The Moffatts – Interview

So, you just recently just did a tour of Canada, right?

Clint: We just did our first Canadian tour and we didn’t know what to expect, so we played smaller venues and all the shows were sold out. So, we are going back to do a bigger tour.

How is it doing shows in North America since you’ve spent a lot of time overseas?

Clint: I think it’s awesome. The acts that we are playing with is very diversified. When you do a lot of these pop radio shows, they have a lot of dance groups on like 98 degrees, B*witched, and C Note. I think it’s been a cool experience.

Have you noticed a difference between the fans in North America from those overseas?

Bob: A couple of years back we were introduced to America doing country, and now we are getting introduced doing pop-rock music, so people are just starting to recognize us. When you go to Europe and Asia, if we walk down the street we get recognized time after time, but it is fun to come back to a country where no one really knows us yet. But all over the world the fans are very supportive. They usually go crazy when we go out there and sing.

You have done over a thousand shows. How do you get excited to perform for each one?

Clint: For us, we’ve been playing music for a long time and we’ve experienced a lot of different things and there are so many things that we have to do in the music business, and for us playing a live show is the high point. We love going on stage and playing on stage for the fans. We love hearing the fans; everything works up to that.

When did you start writing your own songs?

Dave: We started writing a really long time ago. Scott wrote his first song when he was six or seven years old. I mean, it wasn’t that great or anything, but we keep on writing.

Bob: Well, the question is, when did we write our own song and the first song we wrote together was

Dave: (interrupts) “Little Boys”

Bob: It was “We Are The Moffatts”.

Dave: No, no. (he interjects)

Bob: (continues, unphased) We wanted to write a theme song for us and we did a lot of covers, but we didn’t want to get into the writing aspect until we had a Moffatt’s theme song. And everywhere we went we would play it and had like line dancing and stuff. Back then, our parents used to sing with us and instead of continuing to be the Moffatt Family we wrote that to be the Moffatts.

Dave: We weren’t great songwriters at the time and our dad used to help us write the songs, but now we write the songs basically by ourselves.

When did you first start playing instruments and how did you figure out who was going to play what?

Dave: Well, actually Clint, Bob, and Scott started playing guitar at first, but I had always played the keyboard. But Clint and Bob didn’t like playing guitar all that much, so Bob moved on to the drums and Clint moved to the bass when we were like six.

Bob: Yeah, we were like six or seven.

So you just stuck with those instruments and you never wanted to play something else?

Bob: When we did concerts, we didn’t play any instruments. We just stood at the front of the stage and sang and danced. We had a band that backed us up. And our last tour of America we wanted to move and experience something new, so we went for the instrumentation aspect.

What do you guys listen to when you are on the road?

Dave: We listen to a lot of British music.

Clint: For myself, I listen to a lot of Brian Adams and a lot of Canadian bands, but I also like a lot of English music like Blur and Oasis. Actually, yesterday I was on the plane and they didn’t have a lot of good music to listen to. They had a lot of classical, but they had a country station and I turned it to that because that was the only decent music that was playing, and I have to say that the new country stuff is getting better. I heard the new Tim McGraw song and I thought it was a great pop song. I mean, it is pop, except for the voice.

Bob: We like the Barenaked Ladies, and we saw them in the UK and they were opening for this band called The Beautiful South. And when they went onstage, the place wasn’t full, as Wembley Arena, and no matter that the place wasn’t full, they still went onstage and played a great show.

I hear a lot of Nirvana in your stuff.

Clint: That is actually one of our favorite bands.

Do you hate that you are always on the cover of the teen mags and classified with all of the boy bands, like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys?

Clint: We know that is what they are going to put us in, but if it wasn’t for those magazines then we wouldn’t have had the head start that we have had. Even before our record was released and anyone knew about us, they were giving us a shot in the U.S. Our music is what is going to show what is different.

Dave: Rolling Stone put us in their magazine as the ‘new band of the year’ and that is like the alternative press and that was great.

I noticed the two hidden tracks on the album. What is the deal with those?

(Scott enters the room and joins in on the conversation right away)

Scott: We had a European album and a Canadian album and that has “Frustration”, the acoustic song, about forty seconds after. Since we had another song that was real heavy and deep, and we wanted to add it, so we stuck “Frustration” five minutes past the last song and “Over The Rainbow” past the other hidden track.

They are very Nirvana-ish.

Scott: Yeah.

Clint: We recorded the second one in a studio in Germany and we put just overhead mics and there weren’t really any studio mics. And we did it in one take so you can hear mistakes on all the instruments.

So are you guys involved with the websites?

Scott: Yeah. We have www.moffatthigh.com and we have www.themoffatts.com .

Bob: We’ve worked on the moffatt high for a long time, but I think it will change over time to be something else.

Do you ever get a chance to answer your fans’ emails?

Dave: We have our own personal emails that we do business on because we are all part of Moffatt Entertainment, and we all have our different departments that we work with. I’m in charge of endorsements and Clint is in charge of live gigs, marketing, and merchandise.

What does that involve?

Scott: We just watch over it and make sure that it is running smoothly, but we have people who are paid to do it. So we don’t really interfere, but we give our opinions.

Does it have anything to do with something that you may want to do down the road, like have your own record label and sign artists?

Scott: Yeah. I’m actually in charge of the A&R aspect. And actually Perry Watts is the hottest A&R guy for alternative music and he is starting his own label and I want to be his little unknown A&R guy.

Clint: (saying to me) You know who you remind me of? I just figured it out. The guitar player from the Barenaked Ladies.

I hope that is good.

Clint: Yeah. He is really cool.

So, is it refreshing to come to America and begin to build a whole new fan base?

Bob: I think that every country that we’ve been to we’ve had to build a following. There has never really, with the exception of Asia, never been a fan base already so we had to just go there and tour. I think coming to the U.S. is going to be the same. We just have to come and show them what the Moffatts are all about.

Scott: Before we go to any country, I think people already think they have an idea of what we are like. We aren’t just some boy band so that is why we have to play live as much as possible. We have to go out and play every show possible to show them we are not a boy band and that we are a rock-pop band.

Do you like the challenge of proving it to everyone?

Scott: Oh yeah.

Have you ever had a real scary fan experience?

Dave: Well, this fan walked into our room. There were like four thousand fans outside because we just did a radio interview and it was right next to the hotel. And one of the fans walked into our hotel room and she just started crying. And we were just in our boxers; we had no shirt on and nothing else.

At least she came in crying and not freaking out.

Clint: We told her she had to get out and that was the end of that. Fans are sneaky. We were shooting a video in Munich and we came and this fan knew our room number and hotel that we were staying at. She said she found it on the internet, but we never gave it out, so I don’t know.

So do you guys have a chance to have a life?

Dave: Well, we get to go to movies and stuff.

Clint: We usually get to do some normal things. We try to be as normal as we can, but this is also a job that we have to put a lot of time into.

Scott: A lot of people look at this job and say, ‘That is the greatest job.’ But it is a job.

Clint: Last night we were in Sacramento and we woke up at five to do a show, and we flew out of out of Sacramento after a two hour delay and finally got to Chicago at like ten at night. Then we discovered that our plane was canceled from Chicago to Rochester, so we had to sleep at a hotel and wake up at four-thirty in the morning, and then do two shows today. I mean, that isn’t much glamour.

Scott: People think it is all girls and parties, but this job takes up ninety percent of your time.

So what would you say to those who may have never heard of the Moffatts?

Scott: You shouldn’t just close your mind to our music. Even if you are a teenage guy who doesn’t like the teeny bop thing, because that isn’t who we are and you should give our music a chance. If people weren’t open minded, then bands like Nirvana, The Rolling Stones, and a lot of other great bands would never have been here, so keep your mind open. I’m sure that no matter what your taste is you’ll find a song on the album that you like.

+ charlie craine