[OBIK: Young Lions interview taken from Schrik #2. Interview by Deanna Schrik, the black and white photos are by Deanna, the bluish ones are by Sheila Boyd, and appeared (uncredited) on the Young Lions' second demo tape. I have no clue what "+++" means.]

The first time I saw/heard the Young Lions, I really took a liking to them. And at that moment, I knew I had to talk to them, but I didn't get around to it till now. They've been going at it for a year and are very optimistic about each other and the band.

Mike: Yah, there's three guys, there's three Young Lions, there's three Young Lions here, right? Three in the movie, there's Marlon Brando (he points to Chris), Montegomery Clift (points to himself) and Dean Martin (points to Steve).
Chris: (doing his Brando impersonation) Eh, tell us a joke, eh?
Steve: Where's my martini?
Mike: It was also sort of an anti-war film and we're...sort of anti-war.
Chris: And I guess the other meaning to it would he, uh, the lion's always been used as a symbol of power all throughout history, a lot of reggae songs have it too. And so we thought it was pretty appropriate cos what we want eventually is world domination.
Mike: Pure and simple...

Me: WHAT DO YOU PARTICULARLY LIKE ABOUT RAR?
Mike: Well, they pay a lot of money. We made about, uh...
Chris: 35 cents...
Mike: Yah.
Steve: Case of beer.
Chris: No, we had to pay for that.
Me: DO YOU LIKE THEIR IDEAS AND STUFF?
Chris: The idea's great...
Me: WELL, YOU OBVIOUSLY LIKE THE IDEAS COS YOU'RE PLAYING A LOT.
Mike: Yah, when it started out, me and Chris were on the actual, committee, making heavy decisions.
Chris: Like who would go to the beer store... Things like that.
Me: AREN'T YOU ON IT ANYMORE?
Chris: No, he isn't. I'm still involved...
Mike: Cos it probably looked sort of funny that two Young Lions were on this thing and...
Me: YOU'RE GETTING ALL THE GIGS.
Chris: Yah.
Mike: We were the only ones who would do the gigs, right? Like all the other bands were saying, "Oh, yah, we'll do it for $100."
Chris: And it's either that or, bands, now that there's no clubs around, the bands will see it as a chance to play because they're so bad that they can't get a gig anywhere.

Mike: Uh, girls and cars, man...
Me: AND DRUGS, RIGHT?
Chris: And drugs...
Mike: That's right, oh yeah. Life on the road. It's so bad...

MADE IN ENGLAND

Chris: Take a song we wrote, "Made in England". And we could be better than any band from England, well... I'm not saying that, hut we could be, but people won't recognize us just because we're from their home town.
They've gotta have something that's imported, if it says "Made in England" on the album cover, then they'll buy it, no matter how bad it is...

FREEDOM FIGHTER

Mike: That was a group composition written with everybody playing different instruments, usually, and a lot of the lines are from the Steinbeck book Grapes of Wrath, not word-for-word, but the idea. So Martin Luther King, everybody can do their thing, everybody can do their part. You don't have to he in the government to make a change, you can be just a guy in the street....
Chris: It goes from the hills of Afghanistan to the back streets of Toronto. Just covers everything. Like why shouldn't people be able to do what they want.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Chris: It was about the time Ronald Reagan just got elected into office. And it's just about the super powers and nuclear war, like, WWIII, which a lot of people night not believe is right on their doorstep...

CADILLACS ARE BACK

Mike: I saw a guy being interviewed on TV. It was a cab driver in Washington and this guy said, "So, what's it like being a cab driver since Reagan was elected president?" And he said "Well, when Jimmy Carter was president, everybody took cabs to the White House, I was driving around all these senators and everything. And now that Reagan's in power, everyone's driving limousines and Cadillacs." Cab driver says, "I guess the Cadillacs are back."

BLACK AND BLUE

Mike: "Black and Blue" is about the cops...
Chris: International local, sort of thing.

ONE LITTLE NAZI

Mike: The nazi party in Buffalo said they were gonna demonstrate on the same day, Martin Luther King's birthday. They went to court and were denied the right to do it, but they said they were going to do it anyway. So the media were saying, "Oh, there's gonna be a big confrontation here, nazis against leftists" and all this shit, right? And every station in the world was down there with their cameras and were waiting for the big violent outbreak. Cos, it'll make good news...
Chris: People love violence...
Mike: So one nazi showed up, don't mention his name, this one guy showed up...And he's a fuckin' lunatic, and he showed up and he said, before hand, that he was gonna have hundreds of supporters out there and no one showed up. And he came out on the steps of City Hall, with a swastika in his hand, and the thing that made me really sick was, there were all these people celebrating unity and brotherhood...But all the cameras were on this one nazi guy. One little nazi gets all the attention. So then, a lot of people on the news that night said, "Oh, it was a joke. There was only one nazi who showed up." So I thought, well, one nazi. That's one too many, there should have been no nazis at all, they should've been wiped out. I mean they shouldn't have been there at all.
Me: IT WAS AS IF THEY WERE DISAPPOINTED OR SOMETHING...
Mike: Yeah, exactly. They were ready for a big violent riot and everything and they were so upset.
+++And that's the whole idea behind the song, that the media is a farce, it just goes for the controversy, the sickness, they don't go for the good things that happen. They go for the disease and the stupid fuckin' people.

ME: SO YOU'RE POLITICAL THEN, MAINLY...
Mike: Who us?
Chris: We told you, we write about cars and girls!
Mike: That's right.
+++
Me: THE STUFF IN AMERICA... IT ALMOST EFFECTS YOU MORE THAN THE STUFF IN CANADA, DOESN'T IT?
Chris: Yes, it does...Things are pretty good in Canada, in a way. Like he's cutting taxes and the way he's doing that is he's cutting off social assistance for the people...
Mike: Welfare...
Chris: And in the meantime, he's increasing the defense budget and they're gonna spend 200 billion dollars in the next five years...
Mike: Save money today, get killed tomorrow...
Chris: Like that's one thing that really bugs us, instead of trying to help people that are on this earth right now, they're trying to kill them...

Me: YOU GUYS HAVE QUITE A VARIED SOUND. LIKE, A LOT OF YOUR SONGS ARE REALLY HEAVYISH AND THEN YOU'VE GOT...
Mike: Heavyish?
Me:...YOU DO STUFF LIKE "FREEDOM FIGHTER," RIGHT? AND YOU DO STUFF LIKE, WELL YOU DID THAT COUNTRY AMD WESTERN SONG AT THE PARTY, WAS THAT JUST A JOKE?
Chris: No.
Me: AND THEN YOU DO A FUNKY THING...
Mike: Yah.
Me: DO YOU VARY YOUR SOUND ON PURPOSE TO KEEP INTEREST, OR IS IT JUST THE WAY IT COMES OUT?
Chris: Yah, it's just the way it comes out basically.
Steve: We don't have any dispositions about different types of music.
Chris: Yah, like we cover every range of music from jazz to heavy rock n roll/punk, whatever you want to call it. But it's all varied, and sounds different, hut it's all the Young Lions' sound.

Me: DO YOU LIKE BEING A TORONTO BAND?
Mike: No
Me: YOU'D RATHER BE SOMEWHERE ELSE?
Chris: I'd like to see other places...
Mike: I like Toronto...
Me: BEING BASED IN TORONTO... I GUESS YOU WOULDN'T KNOW COS YOU'VE NEVER BEEN BASED ANYWHERE ELSE, REALLY.
Mike: No, it's nice to be based here, but who the fuck wants to play here?
+++
Me: DO YOU THINK THAT'S KIND OF LIKE A BARRIER? ACTUALLY BEING HERE?
Chris: Yah
Me: DO YOU THINK IF YOU WENT TO ANOTHER PLACE, IT'D BE OK?
Mike: Well, it's really funny. I read in the Globe and Mail one day, some guy was interviewing Gary Cormier saying "Why did The Edge close down?" And he said, "Well, because there's just not enough local talent to support a club, to stay open 7 days a week or 6 days a week." And the day I read that, we played the Blitz. There was like, 5 or 6 bands that played at the Blitz...On the same night, the Horseshoe closed down, there was 18, 19 bands, 17 bands, played that gig. So all together, you got around 25/30 bands playing in one night and this guy's saying, "Hey, there's no local bands." It's not the bands' problem, it's just the people.
Chris: They don't give support...
Mike: The only way you can make it in Toronto is if you can sell records in Scarborough, in the suburbs, you can make it. But if you're a downtown sort of band you can't.

Chris: The first time we played in Hull, and then we were up in Ottawa, seems...the people were just great. They're just out for a good time. Like the first chord you hit on your guitar and they're up dancing and just having a good time.
Mike: Even before that.
Me: A BAND FROM ANOTHER PLACE SEEMS TO ATTRACT MORE...
Mike: It's not just that, because the bands that opened for us, we played three nights at this club, and each night there were three bands, but even for the local bands, people got up and danced. Which is...I couldn't believe it.
Chris: I've been reading a lot about these other bands playing down in Spain and how everybody in the town comes out and they just have a great time, it's like a siesta...
Mike: No, no, fiesta!
Chris: No, sure. We'd love to do that, I'd love to go see Europe, I think it'd be great. I've heard people there just take you for what you are.
Me: EVEN OTHER ATTITUDES OUT IN EUROPE ARE MORE LIBERAL THAN HERE.
Mike + Chris: Yah
Mike: That's right...

Me: HAVE YOU GUYS TAKEN LESSONS ON YOUR INSTRUMENTS?
Mike: I took baton and jazz for 2 years.. I was on Tiny Talent Time once...
Me: ON YOUR INSTRUMENTS ...
Mike: ...Bill Lawrence kept groping me...
Chris: Oh, I remember. I took 2 lessons and I quit. And from then on I just learned from records and things like that.
Me: DO YOU THINK YOU REALLY NEED IT?
Mike: Well, I did cos it was great! Cos my mother signed me up for guitar lessons, she said, "If you're not gonna go to school and you wanna play guitar all day, take lessons." So she signed me up, and it was great, cos she'd give me the money to pay the guy and I'd go and play pinball all night, it was fuckin' great! Never showed up...
Me: HOPE YOUR MOM DOESN'T READ THIS...
Mike: Well, she found out eventually, the guy phoned up and said, uh, "Is your son coming in? You owe us $64..."
Chris: So now his mother wears a Young Lions T-shirt 24 hours a day. He was forgiven for that...
Steve: Well, I took a few lessons of guitar and then I switched over to drums and I took music in high school. I played for a couple of concerts in high school. I went through a hell of a lot of albums.
Mike: He just learned off records.
Chris: Yah, we all learned that way. It's cheap...
+++
Chris: Well, I don't know if you'd call me a musician, some people say I can't play bass...A lot of people have said that. A lot of people have said that we can't sing and we should get a singer.
(we all talk at once)
Me: THAT'S NOT THE POINT...
Chris: It comes from inside, it's more feeling...
Me: I THINK THE THING ABOUT, YOU'RE NOT A GOOD BASS PLAYER, THAT'S NOT REALLY THE POINT. LIKE, OH, I CAN DO A MILLION BASS SOLOS, WOW...I'M FANTASTIC...
Chris: That's like starting you into a business. Like you've gotta be great and you've gotta have vocal lessons.
Me: AS LONG AS YOH HAVE THE, UM...AS LONG AS YOU'RE WILLING, YOU REALLY BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU'RE DOING...
+++
Chris: Yah, like, we're not very talented musicians, I don't think we ever will be. It's just...we play what we feel. And that's the way it comes out.

Chris: If we get 30 people out to a gig and one person out of those 30 people understands what we're saying then it was worth it to do that gig...Because, otherwise, they just don't understand a thing. And if nobody cares, then nothing will really change, it'll just stay the same. And there's a lot of things that have to be changed.

+++

Steve: We more or less want to get our message across...
Chris: We just want people to hear our stuff...
Mike: Yah, it doesn't matter how. If it makes the CHUM top 30, that's great. We're not gonna go out looking for it. But if it does, that'd he nice.
Chris: Cos we're not pushing...
Mike: That'd he sort of a fantasy come true in a way, cos I grew up listening to the top 30 and it'd be really weird to have a song in it.
Me: THE TOP 30 AROUND HERE IS PRETTY AWFUL...
Mike: Sure, the top 30 is synonymous with garbage.

+++

Me: OK... THE AUDIENCE. DO YOU GUYS HAVE A RECOGNIZABLE FOLLOWING THAT COMES OUT ALL THE TIME?
Chris: That's really ironic because there's always people talking about us, like I'll meet somebody at a party and they'll say, "Yah, somebody was talking about the Young Lions the other day" and this and that...Everybody talks about us but then when we play, nobody comes out to see us.
Mike: Well, we shouldn't say nobody, there are...
Chris: Yah, there are a few people who will come out and see us all the time...

+++

Me: IS THE BAND FULL-TIME FOR YOU?
Chris: Yah.
Mike: No, no...I have to sleep...

+++

Chris: We're starting to get tired. I've been up since 3:00 this afternoon...

+++

Chris: I'd just like to see if we can get our message across and I think most of the problem in the world is just ignorance and it's just like I said, if nobody cares, then nothing will change. And people have to care about something...
Me: SO YOU THINK YOU CAN MAKE PEOPLE REALIZE/WAKE UP?
Mike: No, not in this city...
Chris: We're just gonna go into town, we're not gonna play any clubs, we're just gonna pick a back alley and set up and wake everybody up.
Mike: Sure.
Chris: That's one way of doing it...
Mike: Get the dogs down there...
Chris: Maybe that's it... Maybe that's why we did start a band because music is the one thing that'll reach, like, is a great medium to reach people with...
Me: ESPECIALLY YOUNGER PEOPLE..
Chris: Especially... Like the younger kids, and that's who we want to reach because they're the ones who are going to be growing up and making decisions later. And I'm not saying that we're gonna set them absolutely straight, but at least we're gonna give them an idea, like, what to think about.
Mike: That's right, it does influence you, I mean you're a kid, that's all you listen to is music, that rules your whole life...
Mike: People have always said that to us, after a gig, they'll say...I've had 2 reactions and one is, "You guys have really great songs but you're too fuckin' political, you know, and it pisses me off" and that's it, they won't listen to you after that. And other people have said, the punk audience has said we're too heavy metal or something like that, or we're not punk enough...
Me: THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU'RE STRIVING FOR...
Mike: No, and then we'll play the Headspace and this guy will cone up to me outside and say. "Oh, you guys are fuckin' great, it's too bad you're punk."
Chris: So what do you do?

+++

Me: DO YOU HAVE THE SAME IDEALS? LIKE MOST BANDS HAVE THE...SAME...IDEALS...
Mike: I don't know. Do we?
Chris: Yah, I think so.
Mike: We've had to work on it.
Steve: We're all sick of the same things.
Chris: Like, after we practice we punch out each other, keeps us going till the next, day...
Me: SO YOU'RE HAPPY WITH THE SITUATION NOW?
Chris: Yah, we get along really good. There's no musical differences. We just play what we play. Everything's written by the band, it's all the band's stuff...

+++

Me: DO YOU THINK YOU CAN PUT OUT AN INDIE SINGLE AND GET SOMEWHERE?
Chris: Sure
Mike: I hope so, that's what we're counting on.

+++

Me: WOULD YOU EVER SIGN WITH A BIG LABEL?
Mike: Yah, if it was on our terms. If it was a fair deal...A lot of bands get sucked in, uh, "sign this boy, and we'll make a record and we'll make you a star" and the next thing you know, you've got no control and they're telling you what to write, what to put on your records...
Chris: And they stay around for 2 years at the top of the charts and that's it, you never hear them again. We don't want to do that.
Me: SO YOU WANT CONTROL OVER WHAT HAPPENS THEN...
Chris: Yah, publicity, every-thing...
Mike: We're Fascists, we want control...

Mike: It's like paying protection to the mafia. Paying them money to join their union and they're supposed to protect you, but all you're getting protection from is them. They're the ones who are gonna give you a hard time if you don't join. Nobody else will. We've been playing a million places in the last year and we're not union. No hassles. I don't see the point in joining.

Me: BANDS THESE DAYS SEEM TO JUST COME AND GO. YOU NOTICE WHEN THE BEATLES WERE AROUND, THEY SEEMED TO LAST FOREVER...THE BANDS NOW, YOU HEAR THEM FOR TWO YEARS, AND THEY'RE IN, BANDS ARE MORE...TRENDY. DO YOU AGREE WITH THAT?
Mike: Well, that's just the simple fact that history, everything is getting faster and faster, and we're on like a roller coaster, and it's not the bands. There's bands now that are as good as the Beatles were and as original as the Beatles were, but people's attention spans are a lot shorter now. +++ You've just gotta ignore that stuff...
Chris: Yah, people will finally start to realize, you know, "What's going on? We're changing trends every week, I've got to buy a new wardrobe every week and what do I do with my old clothes?"
Mike: No, just be honest and do what you want and you'11 survive. That's it...
Chris: Just be yourself...

Chris: Like a lot of things happen in this city...Because somebody wants to be gay, let them be gay. So what? They're not bugging you, they're not threatening your life. And some people think that being gay is wrong, or something like that, to them, so they'll beat them up. Even stuff like that...
Me: I KNOW, IT'S POINTLESS...
Chris: Yah, you're not going to prove anything, all you're gonna do is beat this guy up.
Me: WOW, GOOD FOR YOU...
Chris: Yah, hooray...
Steve: That's their way out.
Me: IT'S COS THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND, THAT'S ALL...
Chris: Those are the people who can't understand change. Cos they don't wanna change.

Chris: And now that we're in a band, it's taken us this long to get it together and now people think, "You're not part of any movement or anything, you must be in a band because you want to make money." But we really...We don't want to make money...As long as we've got a place to stay and we've got Kraft Dinner or whatever, as long as we can eat and have some where to stay and practice, we're happy. I just wanna make music, that's it...