one-off thing. We don’t take it to heart, we’ll just kill the next town. That’s the
thing, any musician will tell you, it’s the big cliche, chase your dreams, you really got to. If you got the dream like us and want to be
successful musicians, we don’t let anybody tell us not to. So that’s kind of the biggest thing.
