Keeping Up with Marianas Trench

Chatting with local boys Marianas Trench about their latest album and the international music scene.

Almost a decade since the release of its first EP, Fix Me, Vancouver’s own Marianas Trench has become an established name in Canadian pop-punk music. With the release of the band’s latest album, Ever After, which is a single 54-minute track created from 12 separate songs, and an upcoming Canadian tour, Marianas Trench and its fans have lots to be hyped up about. Youthink recently caught up with all four band members – guitarist Matt Webb (pictured far left), bassist Mike Ayley (pictured second from left), lead vocalist Josh Ramsay (pictured second from right) and drummer Ian Casselman (pictured far right) – to get insight into the band’s sources of inspiration for Ever After, the guys’ future plans to hit the international scene and which video game characters they’d most like to be.


YT: How did this idea of stringing 12 songs into the 54-minute track come about?

JR: I had that idea before our first album. I always wanted to do a record that was like that, but, you know, you don’t do that for your first album. The second album, we sort of played with the idea a little bit and ultimately realized I wasn’t ready.


YT: Artists such as the Beach Boys, Queen and Michael Jackson had an influence on Ever After. What is it about their music that you relate to?

MA: I think all of those artists were willing to try different stuff from what was going on in music at the time. Like Queen, I don’t know if it was way ahead of the time, because not a lot of people had done a lot of that stuff anyways since, so I don’t know. It’s just really cool to be influenced by people who were willing to push the envelope.

IC: Same with the Beach Boys, they were pretty original. It’s crazy what they were doing. Nobody was doing it. 


YT: Your music videos, like Shake Tramp, Good to You and, most recently, Haven’t Had Enough, are often set in different eras. If you could live in a different era, which would it be and why?

JR: I’ll tell you what decade I wouldn’t have wanted to be around in is the ‘70s. The ‘70s just strikes me as a stinky era. Think about it. Whenever you watch movies that were done in the ‘70s, it just seems like a lot of body hair and I’m guessing not a lot of deodorant, probably [smelled] like patchouli or something.


YT: How excited are you for your upcoming tour with Simple Plan, All Time Low and These Kids Wear Crowns this month?

MA: I think that’ll be a lot of fun ‘cause it’s our first cross-country arena tour. We’ve obviously done arenas in Canada before, but I think this is going to be pretty exciting. It’ll be a bit more of a show this time, more of a production. We’re going to try and add a lot of elements to the live show that you haven’t seen from us before and I think that’ll be neat. I mean, we’ve just spent the last six weeks in a row with Simple Plan in the States, so we know those guys well and we had a really good time together. I think that coming home to do a big tour here is going to be pretty rewarding.


YT: What have you taken away the most from all 
the months you’ve spent 
on the road touring? How has the experience influenced the band?

MA: It’s not always positive. There’s limitations to what your body can do. Meaning, like, you just need to look after yourself and get sleep. And you really respect the value of a good meal and a good night’s sleep and running water. I’ve been home for a few days now and have had a few good sleeps in a row and it’s like I feel amazing! I realized how happy I felt.

JR: Yeah, when I got home, I had slept like f***ing a** for however long we were out. I got home, and that first night I got home, I almost slept for 16 hours and I woke up feeling awesome.

MA: Yeah, I slept for 20 [hours]. I’ve like been getting eight or nine hours of sleep and taking naps. I figure over those six weeks is probably about a hundred quality hours short of just normal, or what the bare normal minimum is.

JR: It’s like an hour of sleep on a bus is like 20 minutes of real sleep.

IC: And we weren’t doing anything; we weren’t like partying it up or anything like that. Just press… we weren’t being like rock stars.

MA: I think we’ve learned that we’re going to need to set some restrictions up on some of the future touring so it’s more tolerable. Like having morning interviews and morning performances doesn’t work when you’re already sleeping like crap.

JR: If you’ve only slept two hours being like, “OK, now we’re playing Good Morning Chicago at 6:00 a.m.” kinda f***ing sucks. 


YT: If you could be any video game or fairy-tale character, who would you be and why?

MA: I might be Luigi from Mario Brothers ‘cause then I could get away with the giant moustache. I could have the big, thick, like ‘70s-style, moustache.

MW: I might be Duke Nukem just ‘cause he’s pretty bada**.

JR: I thought you would have gone with the Chief from Halo.

MW: Nah, too modern. I like Duke ‘cause he’s got a little edge, you know?

MA: Ian would be Pac Man.

JR: Just mindless mouth moving (imitates Pac Man)… I’m going to go with… OK, this is both video game and fairy tale… I’m going to go with Link. Link’s pretty bada**, man. He always says cool stuff.

MA: I wouldn’t like being one of the ducks from Duck Hunter – short life expectancy.


YT: What is the ultimate goal for Marianas Trench?

JR: I’d like to make a couple more good records. 

MW: Yeah, that’d be good. 

MA: Just a couple more good records and tour internationally too… it’d be neat to see the world doing this job and maybe to equal our success outside of Canada, in the United States, Europe, stuff like that.

IC: Australia, New Zealand and Asia kind of thing.

JR: Matt just wants to be big in Korea.

MA: Just world domination is really all Ian’s talking about.

Catch Marianas Trench on tour in February:
-Vancouver at the PNE Forum on February 11th
-Calgary at Stampede Corral on February 13th
-Edmonton at Rexall Place on February 14th