Interview with Isle of Thieves

Welcome to the Isle of Thieves – by Mel in Toronto

Catchy tunes with recognizable hooks as well as an incredible amount of energy filled the auditorium of G L Roberts High School in Oshawa during this year's War Child benefit. Isle of Thieves totally rocked the crowd and didn't fail to congratulate the students for supporting such a great cause. "It's hard to find young people to go to those things," lead singer Japeth says.  "I just wanted to tell those kids that it's not cool to be ignorant and it's cool to care."

The band members of this Canadian band are Japeth (vocals/guitar), Mike Marsh (lead guitar), Justin Kwan (synths/vocals), Charles Canovas (bass), and Matt Coatsworth (drums). Two months ago, Isle of Thieves celebrated their two-year anniversary and earlier this year, they released their 10-song debut album ‘Only Human.'

"When we write music, we make sure that it tells a story, it takes people somewhere. What we are never trying to do, is make something too literal. We have enough respect for the listener and the audience, that we want them to find out for themselves," Justin says while sitting next to Japeth, having a coffee.

Japeth is Isle of Thieves' songwriter. His inspiration "comes from pretty much living," he says. "I think songs are written in public bathrooms, in subway stations, places of life." And those places of life also include clubs, where he wrote their current single HOLLYWOOD. "I wrote that song in my head over 50 Cent," Japeth says with a smile. "When I came home, I took my guitar and started writing the other parts, besides from the hook, and the chorus." The song takes a critical look at the fact that "we correlate physical beauty with something noble, heroic, and valiant. The movie industry, for example, says it's always the good looking man who is the hero and gets the girl." But in reality "ultimate sacrifice is not in a good looking man or girl, it lies in the hearts of people who suffer. It could be anybody."

Isle of Thieves' songs tackle a wide range of issues. SIX GOOD FRIENDS is "an anti-war song, but the chorus brings it back to judgment," Japeth says. And ROCKSTAR "is a teen angst anthem full of clichés," Japeth says with a smile. "I wanted it to sound like it was sung by a grown man but still thinking like a teenager."

During his musical career, Japeth had to overcome challenges. "I had no heroes that looked like me in rock music," Japeth says. What he wants to achieve with his music is "really something personal to me. As I grew up, I had nobody listen to me. I felt like I was screaming on the top of my lungs and speak my deepest thoughts and everyone just brushed me off. What I discovered was that music makes people listen. I just want to make people listen and tell them something, tell a story, and make a statement."

Isle of Thieves excels at bringing their stories to life during their live performances. For Justin the most important thing is "when the crowd lets you in." And Japeth likes best to entertain the crowd. "It really shows when the crowd loves music generally. I hate pity claps. I like it when the crowd is really into it. The War Child concert, that felt great. The more I gave, the more they gave back. The more they gave back, the more I wanted to give. It was just this symbiotic relationship between the audience and the performer," Japeth says. "I love that connection. I think that's the most important thing to me."

Isle of Thieves is playing at the Reverb in Toronto on July 4, 2008. Check out the gig section for more concert updates.

"In your own words" – ONE on ONE with Mel, Japeth and Justin

Mel: How did you come up with the name and with the cover art for your album ‘Only Human'?

Japeth: We actually had a tough time finding a name for the album. We wanted to find a name that would relate to all the songs. … The second problem was visually, the conceptual development of what it should look like. How we could represent the entire album and all its songs through an image, through some sort of branding. Finally, I was thinking there is a song on the album called ONLY HUMAN. … We found this mannequin photo that we got from William Chrysler, who is a local fashion photographer here in Toronto. I just fell in love with his work, I think his work is phenomenal, it was weary, yet striking, it was beautiful, yet disturbing, I said ok, let's have a mannequin, something that isn't human and let's call the album ‘Only Human.'

Mel: What does it mean to you to be an indie artist?

Japeth: I think what it means to be an indie artist is that it's a struggle to make music for the love of music and not be selfish enough to just make anything you want. You want to make something that you enjoy as well as listeners will enjoy. We look at music a lot more closely related to food rather than art. I think in art, there are so many tiers of what fine art is and what low art is. A comic book is low art, and you take a Matisse, and you say that's high art, that's respectable. I don't really think music is like that as much. Like classical music is your Matisse and comic book art is some really crappy street genre. I think it's more like food. Being an indie artist, it's like making your own food, not for just commercial use, like McDonald's. It's not making pop music that is heavily, heavily advertised and shoved into everyone's face. Eventually you can get there, but it always comes down to that compromise between how you feel and what you have to do to please your audience. It's more like grandma cooking Thanksgiving or Sunday dinner. She might have her favourite recipes, but she has to feed twelve people and make sure that they are happy. ... I think being an independent artist, you have to find that balance between where you really stand between struggling to make music because you love it and at the same time struggling to share something with the world that the world can appreciate, whether it's five people or five million people.

Justin:  I think, there is a big difference, between are you independent or are you indie? I feel we are independent, we don't belong to any scenes, any genres, it's not about that. We are about writing good music and whoever likes it can like it. Being an independent act, you have freedoms. You have a lot of your creativity. I think it's your chance to prove what you actually have, with nobody backing you up and with no money. Being an independent act is just part of the struggle. It builds a story of your career or your life as a musician. I think that without the struggle you don't have a backbone. This is a period where a band really plants its roots, whether it's in the community or in the fan base. It's a time where you build your identity.

Mel: Which opportunities do to you see with indieSolo?

Justin:  In terms of indieSolo, it's a lot of exposure. It's about not how many people you reach, but who you reach is most important. With indieSolo, you are really targeting people who understand that part of the industry. And you are networking and being exposed to people who give it a second look longer than just an average person. There is a lot of the questions and information that we do give on indieSolo that we don't give on other sites. It does dig deeper than something like MySpace.

Japeth: Where you give the shortest little biography where it is almost impersonal. You want to have this many people to show that you have this many contacts on the Internet. But indieSolo is like: Ok, we have a story now. In the feature, we are able to actually tell a story rather than just give a brief synopsis. When I was first introduced to indieSolo by Justin, my first thought was ‘How much is it going to cost?' There are so many establishments and organizations out there that want to help independent artists and want to give them more exposure, but there is a catch. It's always like that, all you have to do is pay $500 and we'll put you on this magazine, on these publications, etc. And indieSolo just gave us an opportunity to showcase our band, the complete package with the music and the image, and all this for free. So, it is really great. It does offer exposure and it does offer an avenue to share more than just the very basic.

-end

July 4, 2008

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Isle of Thieves Tickets may be available from TicketScene