Headstrong Interview

Headstrong an interview with Matt Kinna

-by Nikki Neil

Described as “melodic rap metal with a brain” the Canadian modern rock outfit Headstrong—comprised of Matt Kinna (vocals), Jon Cohen (bass), Joel Krass (guitar), and Brian Mathews (drums)—constructs music that makes you think as hard as it makes you rock.

With the release of their invigorating self-titled debut (RCA), the ambitious quartet can now fulfill their collective dream, which is to create and play music for the masses to enjoy.

How did the House of Blues Interview go?

It went very well, thank you.

Was it for their website?

Yeah. We did an interview then we did something for the radio where we picked ten of our favorite songs and played them. It was fun playing DJ for a bit. I like to play music for other people, so it was fun.

Did your fans have the opportunity to log in and ask questions?

No, it was just a regular ol’ interview.

I caught your show at the House of Blues last night.

Did you really?

Yeah, I noticed that the band exhibits a lot of energy on stage but didn’t have a lot of room to move around.

Yeah, we have a lot of energy and not a lot of space to release it. I kept bashing my shin on those stupid risers. I’m a little peeved, but what can we do. When you’re the opening act you have to put up with clutter.

Have you played a show on this tour where you actually had room to move around on stage?

The 2nd day of the tour we played a radio festival in Vancouver, which was fun because we there was a huge stage for us to play on. I love those because I can run from side to side without bashing into anything, except for our guitar player. It’s a trial, but you usually adapt.

Headstong is from Canada, correct?

Yes.

Have you ever seen South Park?

Yes (laughs). I have to tell you that the people in Canada love South Park.

Do they really?

Yeah, and what they love most about South Park is when Terrance & Phillip talk about the Canadians. Anytime an American sitcom or program even mentions Canada, even if it’s in a derogatory way, everyone looks at each other and they have a huge smile on their face and they just laugh. It’s kind of like when you insult your little brother and he loves it. It’s like America is Canada’s big brother and they just blurt out stupid insults that really don’t mean anything. There is so much ignorance about Canada that with most of the insults it’s like, “What are you even talking about?” But they are so funny, so we just kind of laugh. We love the attention.

True. There is a lot of ignorance.

Oh yeah, classic ignorance...just uninformed.

I’ve always heard that Canadians are generally super nice people, which isn’t a bad stereotype.

Certainly, but it’s also a lie. Anywhere you go you are going to find assholes and nice people, so it’s kind of funny.

Last night on stage you paid tribute to John Entwhistle who passed away in his sleep. You mentioned how you grew up on The Who’s music.

When I was a teenager I loved The Who. I was so into them. They were probably the first rock band that I really kind of held on to. They had such a great youth oriented message—with songs like “My Generation” and such. They were the first rock band that I held up my fist and said, “Yeah man; this band fuckin’ rocks!” When I was in High School I was really into classical music. The whole crossover kind of happened when I listened to Tommy: The Rock Opera. Pete Townsend had written some great orchestral parts, which kind of translated and it crossed over for me. That’s when I really started getting into the Who’s music and from there it kind of took off.

It’s really sad that we lost him.

It’s extremely sad. Especially since they were in the middle of a tour. That is a frightening and sad thing. He was still young.

As a rock star, if you were to die in the height of your career how would you want to go?

I was talking about this with a guy who is in a band called Hot Wire. You may not have heard of them yet, but you probably will soon. His name is Russ and we had a big, long conversation one night about dying on stage and how you would want it to happen if you were to die while on stage. You wouldn’t want to take a gun and shoot yourself because that would be too pretentious. You don’t want to actually kill yourself on stage. So I said, “I’d want to go up there and play for hours and hours until I couldn’t play anymore.” It would be like I literally died of passion on stage. Like I played until I dropped dead. So that is the way that I’d like to go. Sort of like a heart attack...like your heart just breaks on stage. I think that would be the most poetic way to die.

Yes it would. No one would ever forget that performance.

“I was just looking on stage and he was singing and his heart just broke. I saw it…it just burst.”

So, now that you have had time to adjust to the life of a signed band is there anything that you would do differently if the opportunity came around again?

In general, you probably wouldn’t get into those dealings with the crooked small time manager types. That’s the kind of stuff we all hope to avoid. But, there are no regrets from our part. You take lessons from everything and you learn things from everything. But even all of that stuff turns out to be invaluable in the future, so I don’t know that I would. Especially hanging out and spending time with these guys and doing what we are doing. I definitely wouldn’t change a thing.

What is the weirdest experience that you have had while on tour?

A lot of strange stuff really hasn’t happened. We got into a car accident a few months ago, but that wasn’t very pleasant. We were caught in the middle of a blizzard, and an army truck actually ran us off the road. The most humorous thing actually happened a couple of days ago. At least it was the most recent thing that I can recall.

What was it?

We were crossing over the border from Vancouver to Canada. And whenever you cross the border you always ask, “No one has anything? We’re all clean, right?” Every one was freaking out and making sure that we all had our papers and stuff. We pulled up to the border and gave the guy our papers. Then he asked us five questions: “How many people are in the van?” We told him that there were five of us. Then he said, “Are you guys in a band?” We said, “Oh yeah, we’re in a band. We played in Vancouver last night with Tommy Lee.” “Tommy Lee! No Way!” “Yeah, we played with him.” “Is he a cool guy?” “Yeah, he is a really cool guy.” “Did you guys see anything crazy yet?” “No, not yet. We’ve just been on tour for a couple of days.” “Right on! Well, have a good day.” He just waved us through. It was pretty funny. He asked us two questions about our origin, and the rest was about Tommy Lee. It was pretty amusing. So here’s a tip for up & coming bands: If you give your CD’s to border guards they usually wave you right through. It is amazing.

In instances like that do they ask for your autograph?

No very often because a lot of people haven’t heard of us yet. We usually give them a CD and tell them that we are in a band called Headstrong. Then they usually ask, “Have we heard of you?” And we’ll say, “Sometimes they’ll play us on the radio.” But if you hand them a CD they will usually say “Wow! This really is a cool band.” Every now and then they’ll ask us to sign one, which is cool. Most of the time they are not sure if they want our autograph yet, but the next time we come through the border they will say, “Hey, I remember you guys,” and the sharpie will be ready.

Do you ever get nervous before going on stage?

Not really. I think the biggest show that we played was in spring of this year. We played a festival in Orlando, Florida called Earth Day Birthday. About 30,000 people were there. It was by far our biggest gig. So, nervous wouldn’t be the word. It’s more like an excited energy, and it generally seems to translate well on stage. I’ve never been on stage and forgot the lines to a song or anything like that. I’ve been performing in front of people since a very early age. I did plays and things like that in high school. Even if you go up there and you’re in the middle of a song and you don’t remember the words, it is really how you do it and the performance that you deliver more than your technical accuracy that wins people over. So I find that as long as I’m having fun and we are working our asses off and trying to deliver a good performance people will respond to it. There’s very little nervousness among us. We are just very natural on stage.

You all seemed very comfortable on stage last night. The set flowed very well.

Thank you.

You mentioned how you took theatre classes in high school. Why did you choose music over acting?

I think I was just a little better at music than acting. In the future, if I have the time, I’d like to take some acting lessons because it was something that I really enjoyed doing. Headstrong is just an opportunity that kind of came up. I was playing in this band with both of my buddies. It was something that we just started doing. I personally never really thought it would go anywhere, but it just kind of worked out. I’d like to say that I’m the guy in the band that is here because I can’t really play the guitar or the drums, but I’m the guy in front because I’m the biggest jackass. I’m definitely having a good time doing it.

What do you remember most about the first time you performed on stage?

I’m trying to think of when that would have been (laughs). I think I was kind of embarrassed the first time I went on stage because I was performing in a musical. It was like, “Oh man, this is such a bummer.” I’m not a big fan of musicals. I’ve never really believed in the human perpetuity for breaking into songs on a moments notice. That was something that I definitely remember…just going out and singing a number and thinking “Oh god, this is the lamest thing ever.” But I still had a good time and kept up with it.

The band originally went by Bomb 32, why did you guys decide to change the name?

When we signed the record deal we really recognized it as kind of a turning point in our careers professionally. We thought, “This is an opportunity that we have, so going forward if there are any changes that we are going to make we should make them now because people are going to start hearing our name soon and if it is the wrong name then we’re not going to be happy because we can’t change it.” Bomb 32 was a name that we came up with five or six years ago that basically ended in an argument because everyone was just like, “Fine. Do you like that? Fine. We’ll live with that.” It was something that nobody hated and we were kind of tired of going through the contrived process of trying to think of a cool band name. So Bomb 32 came up for review when we got our record deal. We started thinking about some of the things in relation to our music like: What’s the message in our music? What would people derive from our music? What are we like as people? And Headstrong was something that kind of nicely encapsulated all those things. We like to think of the music as heavy yet somewhat cerebral, and I think the words Head & Strong kind of go together nicely like that. The four of us are fairly steadfast individuals, so I think that the moniker also applies to us personally.

The band used to be a five-piece. What happened with Rich?

Rich decided that he was going to be a doctor. He was with us until we moved from London, Ontario, which is the town that we all went to school in and got together. When it came time for us to leave Rich decided that he wasn’t going to come with us. It was sort of an unfortunate loss, but it may also have been the catalyst for our current success. John Cohn, now our bass player, was playing guitars and doing some singing in the band at the time, and when Rich left he just decided that he was going to play bass. I remember very well the first time that the four of us ever played together with John on bass. We played the song “Swing Harder,” and when we were finished we all kind of looked at each other. For me, it was a very magic moment, and I remember thinking, “Wow! That really sounded cool.” So, I think that was the point where we kind of realized that we didn’t necessarily need two guitarists. We were really afraid that we would loose a lot of the massiveness of the rock. But I think that the tightness really came together and it sounded a little heavier, so we were really happy with it.

Were you surprised by the response you got after performing on Farmclub?

Surprised wouldn’t be the word. I think we were…the one thing that really surprised us is when we actually got down there. We had management that had been working Farmclub the record label and there were a couple of A&R people who were interested in us as a band and liked what we were doing. So, we had already uploaded our music and, thanks to those A&R contacts, we were able to have the music moved to a more prominent position on the site so people could easily find it and vote for it. When we heard we were going down there we weren’t really sure if it was because the label liked us or because we got a lot of votes. When we got there, the performance went well and they treated us like bigger rock stars than we’ve ever been treated since. When we were finished, we all kind of stepped off to the side of the stage and did an interview with Allie Landrey, who was the host. She said to us, “So, you guys uploaded your music to Farmclub.com and received over a million votes. How do you feel about that?” Our eyes must have been as big as dinner plates because we hadn’t heard about that so we said, “Oh, it feels great.” Afterwards, it became sort of a joke amongst the four of us that it never actually happened and that we never actually got that many votes. But it turned out that we did. I did an interview with someone the other day and they told me that they actually had to shut the website down because we received a million and a half votes and it was still going strong when they had to shut it down. It was kind of cool. I guess we are better than we like to give ourselves credit for.

That is very impressive. Before you signed with RCA did you have a big following in your hometown?

No, not really. It was more amongst bands. We have a respect and good camaraderie going with a lot of local bands in Toronto that play heavy music and kind of recognize what we are doing and really appreciate it. Early on we had a lot of friends of ours who were genuine fans and have really worked hard to help us out. I guess we can go back there now and sell out shows, but for a long time it was kind of sluggish. There’s not a really big heavy music movement in Toronto, so it’s can be quite a grind.

Do a lot of the clubs cater to unsigned bands?

Yeah. The one good thing about Toronto is that there is a very healthy, independent music scene and there are a lot of really good venues that bands can play at. They are the typical dive kind of rock clubs but they’re perfect and those are the kind of places I love playing at. Anything too pretty doesn’t quite have the vibe and anything too gross is obviously not in working order. A lot of the clubs in Toronto are kind of just right. They got some filth on them but they have a big stage and everything is in working order, so we are quite fortunate and spoiled up in Toronto.

Do you ever develop writer’s block?

I’m constantly writing, so I never really stop writing. The one thing I have found that eliminates my writer’s block is that I never really sit down at a table with a book in front of me and say, “I’m going to write a song.” I usually write in little trickles and sometimes I’ll write four or five lines in a day and that will be a good day. As long as I write a little bit every day, or even every other day, when it comes time to put lyrics to music for the finished product I usually have enough stored up in addition to anything that might instantly hit me about the song. Generally what happens is Joel, John, and Brian will hash out a song idea musically. They’ll present it to me on a tape and I’ll listen to it a few times and get my instant gut reaction. Then I’ll search through all my past and present catalogs of all these lyrics that I have written down and see if there is anything that applies and I’ll try to plug it into what I’m instantly feeling about the song.

When you’re not touring do you hang out with the other band members?

When we are off tour we definitely like to take a couple of days off away from each other – just a couple of days. Not because we don’t like each other, but too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing. Then, about two days into our break the phone calls will start coming, “What are you doing?” It’s that kind of thing. We tend to hang out, play video games, and go to the movies. We obviously rehearse and write new material when we are home.

You may not be thinking this far ahead but when it comes time to make the next record is there something different that you’d like to do that you didn’t get to do with this record (Headstrong)?

Not consciously. Being on the road is a great thing because you to learn how to relate to the audience from a personal point of view and from a musical point of view. You tend to learn what works with the crowd. You can see which of your songs appeal to people and which ones don’t appeal to them as much. So I think that if there is anything that we are going to do we would probably take a little bit more of that into account when we are writing the new songs. “You know, we got a really good response when we played this at this tempo. Maybe that is the kind of thing that will really get a crowd going?” We just try to obviously stay true to what we do. We’re not going to try to pander to anybody while we are writing, but a lot of times we will try something new. “This tempo really worked, so why don’t we try to write something in this tempo.” I think that is the kind of thing we will take into account. It’s the same with anything. You get a certain amount of experience and the more experience you get the more things you kind of realize that you can try out.

Have you noticed that one song gets a better response than others?

I find that if we don’t have a crowd by the time we play “Hoodies & Hoods,” once we finish the song we usually have their attention. In a live setting, people generally respond to that song no matter where we are. Live songs usually get different reactions depending on where you are playing and whom you are playing to. But, “Hoodies & Hoods” is one song that always gets people’s attention.

Does Headstrong have a collective goal?

There are so many signposts along the way that it is really hard, especially when you are in a rock band, to really point to a spot on the map where you say, “Okay, we have to get to this spot.” I think that when anybody asks what our goal is or what would success be to us…I think survival, for any band, is really the only thing you can claim. Longevity in this business and the ability to release five albums is a pretty amazing feat. Having the ability to stay relevant and have people want to hear your music is a huge in terms of success. So I usually like to say that survival is our goal.

What do you like most about what you are doing?

Oh boy, there is so much crazy stuff in regards to what we are doing. One of the most rewarding things is going to a place that is thousands of miles from the basement where I wrote a song and hear people sing the lyrics back to me. One of the coolest things about this job is that people kind of get inside your brain and they know the things that you’ve written about. Music lyrics are a fairly personal thing and it is amazing to me that people can relate no matter where we go. So having people from far away from my home know who I am and be familiar with the music is definitely very rewarding.

How did you react the first time you heard on of your songs on the radio?

I still haven’t heard one of our songs on the radio because I don’t listen to the radio very often. The only time I hear one of our songs on the radio is when we go into a radio station and they usually play us in between a couple of songs. It’s still really amazing to me that we’ll be stuck in between Green Day and System Of A Down. That is really cool. I really love the way the songs sound on the radio. The album is beautifully produced and mixed so that the depth of the song shows. The sound that is has on the radio is very impressive to me.

For more on Headstrong visit: www.headstrongmusic.com