CHART MAGAZINE - June 2001 Wrecks In Effect By Alex Ristic It would be safe to say that Big Wreck is the enigma of an everchangin rock 'n' roll industry that is desperately looking for the net Beatle, Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Nirvana, etc. An American band with a Canadian singer, the Wrecksters sell way more albums in Canada than in the States (200 000 copies to 100 000 of the last record In Loving Memory Of…). Yet, their flavourful rock anthems are what you would expect to come from south of the border – guitar-based rock with a sense of melody and singalong tunes. So here they are with a new album in tow titled The Pleasure And The Greed. Having caught up with lead singer Ian Thornley, we got down to what makes the band so effective: the musical impetus behind their rock. So, what is so distinctive about the Big Wreck sound? Can Thornley convey it to us? "I don't know – I really don't," he says. "I'm too close to it to say. It's a guitar-heavy sound, the vocals are a little different from what people are doing now, the drum sounds are certainly different from what people are doing now. Every corner of the Big Wreck sound is different from what's going on right now. I would say thee whole thing is identifiable as a Big Wreck sound." Thornley is a Torontonian and the rest of his mates reside in Massachussets. Could that be it, Ian? Is it the Canadian part of your sound that stands you apart? Wait a minute, do you even have anything remotely Canadian in your sound? "The high-hats. I think we have Canadian high-hats. Very Canadian high-hat sound [laughs]. No man, I don't know. I don't know what the distinction is, really, I'm just sort of too close to it to say." It seems like the direct approach doesn't work with Thornley, so we have to be a little sneaky. Seeing as how it's playoff season in the NHL, we talk about hockey. Comparisons are made between good ol' Canadian hard working hockey players – the kind that go in the corner and scrap things out – and the workman-like approach to creating Big Wreck music. Apparently, Thornley is a prolific writer. He took 60 songs into the studio for the recording of their latest disc, making him the de-facto Willie Nelson of rock 'n' roll. Hard work must be the answer. "I prefer to think of it as seriously talented and intriguing – decidedly un-Canadian," laughs Thornley. "It may be some of that. I do apply some work ethic to the whole music thing. If you call yourself a writer then write, so that's what I do – I just write a lot. I'm always searching for that one, I don't think I'll ever get it, but I'm always searching for that one perfect something that will just fix everything." Seeing as Thonley is having problems defining Big Wreck's sound in the rock 'n' roll scheme of things, we'll take it a little easier on him. At the very least he can tell us what sets the band apart, what innovations in rock they've created, keeping them distanced from the one-hit wonder rock hacks that radio listeners are inundated with every day. "We're all really beggars and thieves at the end of the day. We're all stealing from somewhere and there's no way to get around that – you can't. It's all coming from somewhere, so am I innovating it? No! The only thing that I'm doing that may be innovating is playing with it a different way, or doing a different thing, or mixing this with that, and even that. I'm getting all those ideas from somewhere. It's just a matter of whether you wear it on your sleeve so much." Well, now we're getting somewhere. So where does Big Wreck beg and steal from? "A lot of the old stuff. I steal a lot from reggae, old blues, old folk, obviously a lot of '70s rock – sort of like a who's the best. I've stolen a lot from Jeff Buckley, I've stolen a lot from U2, I've stolen a lot from the Police. Teef!" Reggae? Blues? The Police? What do they have to do with rock 'n' roll? With all those influences, why didn't you get into ska or something? "Chicks [laughs]. No, it's fun, and it's a good way to get your ya-yas off, it really is. It's just a good way to get off, a good way to get a huge group of people together, a good way to feel like that person that you're not everyday – I like that, stepping out a bit."