4TheRcrd Mag.

The SSRIs are driven post-hardcore punk. Taking the Radiohead model for In Rainbows and replicating it, the band Vancouver the SSRIs have put their entire first album online for free (www.thessris.com). They will be following that up with new material soon, and have acquired a new third member after having lost their original drummer, John. In the week that they had between losing their drummer and their next show, they wrote a new set of songs and decided to rock it as a duo. I got a chance to sit down with them in a Commercial drive coffee shop one rainy afternoon and ask them questions until I had to go to work. It is after they have hit the Anza, Hoko’s and countless art spaces and, as they describe it, “shitty rock bars,” the SSRIs demonstrated in my interview with them that they represent a point of entry into the newly experimental Vancouver underground music scene. Not to mention, they came within a heartbeat of taking off in Shindig! battle of the bands.

Abstract musical ideas, a wide ranging taste in influences from the era of online music, and a strong sense of do it yourself philosophy not only define the band, but position them alongside the city’s wide-ranging spectrum of artists, all calling out for alternatives to by the numbers overhyped mainstream stuff. I am thinking as I write this about the success of Fake Jazz Wednesdays at the Cobalt, the rumbling of revolutionary sounds heard at the Casa Del Artista, and the endless and elusive string of art space happenings, house shows, and make-shift performances that hold together Vancouver’s night life, a crazy place to get out in.

When their drummer quit, they were left as a duo. Their take on being a post-hardcore band was confusing, so I asked them about it. It is mainly a point of departure. They have experienced a shift from excitement about technically difficult music into a focus on interesting sound and texture and composition. Musical versatility has led them to view themselves as a “free for all kind of thing,” in which they are “moving into [a] non specialist direction.” Performances are mostly comprised of songs written for live instrumentation, and generated in that setting. Elliot Langford described the context of their music to me succinctly:

We see ourselves as kind of being in the lineage of a bunch of bands. Post hardcore to me means bands that took the aeasthetic and philosophy of hardcore but weren’t playing hardcore or weren’t doing things musically like 1983 hardcore.”

This philosophy has meant avoiding promoters and hooking up with like minded peers to create a musical environment in which they can thrive. They are predominantly interested in shows at venues like Hoko’s where money at the door goes to bands, drinks are reasonable and the business is family run.

Their recordings get done “live off the floor, like a jazz band.” And these recordings give the listener some idea of the chaotic and controlled range of their band. For their new stuff, they have spontaneously broken into more thrashy territory, but seek to keep writing with the goal of having actual songs. To this end, half their energy is focused on lyrics and half on the music. Having moved away from specifically preachy message songs, they pursue an active interest in doing benefit shows, and have played for Greenpeace, while looking up to the activist side of bands like Fugazi.

The influence of the seminal hardcore band Fugazi, Ian MacKave its band leader, and the DC hardcore scene generates ideas for Eliot and Joseph of the SSRIs. They find Ian MacKaye “very admirable.” With the SSRIs operations as a band, they are inspired by the diy philosophy: low ticket prices, all ages shows, benefits only in hometown, not selling tonnes of merchandise. Not being “a band to sell t-shirts.” Very admirable indeed. You can check out the SSRIs at Little Mountain Studios on March 11th at the Railway Club (www.thessris.com).

IMAGE CREDIT: here.