Montreal’s power-pop slingers The Sick Things talk about love songs, teenage nostalgia, and take The Chowlist

Sometimes when bands split up, the members drop completely out of the game, never to be seen again. Other times, they’ll re-emerge in different forms, bigger and bolder than before.

Enter The Sick Things: Montreal’s newest power pop powerhouse, risen from the ashes of local metal band Barn Burner and non-metal bands, Beat Cops, Trigger Effect, Prevenge, and others that have dropped out of the game.

The Sick Things are Cam Turin on lead vox and guitars (Barn Burner, Prevenge, Nerve Control), Matt Gonzalez on drums (Sangomas), Keith Lewtas on guitars (Windpisser), and Pat Bennett on bass guitar (Trigger Effect, Beat Cops, Barn Burner). They’ve been described as nostalgic for the 1970s, an hommage to Big Star and Cheap Trick, and to the days when that punchy music style emerged, when rock ‘n’ roll became synonymous with sex, drugs and long-haired weirdos (quite befitting for this band).

The band’s moniker stems from Cam’s childhood obsession with his Alice Cooper cassette tapes. When Cam met Matt and their original bass player, Stefan at a Barn Burner show, they would ruminate about starting a project together for years, before eventually taking the dive with Cam’s buddy Keith and working on tunes Cam had “lying around”.

Soon after forming,  Stefan left the band to return to his studies in South Africa, and Pat filled in the bass player spot. Today, they’re getting ready for their upcoming gig opening for legendary UK punk rockers Buzzcocks.

We spoke to lead Sick Thing and master pun-man, Cam Turin, about the band’s emergence, personal failures, and Montreal’s best-kept secrets.

Bad Feeling Magazine: You released a demo last December to much praise… what can expect from the Sick Things in the near future and will we be disappointed?

Cam Turin: The past year has been a pretty amazing little roller-coaster for us. We released the demo and began picking up steam (this is one of those crappy old timey roller-coasters that’s powered by steam), and then abruptly our original bass player Stefan made his exit in order to pursue his studies in his home country of South Africa. Enter: Patrick Bennett. Pat and I are old friends, and gigged together in Barn Burner. I had already wanted Pat to contribute to the record we were writing, but in a producer/arranger capacity. His last band, Beat Cops, ended in the summer and the timing was just right for him to take over on bass.

As of right now, we’re wrapping up our arrangements and getting ready for Pre-production with the almighty Ian Blurton [Change of Heart, Bionic], who will be engineering and producing the record in January of 2017. I do not believe this record will be disappointing. We’ve been spending months putting each song under the microscope to present a hard hitting, catchy, poppy, rock and roll extravaganza.

BFM: I hear a lot of Cheap Trick in The Sick Things … how would you describe your sound?

Thank you! Someone once told me our sound is “nostalgic”. I don’t like terms like “throwback” or “retro-rock”, we’re just playing music the way we like to hear it, but nostalgic is a term I can get behind. It sounds like the music we all heard that first made us go, “Whoa… this is awesome!”

I think I try to capture the same feelings I had when I was a kid listening to records in my room. It’s all very teenage.

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BFM: What’s one thing you’d take away from playing in previous bands?

CT: This is the first band I’m in where I’m the principal songwriter and singer in quite a long time. I spent my early twenties trying to learn how to be a good performer, and to actually, physically put on a show. I learned how to tour and how to navigate the bullshit that comes with it, and what type of people to keep in your camp. I don’t believe it could come down to one thing, but rather a million things you learn from all your combined failures and successes. I guess that’s applicable to most things in life though. I once played a show when I was 17 or 18, where my band got booed going on stage. I always think about that, and if I step on stage and don’t hear a chorus of boo’s, I go “Ok good, they don’t hate you yet. You’re already off to a good start.”

BFM: There was another punk band in the late 1970s from London, UK circa Sex Pistols and they sang about S&M, bondage and taking it up the arse. Will these be the same subject matter for future songs for the Sick Things from Montreal?

CT: Ahhh, I’ve heard tales of this other band but never listened to them. I don’t think any of those subjects will come up, they’re all a little too British. The lyrics are the hardest part, and I can’t guarantee the album won’t be 12 back-to-back love songs. They will be as honest as possible though!

BFM: Cam, what are your views on modern day pop versus pop of yore?

CT: I work as a bartender at the Fairmount Theatre so I get to see a lot of new bands. Many nights as I gaze out at the sold-out crowd of twenty year old teenagers with poor knowledge of the service industry and its customs, I think to myself “I should have learned to play the laptop”.

If it’s catchy, I will most definitely like it, but for the most part, contemporary pop music is not interesting to me. I don’t think the format has changed at all, it’s just the instrumentation that’s different now. It’s still some middle aged fat guy writing songs from his hover castle, pitching them to labels and producers and then they get some kid to sing over it. It’s the same story we’ve all known for years. Every now and again a song comes out and I go “Whoa that’s good,” and other times it’s crap. Go through the Billboard charts from decades ago and see what songs dominated, I think it’s balanced between crap and timeless.

BFM: What’s the best thing about the music scene in Montreal? And what is the worst part about it?

CT: The best thing is that we have one! We have a fantastic music scene, with festivals, and a large community of hard-working people who live and breathe this stuff. There are so many opportunities to grow as an artist, and countless bars and venues hosting a wide variety of talent, that you can make a pretty serious go at your craft.

The worst part is it’s not unique to Montreal. The worst part is the people who exploit and take advantage. But we have so many amazing little communities and organizers who are doing it right, I would rather just focus on the good people.

BFM: On a banana scale, how much are you looking forward to this Buzzcocks show?

CT: I can’t plantain.

Here’s the quiz – name the five best/worst Montreal secrets:

• The tam-tams on Mount Royal was organized by the police vice squad in the 60’s as a way to corral the cities drug users and degenerates into one place where they could be monitored.
• You can be fined if you bring your dog to a dog park and it doesn’t understand basic commands in both French and English.
• The founders of Outremont were all Huguenots. Everyone knows there are no rich Catholics.
• There was once a secret society called the Resbitonians that dominated the municipal political scene but they lost all of their money in a failed condo development. I guess ‘failed’ is superfluous here.
• The term for when you meet someone and you both start speaking French to each other when your mother tongue is English, and your accents slowly start to emerge is called Jeanne-Mance-ing.

The five best burgers:

The five McDonald’s cheeseburgers I ate when I was wasted 4 years ago. Those are subsequently the five worst burgers.

Your five best dad jokes:

1. I think Dracula sucks.
2. I find fantasy books hobbit forming
3. Knowing sign language is pretty handy.
4. My friend’s bakery burned down; now his business is toast.
5. I met a guy with a glass eye last night. He didn’t tell me, it just kind of fell out in conversation.

The five most memorable episodes of Seinfeld:

CT: I’ll pick moments as opposed to the episodes because my brain will explode if you force me to do that.

1. The episode where Elaine makes references to Cheryl Miller, while the guys keep talking about Reggie Miller and she says “ I didn’t know Cheryl miller had a brother…” It’s a great feminist jab, but the whole scene perfectly captures how little we care about women and their achievements.
2. When Jerry wears the glasses to fool Lloyd Braun, and is sitting in the car and stares out the window with his huge eyes. Whenever someone sends me a panicked text or frantic message, I’ll text back with that screenshot.
3. Anything to do with Frank Costanza. Especially the episode with the Korean salon, and Frank tells Elaine a story, making reference to the Buddy Rich tapes. “This guy… This is not my kinda guy”
4. Jerry: “Kramer are you reading my VCR manual?”
   Kramer: “Well, we can’t all be reading the classics, Professor Highbrow…”
5. Kramer: “That’s a rooster? That looks like a dog with a glove on its head…”

The five best Thin Lizzy songs:

1. For Those Who Love To Live – Fighting (1975)
   I had heard about Phil Lynott’s mother criticising Mitt Romney for being anti-gay and using a Lizzy song for his campaign. The lyrics to this song (while never confirmed) sound a lot like two boys who get caught having sex and the chorus is all about just letting love be love and take the hate out of it.
2. Having a Good Time – Chinatown (1980)
   Again, Phil’s lyrics are hilarious and poetic and cheeky. The guitar solos are killer too.
3. Running Back – Jailbreak (1976)
   One of many Thin Lizzy songs that are swimming in that Van Morrison tone. Its got this helpless heartbreak vibe to it, I just love it.
4. Cowboy Song – Jailbreak (1976)
   Just a killer track, and if you’ve ever watched the Live in Sydney clips on youtube, Gary Moore is in the lineup and they play so fast, nailing every guitar part.
   
5. Don’t Believe a Word – Johnny the Fox (1976)
   This is such a great anti-love song. A total “fuck you” to anyone who’s ripped your heart out, and the riffs are wicked. He sings it sweet and almost pleadingly,  like he’s charming you all over again.  He was so careful in his delivery, like an actor, he becomes the character, not just reading lines off a piece of paper.

The Sick Things open for the UK’s Buzzcocks Monday, September 26, 2016 at Théâtre Corona at 7pm. Tickets are $30 to $35, available here. Get The Sick Things demo right here: https://thesickthings.bandcamp.com/releases.