Marianas Trench Take Their Masterpiece on the Road

Vancouver’s pop rock band Marianas Trench has been making beautiful noise with their sophomore album Masterpiece Theatre. Not only has the album been well received, but it hit platinum, giving the band even more motivation to go on tour to support the album and the release of Masterpiece Theatre – Director’s Cut, which has bonus songs, behind-the-scenes footage and was created as a homage to the band’s loyal fans. Recently, I caught up with lead singer Josh Ramsay over the phone to talk about Masterpiece Theatre and his favourite Christmas holiday traditions.

YT: Your single Cross My Heart absolutely exploded nationwide. What is it about this song that resonates with your fans and what is it like to hear your music played all across the country?
JR: It’s amazing. It’s a really important song for us because it was sort of a first one in Canada that was a real radio hit, yah know? It took us a long time to get to that point, so that song will always be very special to me, because of that. And, I don’t know why people seem to resonate with that one, I guess… I don’t know, I guess people like the hand clapping. (laughs) I think the important thing to me, is that it resonates with people in some form or another. If people can identify with the song, that’s amazing, and I think the reasons why for people, are always different because the song always means something different to each person who hears it.

YT: Coming off the success of Fix Me did you feel any pressure when writing and recording your sophomore album?
JR: I did feel pressure because the first record wasn’t that successful, but you know we got really lucky with the last single on the album, having a hit video, even though it was never a hit song on the radio. But, I felt that I really wanted the second record to be better than the first one. And, the intimidating part for me at that point in time was that, when you do your first album, you’ve had your whole life to write it. Like, you go into the studio and you just take the best 10 or 11 songs that you’ve ever written and there’s your album. The upside of that is at the time it’s the best you got. But the downside to that is that you don’t necessarily have the most cohesive album. Because you weren’t actually writing specifically to write an album you were just writing songs. And then you go in to do the second album, and instead of having your whole life to write it you have six months to do it. At the time that seemed like a really daunting and overwhelming task for me. and I think I just used that pressure that I felt to make it stronger, I just used that pressure to fuel me to be like, “anyone who didn’t think that I could write it,” I’m gonna be like “f*** you” and I’m gonna write something better, yah know? I really needed to make myself feel as much of a professional to do as well as I could, and to just write the best songs that I could.

YT: In a previous interview, you mentioned that the goal for Masterpiece Theatre was to give it more of a symphonic feel, while still incorporating the pop music sound. How did that vision come about and how challenging was it to turn that vision into a reality?
JR: I felt that there was a certain kind of theatricality in the way that I was writing songs for the record, and I wanted it to feel like sort of an old school record in the way of the 60’s or 70’s, when they would experiment a lot more with writing pop symphony, like Brian Wilson used to do that, for the Beach Boys and stuff. And I wanted to do an updated take on that idea. And it just seemed to suit the way that I write songs, because I was writing songs with a lot of larger-than-life characteristics to them. I just thought that would work well. And believe me, if people thought that record was artsy and theatrical, wait ‘til you hear the next one, man. I’m already part way through it, and it is crazy.

YT: Bassist Mike Ayley gave credit to Raine Maida for encouraging the band to find a, “personality-identity,” at the same beginning of the recording process. What personality-identity did you discover?
JR: I found my own voice more as a writer. I think on the first one [album] I was just writing songs with no specific direction. And I think on the second record, I really wanted the record to feel like you were watching a musical, like a play or something. And I think I found my voice as a writer that way. And since that point in time, I’ve found ways to make that voice less evident, because I’ve been writing a lot of songs for other artists. Another person doesn’t wanna come to me and have a song written for them that sounds like it could have been a Marianas Trench song. I’ve had to learn how to take that personality out and to write for somebody else with personality, which I find a very interesting challenge.

YT: Masterpiece Theatre has three title songs, what was the motivation behind creating those kinds of bookends for the album?
JR: It came from wanting to feel like a musical. When you watch a musical, like if you watch a great Broadway show, the title of the play is always that first opening number, with the full cast and everything. And always at the beginning of the second act, there’s always like a symphonic reprise of the opening number, which is what Master Theatre II was. It was like a reprise of the first song that felt more symphonic and more like a score than a specific song. And then the most important one is the closer, because in a play, there’s always that moment at the climax of the play, where there’s the big song, and every character from the play comes out and sings a little piece of the song, that they had sung in the play, and they all medley together. So I wanted to try and do that on a pop/rock record. So that was by far the most important one, figuring out a way to medley every song on the album into one song at the end. And plus, I threw in a little line that was the opening line to the first album, as the closing line to the second album… to sort of tie in the first record to it.

YT: The lyrics in the song, Acadia seem very personal. What’s the story behind this song?
JR: That was a challenging song for me lyrically, because I don’t usually write nostalgic songs like that. Some people are great at that song writing, and that was a new thing, lyrically, for me to try and tackle. But, the house that I had grown up in had been a great place for me, and I had a lot of great memories of friends and stuff in high school. And I just wanted to write a song to be an homage to that time in my life. And that song actually went through more lyrical changes than probably any of the other songs on the record. I think I originally had the idea, lyrically, on the first record. And I just couldn’t pull it off, I couldn’t get it together. So, it went through probably four or five versions before it got to the version that actually ended up on the album.

YT: When you first thought of running that online contest to have an audience member sing on stage with you, did you ever anticipate the winner would eventually become a labelmate of yours?
JR: No. That wasn’t the point. I just wanted to do something because our fans have been so awesome to us, and so awesome in being the driving force in any success we’ve had that people have requested songs on the radio and videos on TV and coming to shows and telling their friends about it. I realized that some of our fans would probably be singers, and I thought it would be a cool thing to invite someone onstage to sing. That was really the only goal at the time. And then Jessica [Lee] won, and she did such a good job, that we had talked about releasing that song as the last single on the album, but we were always going to re-record it, because, like the original recording was good, but it didn’t really sound like a radio kind of production, so I wanted to redo it, and have it sound more radio. And I was just like, f*** that’d be cool if we asked Jessica to do it, so I called her on like a Sunday and said, “Hey do you wanna be on the song (Good To You) and be in the video?” and she was like, “okay” and I said, “okay, you gotta be in Vancouver tomorrow, we’re gonna record you tomorrow, and then we shoot the video the next day.” (laughs) And, as a result of that performance, then we signed her to the label because she did so well.

YT: I understand that you’re producing Jessica’s debut album. Have you produced another artist’s album before and how different is it to produce an album for someone?
JR: It’s not that difficult, I actually find it interesting because it gives me a chance to work in genres of music that I don’t normally do. So as a songwriter and a producer, it really pushes me to learn new tricks, which I really enjoy. But yeah, I produced for a lot of other people, and written for a lot of other people that don’t sound like [Marianas Trench]. This year I did some stuff on the Faber Drive album, I did some stuff on the Girlicious album, which just came out, which was the most drastic departure that I’ve done. And the Danny Fernandes album, that just came out, Susie McNeil’s album that is coming out soon. I did a country/pop record for a new artist named Melissa Ray Barry, I don’t think the album is out yet, but it’s coming out soon. I’ve been trying to do as many different things as possible because with music, I am the most interested in variety. I find that working on some of that stuff will fuel me to then go into Marianas Trench with having more variety in our stuff, because then I’ve got experience having worked outside of the genre. It’s like if you’re a director, you don’t only wanna direct horror movies. You’re gonna get better at your craft by doing as many different styles as you can.

YT: How did the idea of creating Masterpiece Theatre: Director’s Cut come about and what can fans expect from behind-the-scenes footage?
JR: We came up with the idea, because after the album went platinum, we wanted to release something that would have some extra stuff on it as a thank you to all the fans that had made it possible in the first place. So we wanted to add some stuff, with what it’s like hanging out with the band… what we do. So there’s a whole bunch of behind the scenes stuff talking about the videos and how they were made. I think there’s some stuff in there of us messing around in the studio, and I did a couple of extra tracks as well, so there’s a few new recordings on it and stuff. And I think it turned out really well.

YT: You released Masterpiece Theatre in the U.S. What has the response been and what are the biggest challenges in trying to break into the U.S market?
JR: The response has been really positive in the U.S, so far. We’ve been really lucky a lot of radio stations have started to play it. Which is amazing, and I think the biggest challenges there, are the same as it was here… it’s just getting your foot in the door. The hardest hit you ever have is the first one, because no one knows who you are. So I think that’s what we’re dealing with now. We’re slowly connecting the dots, gotta have the songs on the radio, then you gotta go out and play in the cities, and you hope that however many people show up, even if it’s five people who each tell someone, and the next time you come, hopefully there’s 10, and you grow from there.

YT: You’re known for your amazing voice. How difficult is it to maintain your voice when performing almost every night while on tour?
JR: It’s very difficult. It’s really hard. The two things that make it challenging are the exhausting nature of performing your set every night, on your throat is tough. But, on top of that, what gets me more is usually the fact that I don’t usually sleep that much on the road because you might have to get up super early and drive for 10 hours. That can be taxing. I never ever party after a show. Very rarely do that because that’s the easiest way to kill your throat. That’s challenging, and also getting sick is challenging, because you shake a lot of people’s hands. And I know that sounds paranoid. But, even if you think that like five per cent of people are sick, if you shake like 200 peoples’ hands a day, you’re exposing yourself to a lot of people who are gonna give you a cold or something. You just get run down. But, you just do what you have to do, you try and sleep when you can, not talk as much during the day before the shows, and you do your best.

YT: What are some Christmas holiday traditions you look forward to every year?
JR: Well at my sister’s home, I’ll go over and help them decorate the tree. And I always try and sneak a bit of food that will rot and then smell, inside of her tree. So, I’m a big fan of hiding like a few pieces of meat somewhere in her tree.

YT: What can fans expect from Marianas Trench in 2011? Any New Year’s resolutions?
JR: Well, in 2011 we could look forward, hopefully, to a new album, which will have a simultaneous release in the U.S and Canada, so we don’t have to make U.S. fans wait a year-and-a-half later for the album to come out. That’s the big one. I mean, I’m working on it now, so I’m hoping it can be out for 2011. And that’s the thing we’re most excited about. In terms of New Years resolutions, I like to set the bar low, so that I don’t disappoint myself. Because I used to make these big grandiose resolutions that I would never live up to. So this year it’s gonna be more simple things, like this year I’m gonna resolve that I’m gonna buy a new pair of pants, because I’ll probably do that at some point in the year. I’m going to drink water… sometimes. And I’m also resolving to brush my teeth. Yeah, I feel really good about that.