Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - José Miguel Contreras from By Divine Right: Toronto Mike'd #1117

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

In this 1117th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by José Miguel Contreras from By Divine Right as they dive deep into the ongoing history of the influential Toronto band. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

I was here long enough that I actually got hit in grade one by a teacher when I was trying to explain to a fellow student that my name was actually Jose, not Jose. And she's like, what's going on over here? And I was like, I was just explaining that in Spanish it's pronounced Jose. And I was like fucking four or five. And she hit me and said, your name's Jose. You sitting in the BPM over there? What's going on? or five and she hit me and said your name's Jose you sitting the BPM over there what's going on ow

huh mimico oh down by the water on eighth yeah my ow I totally had my biscuits this morning.

Welcome to episode 1117 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business.

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Pillars of the community since 1921. And Canna Cabana. The lowest prices on cannabis. Guaranteed. Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Today, making his Toronto Mike debut from by divine right, Jose Miguel Contreras. Hey, que tal Mike? Un gusto de estar aqui contigo.

Welcome my friend. Thanks, thanks. Hey, what's up, Mike? It's a pleasure to be here with you. I'm going to read a few comments and then we're going to get into it. I got lots of great audio. I see you brought a guitar, which is amazing. I didn't know if that was a deal or not. Well, it's up to you. I will, no pressure, but Chris Brown, Stephen Stanley, and Ron Hawkins were playing live down here last week. Oh, I fucking love those guys. Okay, who do you love the most of those three guys?

Well, it's a tough call. The truth is that chris brown uh is like kind of like my obi-wan oh you know like uh he's one of my um he's like my mentor spiritual older brother and i uh if all i could do is just make him feel like i'm not wasting space on the planet i'd feel great about it. I don't know Stephen that well, and Ron is just like an inspiration, and I love that guy. We used to be neighbors,

and I'm really grateful that we had a chance to meet and re-meet and re-meet over the years. And I think I could say that we love each other. He is fucking awesome, right? Am I allowed to swear on this? You could swear, yeah. And when I think of these three bands, right, if I think about Bourbon Tabernacle three bands right if i think about bourbon tabernacle choir and i think about lowest of the low and i think about by divine right these are three core toronto bands like big part of this

city's uh musical history i i guess so i mean i feel like those guys are like my uh seniors in in a million different ways i mean obviously like the bourbons were rocking probably you know we probably our bands started around the same time but they were very successful in the but even in the late 80s and uh and you know lowest of the low released a landmark canadian record like in the early 90s shakespeare my butt pardon me what about your butt i can do that to your butt what do you think of that as a name of an album like shakespeare my butt i think it's cool i think it's in keeping with the sort of like uh depth and and uh surface of uh that time you know that record wasn't for me you know um but um but i you know i realize that it's a fucking classic and every single episode of toronto mic ends with a song

from that very album. Cool. Which you'll hear in about an hour or so. But a couple of quick notes. Elephants and Stars, great band, actually. The comment I got from Manfred there was, By Divine Right, we're great. He says we're past tense, but we're going to play you. There's new stuff coming out.

You're currently great, I think. But he says they were great. I can't remember the song they had on the pop can compilation but it was awesome what's manfred talking about so who's elephant elephants and stars is the band name yeah and the guy the main guy from elephants and stars is named manfred oh manfred uh that's a cool name um you know uh it's funny that i if you don't ask me that 100 times i 99 i would not know what the fuck you're talking about but i had a really great night and a really great morning and so my brain's really functioning okay good and so pop can it would have been a song called fearless i'm pretty sure and it was in 1997 or 98 and i get it there's so much music going on and

i'm definitely not out there like, you know Like waving my dick in front of everybody. So it's just not my style and that'll get you arrested I guess so arrested that not really not these days they're too busy and They're too busy checking their phones. But so I think that's cool. You know what? I have a lot of people I don't think most people know who But so I think that's cool. You know what? I have a lot of people. I don't think most people know who my band is, and that's cool too because I'm an art historian.

I know how it goes. I think anyone with their ear to the ground in terms of Toronto music, absolutely fluent in by divine right. That was a really long time ago too, like 97? Jesus. You know what's really wild? You mentioned like the Bourbons and Lost to the Low.

And I appreciate you putting me, even daring to place me in that place because those guys are huge 90s god parents, right? Whereas like even though we might get placed as a 90s band, by divine right, we're not successful in the 90s. You know what I mean? We did not peak in the 90s. I never had a big shiny tunes. The closest I had to any sort of success would have been in 99. And like as far as like commercial peak, like sort of like where we could play shows and it was a zoo, would have been like in the early 2000s,

maybe like it peaked in 2005. Then I had kids and renovated a house and all of a sudden had like, you know, sort of 70s style rock and roll debt. And right around the same time as when people started asking me to produce their records. So then I kind of spent five years making money, paying off debts and changing diapers.

Right. And you had other priorities. And then, you know, then the coolest records I made, I'd say would be like 2009 or 2010, 2013. And we peaked pretty hard like in 2014, but well aware that even people that love me, quote unquote, and like I'm like a huge influence had no fucking clue what was i what i was up to and it's kind of awesome like i don't know if you've ever sort of like been in that position where um you're aware that people know you but they don't actually know you they'll be like oh man i love your band yeah i saw you in 98 and it's pretty cool actually place to be because um you know for uh over the hill many times many hills uh it's pretty cool to show up and and uh play some play music in a in a sort of like pretty

connected way you know bdr is not an oldies show because no one gives a fuck and there's a generation too of people that know me from 2013 forward and for them it's like you know we're not chords and vocals our songs aren't chords and words you know and it's not kind of cynical and it's not just thin lizzy isms it's like fucking it's art you know what i mean and so it's my my that failure from say Manfred's lack of knowledge is amazing because then I just can always be judged for where I'm at. And it's a becoming. The Bide of Unright is a becoming.

Also, I'm not sure if you're aware of my solo work. I'm just going to take over the interview, by the way. Just sit back. I don't know if you're aware of my solo work either because most people are not. And it's really great to have that, because it's a blessing. It was not my idea to do solo work. And the cool thing about it is that it's deep.

Well, I don't understand. Because when I think of By Divine Right, and we'll talk about the origin and where By Divine Right is at after I get to a couple more fotm questions as friends of toronto mike have asked some important questions uh much like manfred there but like you are for all intents and purposes you are by divine right so like what's the point of a solo album um it was it's a really good question right it's a fucking funny question

uh uh there's a man who used to run squirtgun Records, Lee Maslin who is beautiful, one of the biggest musical minds I know on so many levels he can play guitar and play drums and sing like a fucking angel but he's also just like knows so much about music like it's insane he'll be like yeah I love Sepultura

this is my favorite Iron Maiden reissue, have you heard you know that here's the kate bush triple album whatever 100 names for snow and then when i mentioned that my my my console used to belong to toronto he was like oh and that it was used to record their their uh hit song yeah don't daddy daddy don't what's it called daddy did mama don't know your daddy don't know yeah he was like oh which album oh 1992 so-and-so recorded here and here produced by them mixed by so-and-so and

he like enlists like you know what's the first song on site too and he knows like and he knows that the bass player from max webster owned the board too it's just insane amazing anyway so it was he was like came up one day and was like you should do a solo record an acoustic solo record and i was like that sounds like fucking the end of my career. Like, I'll do that and it will all be fucking over. But he is in the true spirit of great A&R, had a great idea for me. And so the solo record being, I realized, oh, yeah, you know what? I've been bummed out late night drinking, getting high in my studio for a couple of years, playing very quietly.

And I suddenly realized, you know, I actually have a repertoire for a solo record that's not like acoustic hits. Like I don't show up and play five bucks acoustic or whatever. And so the BDR is a rock band, an art project. Right. And then my solo records are more like,

you started whispering so I'm going to whisper it down. This is the intimate part. I'm right in there. You've got to draw in the listener and then you get them. But, okay,

you know, when you're, when you're, is it literally, are we talking boozing and weed or anything harder than that? No, no,

I never got too crazy. Okay, no John Frusciante activity. No, you know, and I can blame just the amount of love my mom gave me over the years. You know, you can imagine I've been offered everything in just about the most enticing package you can imagine. But like, I'd always look at it and be like,

man, if I did this to my mom, I'd just be like, mom, thanks for all the support over the years. Here's how I'm paying it back. Instead, you know, and also I'm a family man, you know. How many kids you got? I got two. Okay, good for you. How old are these children?

They're beautiful years old. They're 11 and 16. Okay, good ages. Well, they're all good ages. I always say that. Good ages. I'm like, oh, that's a shitty age. That's a funny age.

Well, I don't know. I mean, like last year at one point, my son definitely thought I was a fucking idiot. Everything I said. And then he's a musician. He's a wonderful kid. Okay. But he also got into the BDR. He did like some mega deep diving.

Okay. So he'd like basically tell me off. And then I'd hear in his room, he'd listen to tunes and like some of my tunes would come on. And I'd be like, what the fuck, man? You just told me to fuck off. Not really, but you know what I mean? And now you listen to my tunes. i'd be like what the fuck man you just told me to fuck off not really but you know what i mean and now you listen to my tunes you'd be like well you know 100 lame so anyway it's like but he came out of that phase yeah no he really did

and he's such a sweet dude and my daughter's amazing too and and but yeah like um yeah that guy lee so lee lee maslin yeah you say lee maslin i think about do you remember lee mazilli does that name mean anything to you uh no sounds like the sort of like the shizzle-dizzle name of lee maslin was a uh baseball and major league baseball player who came over i think he came over in the mookie wilson trade in 1989 this is off the top of my head but as i've learned recently my memory is very faulty so i say these things like that's how i remember it and then i find out i'm way off but uh muki is a great name better muki mazilli is my my new yeah muki mazilli that's my if you need a new band new stage name i love it cam gordon who by the way went to thorn lee which we'll get to in

a minute he wants to know have you ever been mistaken for Major League the Cuban player Jose Contreras? Jose Contreras? Well, I mean, not physically, but yes, I have had a lot of people going like, oh, the famous baseball player, which is pretty amazing. And you know what's funny too? You look like you could have played ball back in the day. I can still play mean balls.

But anyways, I'm Latino. not, I mean baseball, I guess i was all right more of a soccer player but um and uh but uh yeah so you have been mistaken okay thank you a little bit it's also interesting how culture comes and goes because less so in the last five years that would make sense yeah because he's a long retired now but what funny thing is we mentioned ron hawkins off the top and uh the first time he came over he told me he was booking into some hotel and they thought he was a romping ronnie hawkins yeah he's like you mean ron hawkins the musician and like yeah yeah that's right like fuck yeah you mean like the guy who put out that record

everyone loves yeah and then i asked him what is his like what does he feel now that ronnie hawkins has passed away and he told me i have zero feelings. He just was completely void of any feelings either way. I think Ronnie Hawkins, Stomping Ronnie Hawkins, is a really interesting personality. Romping. Because Stomping is Tom Connors, right? You've got to keep these up. No one can touch fucking Tom Connors.

Stomping Tom. Stomping Tommy Tom. Stomping Tom Connors. Absolutely. Margo's got the cargo. And Bud's got the spuds And Bud's got the spuds. Bud's got the spuds and Sudbury's got... Oh, man, yeah.

Anyway. I've covered a couple of his songs. The BDR did a mean version of Man Moon Newfie. We're killing it. Love it. Seriously. But yeah, no, I think romping, Ronnie Hawkins is an interesting character but he's not

particularly inspiring to me you know and uh whereas i think ron hawkins is a fucking angel in the world he really is i don't know if you've ever actually been around him when he works when he does his work but he is actually a man of serious values and morals and ideals and like fucking lives what he says and he fucking is i like him a lot he is he i aspire to be his when you grow up you want to be ron hawkins i don't know about that but i i if i if i deserve his friendship i must be okay. And we do love each other. Well, I'm honored that you both visit my basement, which is an honor to me.

But NotThatThor wants to know, why were the chicken wings at the tap on Bloor the best in the city? Ha, ha, ha. You know what? It must have been the drinking. It must have been your age and It must have been the age, your age and the time in life. I used to be the cook there.

Okay. And you remember that the tap had two doors down, had Las Iguanas. This is like ancient fucking history. No, I love this stuff. Very mean. And that was one of my last real jobs was that I was the cook at Las Iguanas.

And then that kitchen served the tap and i can tell you some grim stories i mean the business is closed it's fine like one time i was kind of vegan at the time which was really great considering how much meat i slogged but i did learn how to cook there from a wonderful great man named frank okay and uh anyway so one time i was doing the chicken wings and i and uh used to you know like reach into the freezer and just go like you know like a dozen chicken wings 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 like this right like you know you reach down you don't look at them right

and then you drop them in the thing and then I'm tossing them right and I'm tossing them and I'm putting them in the basket and I pull out a fucking golden chicken head and it looked like fucking voodoo to me I was holding it in the tongs and like voodoo like fully like deep fried chicken head. I called the waitress over,

and she's like, ah, freaks out, like one of the servers, and then like I'm like freaking out, so I call management, and I'm like, dude, there's some fucking satanic voodoo bullshit

coming from the meat, our meat suppliers, and Frank was like, listen, there's no way we can complain about this because we buy the cheapest wings we can find oh so you're gonna make me a vegan with this chat there's no reason there's no well i mean animal cruelty i mean anything that's but do you eat meat now uh i'm i would say yes but like it's very i'm selective but i have this is it just so happens i have a large frozen uh vegetarian lasagna in my

freezer from palma pasta would you like to take that home with you hell yeah okay you're taking it home it'll feed the two kids it'll feed everybody you need an applause button right now like so like yeah i'd love to mike fucking right all right. All right. Well, it's just because we were talking about it. But, okay. So, the chicken wings. So, I don't know. Can I ask you? I learned how to make hot sauce.

Do you need to break them? Maybe it's that, you know. Hot is Frank's. Medium is half margarine, half Frank's. Mild is one-third Frank's, two-thirds. You're spilling all the tea here okay let me so were you

working at the tap on bluer at the same time as you were in by divine right hell yeah okay can I

ask you this so I got a call from somebody I will not out this person I know who

they are a famous FOTM a guest of Toronto Mike friend of Toronto Mike called me

and he was doesn't want me to disclose this I won't say this person's name but this person does delivery for DoorDash okay and this person was embarrassed and I said to this person last night I said there's no shame in that game like if you got to go work at Tim Hortons or McDonald's or tap on Bloor there's no shame in that game I said

this is the Canadian star system I remember when I learned that the cook at this place on bluer street was ken mcneil from rusty yeah okay i was spinning fluke i loved fluke of the album by rusty and i played it all the time by the way he's been here too and it was a record huge record big fucking radio hits that i would hear all the time on whatever did you wipe this mic down always yeah protecting me well basically i just know like basically, there is zero shame. I just talked to the guy from Monster Truck and he was working at the steel plant. Shame is just like, poverty is shame

and poverty isn't monetary. Poverty is like if you have bad salad dressings and you make poor decisions and what you ingest put you in your mind or if you can't put your phone down to talk to people. But yeah, I worked there in 96. It was one of my favorite jobs. I learned how to cook there.

Seriously, because cooking is all timing, right? And I was a prep cook. Yeah. And then, you know what? My last day I worked there, I didn't know it was my last day because we got asked to be on the cover of whatever magazine it was at the time. What was it, like Now Magazine? Maybe I.

It was a few years where I was basically on the cover of every magazine in Canada. It was embarrassing. All the Alt Weeklys. It was just like, it kind of definitely revealed itself to just be like an insert here. I got put down the tube. That was my turn. And so then my bandmate came came in took a picture of me and i was holding two enormous bricks of cheese like because i was about to shred the the cheese

for like the three cheese blend sure like huge like you know like yeah you know like industrial size cheese uh whatever it was and uh and then uh and then later that day i was like i can't work on this day because i have to go do a photo shoot for this thing. And then they couldn't find anyone to cover my shift. So I had to actually kind of quit. And that was the end. Oh, man. No shame in working there. I loved it.

No, no. And I just, I want to like end this whole stigma that like I'm a rock star. I can't work. Most rock stars that come through here are working other jobs. I'm not a rock star. Rock star is dumb. I mean, I always prefer the term failed artist to rock star. But why failed?

If commercial success is not the indication of art success. That was back in the day. Now I refer to myself as a singer. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, we're going to – this is almost like the preamble because one quick note from PT Mike says he saw you open for 5440 at the – Dude, did you talk to anyone from this century?

Hold on here. We're going to go back even further because Cam Gordon, I said, went to Thornley and he and all of us are just curious. Do you have any stories about any of these people? Hayden? Noah Mintz? John Gomeshi?

What do you remember about this art scene? I could talk about like 60 i could talk like what are you trying to do like season three of thornley jose talks about thornley how many who do you want to hear about most like let's start with what do we start with noah mince uh how well did you first time man i went to high school with these people first time i saw noah mince he was dressed as howard jones at a bus stop and uh we taught at the corner of bayview and john street and uh i he looked amazing right he looked exactly he had the great hair and great outfit whereas i was more fashion victim so i would have been like chubby i would

have tapered my pants myself and like had like a little mustache and my hair was up we talked about starting a new wave band, and then we didn't talk for years, because he was really cool and I wasn't. And then over the years, he was a rock star in high school, in a band with Hayden and Gavin Brown and the guys from Polito called Entangled, who played on TV and stuff, and they were hilarious.

Well, you know, okay, so the Hayden song Take, which was on the CFNY's new music search. I don't know that one. The year that, I think Head won. Oh, right. Okay, so I probably do know that because we used to play shows together all the time.

Take a part of me. Anyway, but the mind blow to me was I always thought. Why are you going to do the voice there? Take all of me. But it wasn't Hayden singing on the jam because Hayden was too shy. It was Noah. Take a part of me. That's the issue.

Bit of Eddie Vedder in there. Yeah, a little. Yes, no. Take a part of me. I mean, we're talking about my friends and people I love. And great musicians. And I think they're really talented. And they certainly got better as they got more original.

Okay, let's talk about the... John Gomeshi? Yeah, because when... I'll just preface this to say, when Noah was on the show... You should get a John Gomeshi toilet paper and I could do a little freshening up. Okay, well, maybe later when you're bored, you listen to Noah Mintz on Toronto Mic and hear how he went off on Gomeshi. But what say you about the Gian Gomeshi

that went to Thornley Secondary School in Thornhill? He was always kind of smarmy. He had the perfect New Wave outfit. I would say there's two people at Thornley that had the perfect New Wave outfits. And I'm sorry, Mike, but you're not the first podcast I've mentioned this on oh um uh they both had the perfect new wave outfit uh jean and sean dean from the the uh sadie's um uh and uh which would have been like the sort of like tweed

puffy pleated pants that go down to like the Peter Pan getaway boots, the perfect sort of like leather pointies. Are you surfing the internet? What the fuck? I'm peeking at the live stream. I'm just teasing you. And then just in case we're getting cut off. Make sure the camera's on you.

And then like with the puffy pirate shirts. You have a camera on me? I didn't even do my hair. Do you not have any powder for me over there? Anyways. It's not recorded actually. I'm i'm just teasing you miss it you miss it and then um and then uh yeah with the the amazing hair and uh like definitely john gomeshi had like that early 80s like sort of john taylor mullet oh sure with the blonde the blonde thing and the fedora perfectly thing and he was president of the school and he was also he was a legit rock star i mean you know and he had that band tall new buildings that had hits on

the radio and uh were on tv and shit and uh and uh he was president of the school body and then you know i i wasn't impressed with jean gomeshi but at the same time i've never really been that impressed you know so it's hard to impress you i like no no and not at all i'm really impressed by like uh things that are delicious and thoughtful and and kind of deep you know or like ridiculously shallow and funny so this this is a i don't know man because because i record every month with Stu Stone and Cam Gordon, who are from, they're a bit younger than you, but they're from Thornhill,

and they're always telling me about the musicians that came through or whatever. It's kind of mind-blowing. You got all these guys there at the same time. I love it. You know, actually, Noah mastered the last By Divine Right record. We were hanging out, and I was like,

you know what's fucked is, like, I was born on the other side of the planet where were you born i was born in vina del mar in chile in uh in 1969 i was born in the 60s when did you arrive in uh october 20th 1974 yeah we're coming up on the hey the 50th anniversary but anyways the thing is uh i'm standing there with no. And, you know, Noah and I, I think we love each other. And we don't really necessarily like each other. And we know each other. And the thing about it is that, fuck, we're just so similar, too.

And all of us are similar. I'm like, you know what's so fucked up is, like, I can understand you guys all fitting in together. But I come from the other side of the fucking planet and if you stand us all up next to each other we all kind of look alike and talk alike and you know what i mean and it's really weird how it can be random but it's also kind of just destiny there's lots more people and only that do you want to name i know uh the younger than you but the other hay Hayden is from there too. The guy who played Anakin Skywalker. No.

Hayden Christensen went to Thornley? This is what I'm told. Nah, you got your info. Where'd you get your information from? Hey, it's Beastie Boys. So, yeah, no, I don't think. But he is Canadian. You know, I want to write Hayden Christensen a letter.

Listen, Cam Gordon's not going to mislead me, right? Like, if he tells me Hayden Christensen went to Thornton. Yeah, shout out to Cam Gordon, co-host of Toast. And the name's Stu Stone. I'm sure you don't know Stu Stone because I used to ask everybody, like, do you know who Stu Stone is? I kind of ring these bells. Well, Stu Stone was like, he was in Donnie Darko and and he was in Magic School Bus, and he did some cool stuff. He's a local guy?

He's from Thornley. Fucking ace. There you go. Like in like Bill Wolichka, and like Damon from Danko Jones, and Change of Heart, and the guy from Acid Test. Who, Steve Fall? I don't remember. Oh, no, no, because he's from Nova Scotia.

And, you know, yeah, cool, right? Okay, amazing. But, you know, the connections go beyond, because I need to find out the origin story for By Divine Right. But, like, Brendan Canning and Noah Mintz, of course, were in a band together that was Head. Yeah, we toured with them. And that extra H came from the band Rhymes of Orange.

They gave up their H, and they handed it over to the guys from Head. No, they didn't. You're like way too into it. And Brendan Canning. It was a band from the States called Head. I know. I'm being funny.

Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. In fact, and then... There's a Rhymes of Orange connection. Okay, tell me. I don't remember. Oh, that's...

Yeah. Toy Train, right? There was a bunch of stuff I liked. The Taking of David. That was Rhymes of Orange. Maybe that's, yeah, Toy Train, right? There was a bunch of stuff I liked. The Taking of David. That was Rhymes of Orange, right? Maybe that's where our age difference shows up. How old are you, Mike?

48. 48-odd. How I could party hard when I was 48. So I was born the year you arrived in the Great White North. Canada. Canada. Okay, how does By Divine Right come to be? Give me the origin story before we get you up to current date.

Do you remember? Well, I just sort of like, I got sick of the 80s, during the 80s, and I just, I wanted to make like a cool rock and roll psychedelic record so that I could smoke a doobie and listen to it on my Walkman. And it was a By Divine Right cassette that's sort of like and roll psychedelic record so that I could smoke a doobie and listen to it on my Walkman. And it was a Bite of Iron Ray cassette that's sort of like partly Ruttles. No, not this one.

Before this? Yeah, 10 years before this. Okay. And this is a good one though too. Okay, I only loaded up a few and then I got a bunch of new stuff and then you brought a guitar too but we just so we hear a little bit of this you would have never played this song in 1997 this was on no this was on no lists where okay what album does this appear on? This is the first song on All Hail Discordia.

A great disappointment in its day. And that was the Squirtgun Records... Yeah, and then it got picked up by Network. Okay, so this is your first... We now own it

in perpetuity in the entire known universe or any other part of the universe yet to be discovered. Thank you for ripping me off. Who was in

the beginning who was in By Divine Right besides yourself? My friend Rob Covens. It was me and Rob in total Wayne and Garth tradition. We would switch drums and

guitar back and forth. We had that psychic... i didn't know about that left pan there and uh anyways uh yeah we used to switch back and forth in like 89 90 around there uh and uh i used to think like wide of mine right i would have modeled it on sid barrett when i first started so we like we would My ideal for the perfect By Divine Rights show would have been we go on, we improvise for 25 minutes. Noise and

psychedelic freak out. Then we would play our two minute hit song. And then we would improvise for 30 minutes and then good night. But it never really hit that because by the time our band actually came together, we were all too incompetent to do anything. We sucked for for years this is why i would never call ourselves a a 90s band you know and like i'm i'm glad that a lot of people like this record all hail discordia but

uh the industry did not the industry was disappointed with this i mean the number of people that were like oh it's too lo-fi. This could be a huge thing if it only was better. And people always mix it up so much too, which is pretty classic, how they put like three or four BDR myths together and they're like, I love you guys. All hail Discordia. Still a hard ocean with Feist. It's like, okay, well, those are like three different eras.

Yeah, that's bless this mess, right? No. No? That's why you're here, man. And it does all bleed together it's cool most people that know yeah would would probably they i mean all hail is a classic leno was talking about my kid he's like i love all hail it's probably the the most solid one but he'll be like but your best songs are here here and here okay what's his favorite By Divine Right album? He's got the crazy playlist.

He never plays any bad shit, never. And I'm really grateful to a lot. I'm a tough fan, right? I'm grateful to the people that follow my band through all the terrible mistakes I've made and who seem to always find the cool, even in like my weakest records, seem to find the cool songs and seem to

still be interested in the future ones. I don't know. The last time he was like check, I don't know, he likes eating the ghost. You know, or he'll be like, oh, this is a good one. It'll be like listen to my angels from Sweet Confusion. Send me up, send me up, send me up. Do you know that one?

No, you don't. What if I told you that By Divine Right was broken social scene before broken social scene? Get in line. Take a number. Okay. It's like a collective, right? I mean, I don't know how many.

Probably not when you think it was. I'd say in the early 2000s, there was a point when By Divine Right was five, six, six seven people i wasn't interested in being the only singer and we were passing instruments around a lot and our shows would be crazy it's pre-internet um most people who know the band never went to those shows but we played like you know we did a lot of touring maybe even like the peak of our success we play like three hour shows the audience would be on stage with us a lot of improvising a lot of casios stuff that never necessarily made records and um and uh yeah i would say uh and yeah anyways yeah well commercially

i mean broken social scenes like we're talking about like, you know, creative convergence that, that you can't, they're an incredible event, you know, a beautiful band. Kevin Drew's a genius, you know what I mean?

And it has a genius in the truest sense, like possessed by an enlightened spirit that seemed to cut through the bullshit. Okay, but bless this mess, because I'm going to play a jam that I think might be the most commercial song you guys ever recorded, possibly.

No. This is all... No? No. Okay. But tell me, how does Brendan Canning and Leslie Feist join By Divine Right? Well, not at the same time. They didn't even really like each other when they were in the

band um but uh and i don't brendan was probably like ah we don't need her she can barely play at that at first i mean obviously at the end there they date at one point while we're in the band and we all love each other dearly and you know now but at the first is certainly it was mark goldstein the drummer was like we should should get Leslie to play. Because we'd made a record that needed extra little parts here and there. And, you know, Leslie and I were acquaintances at the time, but we became dear friends. Brendan was in Head. Yeah.

And Head were huge rock stars, and we were huge losers. But then, you know, I think this is a theme. You could bring this up with people that might know. You know, we're just sort of like the losers that don't go away, but I think that's also because it's not a star trip, and it's a real art project, which means that there's always more curiosity. So Brandon was in this huge rock band

when they could not give a shit about By Divine Right. We were annoying, if anything, because we wouldn't fuck off. But by the time their run's ending and they put out that record, that was pretty good. Ozzy, they asked us to go on tour with them. And it was pretty obvious at the end of 96 that we had tapped into something. We were starting to tap into something that was beyond whether we were popular or not or abs or whatever, whether we had abs or the right haircuts or the right shoes,

which you've never really been like that. Do you have abs under that sweater there? Yeah, I do. Okay. Under the flabs of middle-aged men. I have some pretty solid abs. Anyways, and then so we did a tour with them, and they were playing great, that last version of Head.

I thought it was great. It was really nice. We did a tour with them so we could finish the album All Hail discordia 10 shows they were going to pay us 100 bucks per show so and we went in their van both bands to ask so we came home with a thousand bucks but we were so broke in edmonton we split 100 bucks three ways 33 bucks each so me and cam immediately bought weed i don't know who knows what ghosting. Probably bought a long distance phone card. Do you still smoke weed? Nah, I can't really do it anymore.

Okay. Do you do any edibles or drink it? What do you got? Well, I want to just really, really quickly just say, if you do want to get weed, you know, firstly, it's legal now. I don't know if that takes some of the fun out of it. Well, my name is Contreras. So like more or less you can, you can honestly, you can, you break it down like the fucking

week I stopped smoking weed to like the week it became legal. But after 30 years, like my body was like, do you want to die or do you want to smoke weed? It's, I was, you know, pretty, uh, pretty safe drug if you're going to, you know, indulge. No, it's not. I think it's terrible. It, uh, it hurts your lungs and makes people apathetic and, uh, and makes people, and you know, I think it's dangerous. What about those who are dealing with anxiety issues, et cetera? I think they should take their socks off and walk in nature a little bit more.

Change your lifestyle. Go away from your screens. Maybe don't be around your toxic people as much. Obviously, listen, I love smoking weed, and if my lungs were made amazing and I was one of those people that could smoke and sing perfectly, I probably would be high right now. Well, here's a look on that note, a can of Cabana cozy for you because I'm going to bring

you're going to bring home some fresh craft beer from Great Lakes. Oh, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. I don't mean to be so hilarious. I'm really I really am full of beans this morning. But no, I just at one point couldn't keep smoking weed anymore. But I do love eating a gummy here and there you know i'm no david lee roth but um so um uh anyway so we did that tour and uh and at the end of that

tour i guess head was uh you know running doing its run i think no uh no one's always been i've always told him this he's always been ahead of the curb you know what i mean like no pun intended um no ahead no no no right he has always been ahead of the curb and uh in the sense that he at some point was like there's no money to be done in this and i'm not sure what i'm doing i'm going to become a mastering engineer and he fucking kicks ass right he's so fucking you know he had kids first he figured it all out first and i've always told him that it's like you know if i want to know what I need to do, I just have to think of what was Noah doing seven years ago. So although I do master records, I don't think that's where I'm going to go.

And so at the end of that tour, we were making our record. The BDR made the record. And it was pretty obvious it was going to go well. And that it didn't matter whether it was lo-fi or whether we had the right shoes or whether we were going to get stickers and drop them off at the skateboard shop or whatever that people were saying.

The best stickers by Divine Right. Thank you, StickerU.com. Promo this on my ass. We're just going to give that to you. Toronto Mike stickers. This is going on my stuff. Thanks. I'm so glad that you got good sponsors it's great i

love it nice work mike do you plan to die anytime uh um hopefully not soon but at some point you i'm planning on dying shout out to ridley funeral home yo ridley ridley funeral home good people there so anyways they put the fun in funeral anyway so um um and so then at the end of that tour um later that year when shit was starting to get real with the bdr um and brendan had you know for the last couple years like like brendan went from like this like an acquaintance and most disinterest to the bdr to being like you guys have had fun really fucking good songs and at one point he came up when he was playing in len and he was like i'd fucking play in your band and so then when shit started taking off for real and we really need to solidify our lineup yeah uh i called him up and i was like hey man do you want

to do this and he said like yeah and then like that's how he joined and then a year later he was like i really um need to you know he really wanted to be a dj he's like i'm done with rock and roll i want to be a dj and he was working a job he wasn't making chicken wings but uh and so he quit but then he bumped into gourd downy who looked at him in the eye and was like i wouldn't quit the band if i was you that's a true story that that gourd downy said that to brendan canning oh yeah but it was a serious hint. And we'd gone through a couple of bass players at the time. And so then he knew what that meant.

Because Gord was a fan and everyone knew that Gord was a fan. Right. Him and I had become friends a little bit. And so sure enough, when we got the call to open up a series of secret hip shows in 98, Brendan was like ready to jump in there. Well, I mean, I'm going to hear, this is the song I alluded to earlier. If I were going to say, hey, this is your hit. Okay.

And we'll talk about like who's playing by Divine Right on the radio and all that jazz here. But this is the one, right? And it starts with a bass solo. Not a lot of songs start with a bass solo and that's props to Brendan King this is the radio edit so it doesn't have that you notice here go back

go back to the top go back to the top here and you'll hear like not a lot of songs start with a bass solo alright from the top this is Come For A Ride. Do you hear that? That's the other part of the edit. Anyways, yeah.

This jam got some... Oh, it was ridiculous. The success was amazing for this song. It was like it beat Sum 41 for the most added song in Canada. And it was a total

like turntable hit. Like, Network didn't really move any units. But this scene was played everywhere. It's ridiculous. I'd drive down the street anytime and just like go like... And this is before classic rock so the cue was playing it and like

97.7 right when they were playing new rock right everything was playing it right right and that's before new rock hits was playing it too yeah and uh i'd go to like a grocery store and like a little old lady would come up and be like i I never hear melodies like this anymore. But it didn't really sell. But who cares? It was cool. And, you know, there's only one reason why this was a hit. Because, you know, the way the Canadian music industry works. Tell me.

It was a tragically hit. It's because Gord, like my band, took us on tour. Therefore, you know, like five minutes before this was added to the radio, our label was like, there's no single. You guys failed. That's so strange. Oh, man. You think that's strange?

Aren't you into music? Don't you read books? Jose. That's not strange. Our label literally was like an emergency meeting with everyone. There's no hits. There's nothing happening. And this is for Bless This Mess.

Yes. You failed, right? And then we get the hip tour, and then this became the most added song. And there was another song on this record that was like such an obvious second single that was getting played by modern rock radio that is still getting played by modern rock radio. That network didn't, they kept like stopping it.

The, the, the Sith Lord over at network, whatever his name is. Um, he'll sue me, man. I'm going to die. If you, if I mentioned his name, uh, cause he is a Sith Lord over at Network, whatever his name is. He'll sue me. Man, I'm going to die if I mention his name. Because he is a Sith Lord.

But anyways, he stopped the release of the second single that Modern Radio still plays. What's that song called? Dude. Eat a Balanced Meal. So who's playing it? It's five bucks. Who's playing it? it's five bucks who's playing it? five bucks

it's crazy because like when last time the we had a record come out there was a few songs in 2013 there was a couple songs

that really really had like were cool and I think like these should be being played on the radio and I wrote

102 whatever they're called not 102 102. 102.1 The Edge or Indie 88. Indie 88. And I was like, listen, you guys play Five Box. And so it was like in Vancouver and Ottawa and whatever.

And I was told it wasn't a single at the time, but Station started playing it anyways. I think you should be fucking some visionaries and fucking play this song. Hey, you're fucking doing a remix over here. Anyways, anyways,

and of course they didn't play our singles from Organized Accents, but this gets played. I can tell you a funny story about this song.

Let's hear it. Oh, there's Leslie sings a little bit on this record. That's her name. Nice bass line, champ. Sounds great in the cans, man.

Well, I mean, you know, you're like 25 years late. I was there, man. Listen to this. Okay. Anyways, good. I like that verse. I can't pay my rent and all the money spent. That's cool, man.

Can you write that? Wrote itself. You wrote everything, right? You are by divine right. I'm just one man. One humble man. You're sort of like you are to by divine right as Manfred is to elephants and stars.

Like, this is just... I've heard that elephants and stars are two really great bands. Anyways, the funny thing is, right? So I wrote a letter to Indie88 saying, like, once you play, like, Past the Stars or More Thorns, a couple songs you should maybe check out on 2013's Organized Accidents. And I never heard back from them, of course. But anyways, here's the crazy story.

So I moved to the country, like, 10 years ago. Whereabouts? Caledon. Beautiful area. Okay, that's just, like, north of Brampton, right? In a forest, yeah. The 50... I know, the country like 10 years ago. Whereabouts? Caledon. Beautiful area. Okay. It's just like north of Brampton, right? In a forest. Yeah.

There's 50. I know. It's a secret. Like I could be in the hot tub in 40 minutes from downtown. Don't tell anyone. Why not? Because the prices will sky. Oh, you're already there.

It's already happened. So then, oh, look at this. Glockenspiel, 98. That's right. I got five bucks. Oh, here comes the drum fill I got five dollars Oh you got a famous person singing

Yeah And that's enough Make fun of me Yeah yeah That's enough Yeah Cause we got so much soul Yeah

Okay so this is the natural follow up To Come For A Ride No it was never released as a single. But why? Because of some Sith Lord? Yeah. You can't name this guy because you're afraid of the lawsuit? No, we'll do some research. We'll call him the Sith Lord?

Do some research. The network guy. Yeah, anyways, and it was already added. It was already being played on stations. Anyway, so I'm living in the woods like 10 years ago, 10 years after this came out, and my neighbor's kids and their friends come over to my studio. And they're like, they don't have a clue who I am, by the way.

They've never heard of By Devine, right? They could not give a fuck. Right. Right. And they're like, you wrote Five Bucks? Wow. And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, yeah, our band covers that song and we played at parties

and people freak out and that's just fucking funny because like i said that's wild it's funny they don't know who i am right they've never heard of by divine right or they you know what i mean it's just weird so like anyways yeah cambrio uh an fotm who uh writes in does jose does we don't play this song in live anymore. No? Does Jose remember working with, of course you do, but I'm going to ask this question, working with

Mellow Grove Band? Of course I do. I know. Because first of all, members of your band end up in Mellow Grove. I mean, No, vice versa.

Vice versa. Okay, okay. What's your favorite memory of the Mellow Grove Band? Oh man, I love those guys so much and working on that record. Well, I did three records

with them and uh and uh it was just magical time you know they're the first we're talking darcy and michael right this is uh your and uh and most importantly jay nunes the singer and main singer and songwriter although darcy is a songwriter too wonderful singer and songwriter the two of them it's really darcy and jay mike being just the ultimate bass player uh sort of like you know like doesn't say too much gets the perfect sound you know mike toured with us you take like 20 minutes to get his bass sound eventually okay shut up shut up he'd be like boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom like just he's a sound fetishist you know until he gets to sound

perfect i love fucking mike small or as i like to call him tiny load anyways i know uh michael anthony lloyd small michael anthony there you go michael because you mentioned michael lloyd david lee rock michael lloyd anthony small i. So it went from then to Tony Lloyd to Tiny Lode. But anyways, no, I loved working with the Mellow Girl Band. We did their first record in my dad's living room. He was on vacation and I was like, hey, we got a piano there and they wanted to do a piano. So we set up, my dad doesn't know, by the way.

We took pictures of the house moved all the furniture set up you had the piano tuned and made the record in his living room and then uh and uh and that's it coincides with that what i was talking before where i was suddenly had like a 70s like genesis style debt um how did that come to be is that because the game is rigged i have a non-disclosure agreement. I can't really discuss it. But, you know, sort of like it was the end of a certain situation and all of a sudden I inherited a lot of debt. Not even my bandmates know the details at the time.

But it coincided perfectly with all these people asking me to produce their records. And one of the very first ones I did was with the Melligrove band and it was just a ridiculous success like uh they signed a huge deal uh um you know i think it was like five dollars um five bucks with v2 uh in in the uk and the record was magic we recorded in my dad's living room it was magic oh now now when you're saying your most commercial song this is my most commercial song, this is my most commercial song. And I hate this. If I could scrape this off the side of my colon, I would.

Really? Song sucks. See, you need to do your homework, man. Seriously. Well, that's what you're here for. My 16-year-old will never put this song on for me, but he'll play like a ton of cool shit. I want pussy.

I want jizz. You know what song this song used to be a joke song it needs to have a long intro right that used to talk i used to talk about it in the intro this song was seven minutes long and it was like this this story and the intro was like where i dedicated to paul abdul who hadn't come back yet, right? No American Idol yet. No. And I used to be like, Paula, we miss you and we believe this could be your comeback hit. And then we break into the song.

And then it had this huge long middle part where we recorded actual gangsters in London, Ontario. Like scary people talking about killing people. Can I call you out on something? Yeah. Because that's what we do in this show. But okay, it sounds like you hate this song. I hate this song.

Okay. I'm embarrassed. So why does the official By Divine Right website literally highlight this song as the song embedded to play on the website? I have no idea, Mike. Good morning, beautiful. Could you please help me redesign my website? It is a little dusty. I've actually hired people and they disappear.

Here's the deal. I could administer my career full time every day, seriously, until I have no career left. Right? Or I could make music, right? Make an art. And even when I make a video, and I've made a few cool ones that you should check out recently. We're going to get recently. After like those 30, 40 hours,

I'm like, fuck, you know, I couldn't be making music doing this. So I just, here's what happened with this song. It was like this seven minute weird thing. There's cool elements to it.

Don't get me wrong, right? But when first, I was going through a hard time in my life. Everyone, it was like five minutes before anyone in Toronto became famous, right? And is that your vape or my vape?

Flashlight from Ridley Funeral Home, buddy. Oh, fuck. I thought I was getting a free vape. Anyways, sweet flashlight. So anyways, it was like 10 minutes before. Can you turn this down? This is making my nipples hard. Anyways, like 10 minutes before, I'd say this down? This is making my nipples hard. Anyways, like 10 minutes before,

I'd say five minutes before everyone got famous in Toronto, right? It was a very confusing time. Like even like everyone was just so excited about, like I would tell people, yeah, I'm making my record in London. And friends would be like, thought I meant England. Right. I was like, man, I'm taking the fucking greyhound to london ontario and i'm making my friend's living room so um during that period uh you know i was dating

maybe like i don't know i i the world had a lot more pain in it than i thought i did and uh and i somehow got convinced first my label and the producer yeah you should take the out intro out we should take the middle bridge out and then the outro was also like 2 or 3 minutes we should fade out and so then all of a sudden it turned into this milfrock nugget and I didn't it's my fault I wasn't paying attention

and it got mixed and then all of a sudden I find myself in New York City in this video making a video for this song that's so fucking lame and I realized it was too late and you know it made a lot of money like it's on in like it got placed a lot and it's i could hear that getting licensed it was in smallville it was like it was every week in it was that one of the songs every week on fashion television like shout out it was so

fucking embarrassing and it just would not fucking go away and i like you know within a few months of the record because we were being we're always been pretty cooperative people so but after a few months of when that record came out we were touring it i was like i can never play this song ever again and sure enough like when we would like say play with the truce it'd be like hey man we love you guys especially that song supernatural well you know it almost sounds a little bit like when you hear the origin story for like blurs song two right where like they were making like a they were kind of making fun of this style like they were gonna create like a manufacturer like song two

is really good though you know like well some people think supernatural is really good that's the guy from the truth i feel sorry for them and they got it wrong. I remember the guy from Big Wreck going, no, hear your song. Ian Thornley. Hear your song, man. I'm jealous. We should be better. And it's like, no, I'm sorry.

I think it's a tacky, tacky song. And it was supposed to be tacky, but it's lost its context. The intro was hilarious. And here's the funny thing. I think, and it could be me, I just lost cred with myself when this song came out and before when it was a bit of a jokey song and i would play acoustic and stripped down before the record came out before we recorded it people would love it they'd come out and be like like cool people who we could you would

consider cool and i would consider cool right um not just like manfred or Cam but like honestly they'd be like I fucking love that Paul Abdul song because it was a set up for Paul Abdul it worked but as soon as that got removed it's just like shitty I hate it I'm embarrassed it kind of reminds me a little of Hawksley Workman striptease where I don't think he

like I don't think he's a big fan of striptease actually because it's sort of that commercial single style or whatever. Yeah, Ryan's great. But I think that worked out better for Ryan than Supernatural. So Hawksley's a Ryan? Yeah. See, I don't think I ever knew Hawks, like, secret identity or whatever.

That sounds, yeah, you've got to be a Hawksley, not a Ryan. You have to be a Hayden, not a Paul. So it's Paul Desser? Right. Actually, I did know that. You know, I used to do a lot of karaoke at one point. When I did karaoke as Jose, people would be like, yeah, that's really good. Really good, right?

Yeah. And then sometimes I'd use an Anglo name. Like Joe? No, like Calvin. Okay. People would lose their shit. Racism is real, man. That Okay. People would lose their shit. Racism is real, man. That sucks.

People would lose their shit. People would be chanting my name. That's shitty. That's shitty to hear that. One quick fun fact is that we just heard a question from... I should have changed my name. And now from Bidevine Right, the limo's here. Calvin.

Did you... Is it true? And I know it's true, but tell me, like you you did a tour of china yeah so what was that like because not a lot not a lot of canadian bands were doing a concert tour of china back in the early 2000s uh an unforgettable fascinating uh and fun and traumatic fucking shit show. And, uh, you know, I was doing this podcast interview,

uh, West, like last time I was there in 2013, last time we were touring out there. And this guy wanted to do a friend of mine wanted to do a podcast. It's out there on the, he wanted to go track by track with the new BDR record at the time, organized accents,

really good record. Anyways. Um, uh, and he asked me a little bit about china and then he realized that i had a lot of stories i was like do you really want to hear this shit because i could talk for hours he said yeah and then i talked for hours in great detail um do i get the the highlights oh man it was uh the greatest hits do you have a greatest hit is there a by divine right greatest hits compilation um isn't that so great that there isn't great like no sides lose anyways uh uh there's this amazing story that we laugh so many stories we laugh about you know like

it was the foggy season in china so like we were like everywhere they took they want to just get us hammered and feed us like like you know like applause lines like like we're like the Ringo Starrs like an applause line going into a restaurant you know like where the staff is like applauding while you walk up the aisle um and then uh we're just they get us loaded and we're on the tour bus and it's fog season so you can't see like two meters ahead of the van so they can't get or in in the bus so they couldn't get us to our next gig so they took us to the train station and at this point we're all hung over and it's four in the morning and we're loading our gear literally we're poor musicians so it's like we have 32 pieces most of it are like shopping bags

and shit or like there were some cases, fly cases. We're loading it into a car with chickens. Okay. Okay. And then when we get to our destination, whatever, you know, there's just people everywhere. There's like you're sound checking and you're like, what the fuck? And there's like someone turning the knobs on your amp for fun. There's like, why are all these people on stage just like oh it's like the families of the people

the people that they're friends people we don't even know who they are like could you get i'd like bark at people because they're really friendly and no one's very aggressive so i'm finally just going like go away stop touching my amp get off the stage we're sound checking wow i could go on it was unbelievable well listen here because i want to get to the the new the new material and i have new music from you that's right kids new music but before i get there i'm just coming out tomorrow is that cool is that tomorrow okay that's great timing okay so that's uh september 23rd 2022 uh the 2010 album muted message was long listed

for the Polaris Music Prize and it was nominated for a Juno. Yeah. So that's like a bridge, okay? Because I'm going to actually...

I love that though because like, you know... Oh yeah. Sorry, I was like... What is Mike playing here? Okay,

I thought I'd get us to 2022. Recorded in the garage it's like this is a long song there's like 10 verses on this song. I love the compression you have on it. It's like radio. Estas escuchando la radio con Mike Toronto. Well, that's the plan, Stan. Gotta sound big here. Okay. Anyways,

it's a auto motto. Auto motto. Auto motto. Auto motto. We played this show in Montreal not that long ago

and there were all these kids partying there and by the end of the set they were just chanting automoto it was really hilarious to tell them to shut up at one point

because we play our last batch of shows we just played our new record front to back because we don't know anything else and it's a double album right? kind of in a sort of 90s reissue kind of way We play our last batch of shows. We just played our new record front to back because we don't know anything else.

And it's a double album, right? Yeah. Okay. Kind of in a sort of like 90s reissue kind of way. And it's out tomorrow. Okay. So I just want to get like some facts in here. Zero Milfrock content. There might be a little Milfrock.

And this is the first single from Automoto. You know, and again, like. St. Leon. BDR's not a marketing plan. It was like we... And we found a wonderful label in Fortune's Teller, a really cool garage rock label. And...

That's a cool name, because it's like Fortune Teller, but actually the name is Fortune Stellar. Yeah. Cool. It's Shiloh Harrison and Andrew DeVille's label. She is the singer and songwriter for Hot Kid,. She is the singer and songwriter for Hot Kid, and he is the singer and songwriter for Mad Ones,

and together they're hot and heavy and have a really cute kid and this amazing label. So they come along and I'm like, you know what, we're going to just drop, soft drop this six-minute boring song that has no MILF content. Ironically, though, maybe not for the minivan crowd, but this song is like literally about a van, right?

It's just about, it's about an adventure the three of us had. The van's in there. It's Rhoda's last stand. This is in Calgary, right? It happened in Vancouver, but at the end, and not in Vancouver, in BC, we all went to this sort of famous hot tub where the hippies go,

had a magical time, and then we drove to Calgary, fell apart, played a show, that kind of thing. And then the van died the next day. But anyway, so we released this, and they were cool with it. They weren't like, hmm, this isn't the single. They were like, you know, like none of the videos we put out for this record, which you should check out. Some of them are pretty cool.

Well, there's only three. Where will you find these? On the By Divine Right YouTube channel? Geez, I don't know that there is a By Divine Right YouTube channel. Google it, people. You'll find it. You're going to find it.

Yeah. Anyways, it's out there. It's on the Fortune Stellar website. Fortune Stellar Records. Yeah. And so Lish had gone on Dri driven up north with her partner uh nico and they had filmed a bunch of stuff i was like you know this footage you filmed is so cute just like nico driving with their dogs and shit i was like i'll put it to this song which as you

can tell just goes on and on this is like verse six and uh it's like leonard cohen's hallelujah there's a 402 verses to this separate and this yeah finally we get to calgary and lish sprains our ankle and we fall apart um and so uh anyways that's why i came out it wasn't like like you know like the new stars single or something that's been like planned out you know like not that they're not a wonderful band, but you know what I mean. You aren't over... I love this song. And then the next single, the reason it came out was because a good friend of mine,

a wonderful artist, John Claytor, he put this clip of a ghost walking down the street on his Instagram. And I was like, that fucking looks cool with, that would look cool with our song number 87. And so then I contacted him and I said,

listen, I've got money. And if I don't spend it in the next like five minutes, I'm going to need a new roof or something. I don't know if you know what it's like. Yeah, I do. Uh, you know,

every like, Oh, should I buy a guitar? No, I need to fix something that no one will ever enjoy um and uh so then he made a video for number 87 and it was so beautiful so that's why that's the second single and i say that quotation air marks because it's not really single and then the next one like this is not for radio radio is not playing this song i know some some radio

seasons who's at it in tor? Is anyone playing it in Toronto? Like, does Indie 88 play? Toronto's a... You know, there's Starfuckers in Toronto. It's a popularity contest. Well, like, you know, it's Toronto Mike. That's why I focus on Toronto. But where would By Divine...

And I need to find out, by the way. College radio... Some college radio's played in. Some people have... Like CIUT? I don't... I doubt it. This is... It's not a thrash metal.

Anyways... Ryerson... Okay, they don't call it that anymore. No, it's not a thrash metal. Anyways. Ryerson, okay, they don't call it that anymore. it's, it got added to playlists and maybe this one got added to Radio 3 too

and then the next one, number 87, got added to Radio 3. You know, I think there's room now because they don't play Arcade Fire anymore. Ooh,

low blow. No, but fact. I mean, when are they going to cancel fucking John Lennon? You know, like seriously. But, but fact. I mean, I don't even make it. When are they going to cancel fucking John Lennon? You know, like seriously. But ooh, I dare say it.

Anyways, so it's too much money riding on that one. There's way too many left. Well, John, I mean, the allegations are he abused his wife, right? Cynthia? Or am I missing something else? I mean, whatever. I'm not allegating. I'm just saying like, yeah, it's true. I know. So are you of else? I mean, whatever. I'm not allegating. I'm just saying like, yeah, it's true.

I know. So are you of the, I mean, I guess you are part of this like Toronto scene that did, did result in, I mean, I know they're Montreal band, but this Canadian scene,

this indie rock scene that resulted, we talked about broken social scene, but also arcade fire, like, uh, and Feist, who we just talked about being in by divine, right.

Was opening for arcade fire in Europe. And then she dropped out of the tour. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on that? That whole, uh, well, you know, being in By Divine Right, was opening for Arcade Fire in Europe and then she dropped out of the tour. Do you have any thoughts on that? That whole situation? I know I'm sure you know people that know and people that know people who know.

I guess it's a bit of a shit show. I don't know if you notice that they're not saying anything online. There's no... They just have to finish it. I can just imagine right now all the fucking like cease and desist lawyers, letters that are being sent around and all the out of court settlements being made. And I think the band themselves are probably in heavy duty denial of like trying to like not not admit that it this could be the

end of the run and it's just a fucking nightmare and also like you know like um i saw someone quote something somewhere and you know like uh you know fame is a really weird thing and i can only imagine what it must be like for someone who's actually famous and i'm talking about the socan checks as well as like what you can get away with at some point it became okay to grab my ass in public and uh and i guess that's legal or people cross their pat lines all the time and and definitely given me leeway to cross any line i wanted to in a really weird sort of way so i can only imagine for someone who's actually famous but and the quote being like even all through all that i've never sent anyone a picture of my dick you know so maybe i haven't

lived yeah man yeah it's a tough one tough one there okay and it's disappointing it's heartbreaking you know we found out at the same time i think like honestly one of the things that we're all feeling is that the 20th century is over and we're all hanging on to it as much as we can you know we can all get like a marilyn monroe t-shirt or like get another reissue of a wonderful album from the from the 20th century but like you know my um my partner and I the beautiful and charming Amy Nichol um we're just realizing you know like uh that uh page and panel closed at the Toronto Reference Library and uh and uh Curry's Music supplies closing down on queen street across from the drake and all of a sudden arcade fire is going to get canceled and it's like wow so this is

now the end of that cute era do you remember how cute graphic design was in the early 2000s it's like the best posters all this adorable shit right well i was gonna ask you if you've read the uh the book hurts on fire i don't think that's the name of it but michael barclay wrote a book on the canadian no i haven't read that one okay so the thing about that he's a lovely guy he's so probably in there yeah for sure i'm on the footnote you know you're in there you're in there he was here to when he launched when the book came out and we were talking about in playing songs from that era and it really literally that book closes with a chapter about Arcade Fire,

like the biggest commercial darling out of that entire Canadian indie rock boom in the early 2000s. And I was, you know, so when he heard these allegations against Wynn Butler there, I know on Twitter I saw a tweet from him where he was personally just, you know, devastated and disappointed. Yeah, because these are like sort of like the early 2000s were so fucking cute, right? In Canada or in the world. And, you know, to me, it's related to the pageant panel. I don't know if you know what I mean by pageant panel.

Well, explain for everybody. Oh, it's that wonderful graphic novel and art and bookstore that was in the ground floor of the Toronto Reference Library. That was a great place to buy books, buy novels, buy cute stuffies and pens and notebooks and stuff. And it just seems to have been a child of that early 2000s era of like optimism, beauty, culture clash, freedom, sort of like post-gender, whatever you want to

like, you know, like a really hopeful moment and, you know, and I think Arcade Fire was part of that. And to me and Amy, um, there was a poignancy to seeing Paige and finding out, holy fuck, Paige and panel close at the end of July. fuck page and panel closed at the end of july and the same moment finding out that uh uh win ding dong was fucking sending you know who's kind of an imposing seven foot monster like sending pictures of his wiener to fucking 19 year olds it's just kind of like oh fuck man does anything last right does anything fucking last and then you know and it's just like the end of the 20th century we're all dealing with it guess what fucking you know what

if mad max is the number one movie that's what you're gonna fucking get right right you know right now the world wants to be fucking mad max automoto releases uh out tomorrow double album and you mentioned you're on the road. Any upcoming dates for By Divine Right? Yeah, lots of them. The next gig, the next run that we're doing, we're really excited about. You know, it's been, right now, Andrew and Shiloh are kind of managing our band.

When they're not, you know, Andrew's about to go on tour with mad ones in uh in europe tomorrow or saturday and and they each of them have their bands and they're making records release they're doing a great job of managing our bands i would go as almost as far as saying they're the best label i've been on because they actually are taking responsibility for stuff and really covering so many bases and And they've yet to say, we're going to do something that they haven't done. And they really been supportive.

And so they're kind of like helping us book stuff. We don't have an agent. We don't have management. We don't have any structure. It's been 15 years since I parted ways with real management. and, and so the fact that we have this tour is a miracle and it's either booked by fans, booked by ourselves or booked by our label.

And so the way I've called this tour at one point, I was like, you know, no potato too small. Or like the poster, I don't know if you've seen it, says paying our dues in 2022 because it starts, we start in the fog next Friday, the fog in Windsor, the famous fog. It's a spaceport. It's like basically what, what was the name of the spaceport in star Wars?

I was like the filthiest scum of villainy or whatever the height of, you know, um, the, uh, Mos Eisley, the canteen. Yeah.

Mos Eisley. It's like, and then from there we go to, uh, to play, um, uh, mods convenience in, uh. It's like, and then from there we go to play Mod's Convenience in, you got it, Sarnia. Sarnia.

And then from there we play an afternoon show in London at a brewery. So it's like, and these are booked by dear fans and friends of the band. Amazing. And like I say, no potato too small. We're picking our dudes in 2022. We're ready. You you know we don't have there's no Sith Lords on our side

okay but you need to name check my mistake that I haven't because I talked about how many people have come through by Divine Right

and you know gone on to do other things and we talk I mean all these I mean Brian from Holy Fuck like all these guys come through the band

Brian Borchardt yeah from Dusted and from Brian Borchardt his Brian Borchardt records are absolutely beautiful and Dusted as well we used to laugh because holy fuck was his side project and uh and he and i actually recorded the first holy fuck stuff and then we all applied to cmj we all had the same manager and of course like by divine right didn't get into cmj brian borchard didn't get into cmj but holy fuck did which was like his total like

like project like you know like he wasn't even planning on recording it i had a day in the studio and i was like listen man i have a day in the studio i'd love to record you just buy me a chunk of hash and we'll go and we'll record it and uh and that never got released but that got him into cmj and that's how he met beansans, and then all of a sudden it took off. But I love Brian so much, and his last record, the last Dusted record is super beautiful. All his records are beautiful. I produced a really beautiful Brian Borchardt record too.

Forget what it's called. It's got a smoking bird on the cover. It's a genius record. And anyways, so yeah. I need you to name check the current By Divine Right lineup. The current By Divine Right lineup is made up of sort of like celebrities

in their own right. Jordy Dines from Oshawa, he jacks that whole east side part of town. He used to be the drummer in the Markinside, and he plays in lots of bands, and he's just as sweet. He's a man so tall that when he stands up, his ears pop. That's a good line. Thank you.

I am a dad, after all. And then on bass is Alicia Haugen Lisch, Lush, Lish, who used to be the lead guitar player in Sheezer and used to be our nanny. Wow. So at one point when she started coming over to jam, my kids would be like,

yay, Lish. I'm like, she's here to babysit me now. And this is the longest BDR lineup we've ever had. Yeah. And I learned my lessons. Well, since 2010, right? Yeah. I'm learning my lessons, you know, like, instead of like, you pissed me off.

That's it. Next. I'm like, we build something. There's something. I've had a lot of cool lineups in the band. And there's something that happened when the three of us played that I didn't count on and maybe discounted in the past, which is just like chemistry. And our first show together was we were opening

for our good friend's Winter Sleep. Yeah. And Lowell played in the BDR, and we did a bunch of tours with them back in the day, and they all came up and they were like, that's the best By Divine Right lineup that we've seen and and there was just like a chemistry where it's like you know i've always loved the term um a champion team will beat a team of champions and uh and we are humble little fuzzy trio and when we're on we're fucking seriously mike yeah you could get us to back up i'll say it right now get us to back

up any band any artist in the world and they're going to try to be like fucking love you guys because when we play we're closer to the spirit of rock and roll than than than i don't know how it happened but we are there's just we know our shit you know like when charlie watts died yeah and i was like well fuck at least i still got jordy jordy's not ever going to end up in a beer commercial playing drums but he's fucking when he's he if he doesn't feel it he just won't fucking play seriously he's not like but that could be rather inconvenient it can be very inconvenient but it's a real it's a real it's incredibly inconvenient and, but he's got a real feel. He's pure groove. That's what he does. He just only, he's a skiffle drummer. He's not a hot rock drummer. He'll never play in fucking in, you know, Thornley, but like, uh, you know, but, uh, I fucking love playing with him. When I play with Jordy, we're fucking cool. That's what's so great. And when I play with Lish, she's got a beautiful voice and she just,

she's like, she's younger and so she brings that sort of like, sort of like, I don't know, Sonic Youth vibe to what we're doing,

sort of more angular and anyways, we're jamming later today. It's going to be the best. Amazing. Now on that note, so you did bring a guitar and there's no pressure for me.

This is, it depends on how you're feeling right now. Did you want to play something for us live here? I love singing songs, but I was going to ask you what you wanted me to play. But you may not know the new record well enough to request a song. Fuzzy Empire? Well, what do you want to play?

What do you want to play? I don't know. I can play Fuzzy Empire, but I mean... Well, play something from Automoto, if you don't know. I can play Fuzzy Empire, but I mean... Well, play something from Automoto, if you don't mind. I'd love to. Give you a moment to get your stuff. It's a double album in the sense that it's an hour long.

Kind of like when you reissue a Stereolab record, it's not going to fit on one record. It's not quite... Like London Calling. Well, no, but London Calling is actually seven minutes. This isn't 70 minutes long. record it's not going to fit on one record it's not quite like london calling it well no but london calling is actually seven minutes this isn't 70 minutes okay this is 60 okay okay uh you so i'll just talk to the good people here because i refuse to edit anything so jose is going to get his guitar and then i'll even open up this mic here so i'm going to open up that mic honestly god i want you to play what

you're feeling right now like i uh you i want to hear something from the new album actually you know what i won't even like pigeonhole you like that by the way did you know the word mimico is an indigenous word for pigeon that's a fun fact this part of town is so cool when i was pulling it i'm like man you gotta figure it out out here. It's cooler by the lake, as you know. But you're up in Caledon. This hood still has lots of really interesting shit that the rest of Toronto has died in. I don't know why this hasn't been as... Gentrified.

As, like, sodomized as the rest of town. Yeah. But not that there's anything wrong with that. No. But, you know, I'm sort of... Do you have a tuner? No, I do not. In fact, even just last week,

Ron Hawkins was looking for one and luckily Stephen Stanley had one, but I do not have one. And so I love it down here. And, you know, like I was just even looking at that cool like camping supply store. Yeah, TNT. It's been there forever, man.

Forever. There's still a byway here. A rogue byway, yes. Kind of a stander. Get some vids in there? Yeah, I'm going to record this. I'll play the first song. Gadgeteers exploits Excess ingenuity

Profit from my mistakes Profit from my mistakes profit from my mistakes ghostly view of a live concert profit from my mistakes profit from my mistakes Thanks for watching. Profit from my mistakes Profit from my mistakes Profit from my mistakes Profit from my mistakes Profit from my mistakes The polite way to make people vanish Transmitter, transmitter vanish transmitter transmitter receiver receiver

the polite way to make people vanish the quitter the quitter believer believer it's the polite way to make people vanish I swore I saw you there Floating in midair It's the polite way to make people vanish

So come on angel It's the polite way to make people vanish. So, come on, angel. You got professional problems. Profit from my mistake. Profit from my mistakes. Profit from my mistakes. Profit from my mistakes Amazing! Hold on, my applause here, holy smokes! Honestly, Jose, that's incredible, buddy.

Thanks so much for doing that. Cheers. I mean, amazing. That's the first song on the new BDR record. Oh my God, okay. Problems of the professional. If somebody wants to hear the new By Divine Right record, auto, motto, where the heck would you like them to go?

I'm so sorry we're so disorganized. People tell me all the time, it's like, I get these kind of letters, I love you and I look for your shows and I can't find them. Unfortunately, I keep a a nice our house is nice and my kids are good and and i feed my cat and i'm writing new music and i'm mixing records for our artists and stuff like that so our website sucks uh instagram probably be pretty good to find it uh i think that the best place it will eventually eventually be out on Spotify and all that shit tomorrow.

Right, tomorrow. And probably YouTube and whatever else, whatever fascist regime we're following. But the Fortune Stellar website, Fortune Stellar Records, I don't know. That's your best bet. They got it going on over there. Yeah, they really do. And that's where you find our, we have three videos out for the record so far

and they're all really cool and we've gotten really nice letters from people. And considering we don't really have, you know, any part of the algorithm, it's still been really positive response. Am I getting the yank here? Well, I can un-yank, of course.

I can un-yank. No, no, no. I did warn you I'd play a song from Shakespeare, My Butt, at the end of the episode. Oh, sorry, sorry.

Oh, I'm so great. Oh, man, these are wonderful times, right? I don't know how old you were at the time, whether you were there. I just remember, you know,

we actually played a couple shows with Losolo at the time. And we were just like the most unpalatable band possible. And they were just like all these beautiful long hairs in their plaid and their rolled up jeans. And people just were swooning. It was wonderful. We played at Heart House Farms with them in like 91, 92. And one time I played drums in a band that opened for them and I shot blood all over.

What happened? I was playing drums and I shot blood all over the drum set. Oh, God. But now we're friendly, of course, with all these guys because we played a show with them not that long ago at Sandbanks. Amazing. The provincial park? Yeah, it was great. Amazing. Yeah, with the inbreds too. Yeah. That Provincial Park? Yeah, it was great.

Amazing. Yeah, with the Inbreds too. Yeah. That's the first time that we performed Automoto. I was like, we're not playing a single old song

in that gig. I was like, unless we play all new songs, I'll cancel. And we played all new, it kind of kick-started this record.

Well, dude, so great to meet you, man. What's up, man? Sorry I'm so obnoxious. Don't. I had a really great night. Seriously. And an awesome morning. You were awesome. I like it when a guest comes in ready to go

sometimes you get a sleepy guest and you're like what the what the fuck usually me i don't know what the fuck happened you were great you were great and we learned so much about by divine right we learned so much about you we learned about auto motto which people can you know get tomorrow and we heard you play live we're gonna take a outside. I do have a lasagna for you. I really am giving you these fresh cans of Great Lakes beer. It looks so good. It's disorienting. Normally when there's like four beers in front of me and I'm all thirsty and shit,

I'm like, I don't know, dude, but I do have to do stuff. And that brings us to the end of our 1000. Thanks for having me, by the way. I love it.

1-1-7. So 1117th show. That's 10, 1-1-7. So 1,117th show. That's 10, eh? That's one. We're all one. That's the magic number of your show. This is one. We are one.

You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Now, Jose, you yourself are not on Twitter, but I do know By Divine Right is on Twitter. I tagged him and they refuted. That's one of us. So somebody is manning that account. Okay.

Or personning that account. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Thank you for beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. I got a vegetarian for you.

Lasagna. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Yeah. Electronic Products Recycling Association are at EPRA. Probably about

the most important thing that you're advertising. Product, yeah. There's a safe way to recycle your old tech. Manufacturing has to stop or the planet's going to end. We need to recycle. Reuse. Rebuild.

Love it. Love it. Shout out to Diane Sachs. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. I want to check out who my next guest is before I close this off. Hold on. I'm going to my calendar.

I should know this off the top of my head, right? Oh, my next guest, Andrew Stoughton. He, of course, covers the Blue Jays. And we're going to find out why he's no longer at the Athletics. So join me for that episode Monday. Your smile is fine, it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green Well, I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun

go down on Chaclacour But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold

but the smell of snow warms us today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away Cause everything is rosy now Everything is rosy

Yeah everything is rosy and gray Yeah Everything is rosy and gray.