{"id":7870,"date":"2013-10-16T16:28:08","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T16:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=7870"},"modified":"2013-10-16T16:28:08","modified_gmt":"2013-10-16T16:28:08","slug":"viet-cong-disaster-conversations-cassettes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2013\/10\/16\/viet-cong-disaster-conversations-cassettes\/","title":{"rendered":"Viet Cong :: Disaster Conversations & Cassettes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Viet-Cong-595x396_595_396_90\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Victoria King<\/strong><\/p>\n

Calgary pop-punk band Viet Cong stopped in Winnipeg over the weekend \u2013 we chatted with lead vocalist Matt Flegel about tour, post-flood Calgary, the Bandcamp material, and more.<\/i><\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0Can you talk about the material (released on Bandcamp): how it came about, where it was recorded?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matt:<\/b>\u00a0Me and Monty, one of our guitar players, had been working on music just in his studio, which is essentially just the basement of his house with a bunch of gear . . . we\u2019d been working on stuff for about a year and a half without really having a band to play shows with, just working on music for fun. We\u2019d played a few shows in Calgary and then our drummer Mike left for India for a few months so we kinda took a hiatus and then he came back and we started playing shows again, and the Freak Heat Waves guys invited us to come on tour with them and we said\u00a0yes<\/i>, and decided we needed something to bring with us. So the stuff on Bandcamp is some of the recordings that we\u2019ve been doing. It\u2019s mostly the stuff that\u2019s not going to be on the full-length that we have . It’s kind of almost a B-sides thing before we had A-sides …<\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0That\u2019s funny since you guys have been getting a lot of really good feedback, just on that material.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MF:\u00a0<\/b>It\u2019s funny because we didn\u2019t actually put it up on the Bandcamp until the third week into the tour and we\u2019re on week seven now and . . . It\u2019s not the smartest way to do it [laughs].<\/em><\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0How\u2019s tour going so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MF:\u00a0<\/b>Tour\u2019s been good . . . it’s been a long one. I\u2019ve been in lots of touring bands before and in the past three years I haven\u2019t really done much other than a couple weeks at the most here and there, so this has been a seven-week tour, which when you\u2019ve gotten yourself comfortable and domesticated is kind of a crazy thing to do yourself, as a 31-year-old man. I forget what Mike was just saying [indicating to another band member] but his sister sent him this thing, and it\u2019s like, \u2018The Life of the touring band: “$10,000 worth of gear in a $500 van, travelling 500 km to make $50” [laughs]<\/em> and that kiinnnddaaa sums it up.\u00a0It\u2019s a good starting point . . . We had to start somewhere.<\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0I saw an article on the internet of you guys playing at Sled Island this past year when the flood happened. Can you talk about the effect of the flood on the music scene & community in Calgary?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

MF:\u00a0<\/b>I mean, it\u2019s disastrous for the music scene because really, Sled Island is kind of like of the culmination of\u00a0things<\/i>\u00a0that have been going on in Calgary for the last few years and I feel like since that festival started, it\u2019s kind of put Calgary on the map as a place for musicians from all over the world to come and play. It\u2019s like a legitimate festival and it was pretty disastrous for something like that to happen at\u00a0that<\/i>\u00a0time in Calgary. Like I wish it had happened three weeks later when the Stampede was going on. Like, one of our really good friends moved from Montreal – she got the job as director for Sled Island – and I heard they\u2019ve just gotten to the point where they\u2019ve cleared up most of the “disaster conversations” and problems and all of that, and they\u2019re starting to look at what they want to do next year which is good because I thought that they might not be doing it next year . . . Yeah, it was weird, definitely crazy.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0A lot of the press about Viet Cong continues to describe it as “ex-member” of this band, “ex-member” of another. Is that frustrating, or encouraging to have your old material brought up and when you\u2019re starting a new project?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

MF:<\/b>\u00a0I dunno, people are always going to write about things that you have done in the past [i.e. Women], no matter what, in any field \u2013 it\u2019s like a resume or something almost. People look at what you\u2019ve done and they\u2019re going to judge based on what you\u2019ve done in the past and it’s not frustrating, and I\u2019m definitely not ashamed of any of the projects that are being mentioned I guess, but [Viet Cong]’s definitely its own thing.<\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0What\u2019s the deal the art\u00a0\u00a0that\u2019s been released on the Bandcamp material you\u2019ve put out? It looks like two women slumped over . . .<\/strong><\/p>\n

MF:\u00a0<\/b>Oh! They\u2019re Malaysian transvestites. I dunno, my brother actually designed that for us. We asked him to make us a shirt and we decided that it was awesome enough that we wanted to put in on our tape cover too so . . . you\u2019d have to ask him what it means. When he heard our music I guess he thought of Malaysian transvestites [laughs].<\/em><\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0Lastly, how\u2019s Winnipeg been for you so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MF:<\/b>\u00a0So far it\u2019s been a few hours. I\u2019ve been here many times though, it’s always biting cold. It reminds me of UK cold where you just can\u2019t get warm. We\u2019ve always had good shows here in the past and I\u2019ve always had a good time, people are always really friendly.<\/p>\n

You should check out Viet Cong\u2019s material at\u00a0vietcong.bandcamp.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victoria King Calgary pop-punk band Viet Cong stopped in Winnipeg over the weekend \u2013 we chatted with lead vocalist Matt Flegel about tour, post-flood Calgary, the Bandcamp material, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[155,870,1069],"class_list":["post-7870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-calgary","tag-sled-island-festival","tag-viet-cong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}