Joel Bruyere of Thousand Foot Krutch

Interview by Sam Bello

Canada has proven to be a fruitful basket of successful rock and roll acts that have invaded and impacted the U.S. audiences over the years, even though you could only name two or three off the top of your head at the most when asked. No doubt (No! Not the band!) classic rock heroes like Rush, followed by something like Loverboy, Bryan Adams or even Neil Young (he was born there you know) will be the first to come to mind. Rush is always the first. Anyway, speed up a couple decades and contemporary Canadian imports such as Nickelback, Default, Finger Eleven, Kittie and others are currently enjoying their time in music history.

Joining the league of Canadian rock acts (but hey, it’s about the music not where they come from, right) branding their names on the American charts is Thousand Foot Krutch. Behind their breakout hit single “Rawkfist,” TFK is ready to finally get the recognition they feel they deserve after years of honing their craft. RockRage spoke with bassist Joel Bruyere to find out a little bit more about the band and their Tooth & Nail Records debut Phenomenon.

RR: For starters, let’s go over the background of the band since you’re fairly new to most people. Now how many members are in the band? As far as I know, there are three members Thousand Foot Krutch but I may have seen some press images where there are four members in the photo.

Joel: I think the whole three-person thing happened at a time when we had gone through a guitar player change and we did a photo shoot for the new layout for the record and it just went as the three of us; drummer, bass player and vocalist ‘cause what’s the point in getting a stand-in if he’s not the real guy? And then the new stuff you would have seen is with the guy that’s currently been touring with us.

RR: So it’s four.

Joel: It’s always been a four-piece. At that time we were doing studio musicians we [had] studio musicians coming in and do the shows with us.

RR: The band itself has been around for seven years. I understand that [vocalist/guitarist] Trevor [McNevan] is the only original member of the band.

Joel: True. I’m the second most recent original. There have only been two bass players and I’m the second one in. He quit. This is my fifth year. So he quit about two years into the band.

RR: So how many members has the band gone through?

Joel: This is the third drummer and the second guitar player. We had about five guitar players, I guess, that had played shows with us. But it’s just because we had studio guys in. And then bass players, yeah, I’m the second bass players, too. It’s kind of one of those things where it did start in high school so that whole process of people thinking that it’s just a phase for the band and I want to get on with my life, college/university thing is what kind of pushed people out and put new members in. Trev’s kind of had this envision since day one and he stuck it out regardless. He’s a trooper.

RR: And [drummer] Steve [Augustine] has been with the band for how long?

Joel: Three years.

RR: For Trevor, and you too, you’ve been doing this for a number of years already and things are finally starting to break out for the band. Did it seem like it was taking a long time for things to happen?

Joel: You know, we were super busy. We were fortunate enough to do like 250+ shows a year. We were really, really busy just building a fan base. Because we had been tied up in a real bogus record deal there was not much media behind us, which kind of forced us to do the whole grass roots style getting out there, which was very, very cool. Because I mean you get out there and you learn a lot from doing that and going through that process. So that was a lot of fun, but at the same time, yeah, and to get some recognition or to sort of get any national airplay like what we’ve been getting that’s been a long time coming for sure.

RR: So when you were doing all these tours under this other label was this mainly Canada or were you coming to the States as well?

Joel: It was, actually, predominately U.S. and not much Canada.

RR: Really?

Joel: Yes.

RR: Okay. I mean that’s a good thing for breaking into the U.S., but seeing that you’re from Toronto, you’d think…

Joel: Yeah, I know. I mean Canada has been good to us. It’s just the fact of the matter is you can maximum spend about two and a half weeks and you’re finished touring the cities that do shows in Canada, which we do once or twice a year. We’ll go through and we’ll do all the major cities across the provinces. The reality is that there’s so many clubs in the States that it’s like a never-ending sea of shows it seems like.

RR: Sure and some bands go back and fourth a couple times.

Joel: Yeah.

RR: So you guys are on Tooth & Nail Records right now, but I understand there were several other labels interested before you signed with Tooth & Nail. I guess most bands strive to go for the major labels, which nowadays is also something bands try to stay away from.

Joel: Yeah.

RR: What was it about Tooth & Nail that they were able to offer you guys that the other labels weren’t?

Joel: I think we kind of got to know a few people that had worked in and around and with them and, I mean, obviously it was the offer they gave us. It was the stuff to we had kind of seen how hard working they were. They’re a really strong team of people. That was kind of the selling point for us. We met with them a few times and they were really persistent in signing us even through our whole…there was period of about three years where we couldn’t sign to anybody at all because we were legally bound. But they stilled talked to us through all that. A lot of people had shied away by that and didn’t really want to take the time and be patient. They’ve [Tooth & Nail] just been good to us and we’re super happy, too, because they’ve done a great job since we’ve been with them. They’re an amazing bunch of people of there.

RR: They show genuine faith in you guys. I can see labels not wanting to wait three years, which sucks.

Joel: That’s so true. I mean it’s so frustrating almost to the fact that we had to use such old product. You know what I mean? Every time we gave out promo packs it was a CD that just kept gaining age and age and age. And now it’s like five years old and that indie CD/record is nothing pretty much off the new record, know what I mean? It’s kind of strange we had to sort of live with that for the longest, longest time and they were able to see that. All they could here was the stuff we were playing live. We had nothing really tracked for them to hear. They kind of just believed in the fact that we probably were obviously maturing in our songwriting and they somehow, some way saw the vision of it and stuck it through.

RR: And it’s paying off. At least with the first single “Rawkfist,” it’s all over radio and the charts and I guess it was featured in ‘Smallville’ too?

Joel: Yeah, yeah.

RR: So it looks like they’re working some muscle to get that out there.

Joel: You know what? Our publicist is amazing and nonstop work it seems like. I know there’s other people that she works for, but she’s out there. Digging in the ditches, sort of. But, yeah, ‘Smallville’ was kind of a…we’re happy that that went through ‘cause we got some good response from that.

RR: Was that something the show approached you about?

Joel: Yeah, they actually approached us and said that they were doing a full series of singles from bands and plug in a photo of the record and the band name at the end of the episode. We were into that. We actually just landed a couple Xbox/Playstation2 game soundtracks as well.

RR: Which ones?

Joel: ‘Backyard Brawlers.’ Don’t know how that one happened and then there’s a - I’m not sure which one – there’s a baseball game coming out on Xbox and how baseball got “Rawkfist” involved with it I don’t know. But somehow, some way they’ve got some sort of calibration going on there. I’m not sure if it’s the MLB that’s coming out in 2005.

RR: Well, “Rawkfist” has been pushed as a rock anthem and it definitely comes across as a rock anthem. I understand that “Rawkfist” wasn’t the obvious choice for the first single.

Joel: So funny, because I just did an interview just before this and I was kind of explaining how it’s not an accurate representation of the rest of the songs on the record in any way or whatsoever. It’s kind of the only track that, uh, we did the rap-rock thing for a long time and it’s kind of the only track left that’s evolved from that whole flavor of our music and, yeah, it was not a number one pick at all. It was more of just a fun one to put on the record. Even when they said that they were going to push it as a single, we were like, “Nah. No way. You’re joking” We thought it was a joke and then they started to push it. They were serious about it and…

RR: It caught on.

Joel: (Chuckles)Yeah, somehow it caught on.

RR: So if it wasn’t your choice, what song would it have been and will that be your next single?

Joel: Um, they’re actually pushing for a different one than we want. We’re in the process of trying to, uh, track two on the record is called “Step To Me,” and we’re really interested in releasing that one. Or “Faith, Love and Happiness.” They’re kind of more accurate of the style that we [are].

RR: You mentioned the rap-rock thing. Set It Off is being re-released, which is the previous album to Phenomenon. Uh oh. (At this point, a pre-recorded announcement came over the phone stating that Joel only had 1 minute remaining on his account. So, here’s the final minute of our interview…)

Joel: Not a bad thing. We’ll go with it.

RR: Alright. Is that what it was? You guys did kind of a rap-rock thing and now your doing less of the rap thing and more of the melodic rock.

Joel: Exactly. That’s kind of how we kind of went with things. It wasn’t a conscience thing I don’t think. It’s just kind of how the music process, writing evolved for us.

RR: How much of a role did [producer] Aaron Sprinkle play into the involvement, if any.

Joel: Um, he wasn’t really a writer on the record. Most of the stuff had already been finished in pre-production by the time we took it to him. But we did not have a guitar player at the time. He played the guitar parts. I mean there was some creativity, obviously, on his part as well, but it wasn’t written by Aaron.

RR: Yeah, I saw that he played some guitar. Was he….

Joel: [Phone: pffzzzzz….]

RR: Hello?