Featured Artist

How would you describe Wednesday Night Heroes to someone who has never heard you before?The Wednesday Night Heroes sounds like a locomotive from hell burning down the street dead aimed at blowing your mind. It is anthemic punk mixed with tinges of old UK and American hardcore. Either way, it is fun as fuck and will melt your face.

How did you guys go about getting hooked up with such a great label like BYO? We have played loads of shows with a lot of the bands from BYO like the Briefs, A Global Threat, Clit 45 and of course Youth Brigade, and they always seem to have a great time with us. So when we finished the demos for "Guilty Pleasures" we sent it to the Sterns and they seemed to dig what we were slingin'! For us it was cool, because BYO has a pretty cool history of working with punk/hardcore bands from Canada in the early eighties like SNFU, the Stretch Marks and Jr. Gone Wild, and since these were a lot of bands we grew up on, (not to mention 7 Seconds, Youth Brigade and those kick-ass comps) we were just excited to work with them. Plus BYO is still very punk oriented. While many independent labels are just emulating majors, and treating their bands like shit, BYO has always retained a hands on approach to the grass roots of punk.

Tell us something about yourself that might shock people.My teeth are made out of wood.

What's the craziest thing you've ever done in your life?Join a band that gets paid in pizza and beer.

Prior to your most recent release ("Guilty Pleasures"), how many albums had you guys put out? Well we put out a split 7  w/The Cleats and our debut album S/T in 2001. After that we released another 7" called "No Regrets For Our Youth" and the second album "Superiority Complex" in 2003. All of those releases were on an upstart label called Longshot Music run by this great guy named Mike Josephson. In 2005, we put out another 7" called "Move To Press" on Jake Casualty's label Charged Records and in 2007, "Guilty Pleasures" was finally released on BYO.

In what way have you progressed since your first album? Other than, lineup changes and what not, I think that we have definitely let things just hash out. When we first started, we really wanted to be a streetpunk band and that meant that we wrote songs to kinda fit that idea. However, through the years, it has just been fun to throw in whatever we wanted to spice it up. I think for us, just writing stuff that would be what we wanted to hear was important. All of the dudes in the band love making mixtapes for our road trips, and they would be eclectic little blasts of 77' style punk, to early 80's hardcore, to 70's glam and all types of rock'n roll, so we just figured why not make a record that would feel the same. A little hardcore, a little anthem...it was just fun doing whatever we wanted.

You just got done with a big tour across the US with Global Threat. Please give us the highlights &  lowlights of the tour.Well the highlights would definitely have been traveling with two cool bands in A Global Threat and Monster Squad. Each band had their own dimensions and their own sounds, but at the end of the day everyone partied with each other and talked a grip of shit, so it made for a great time.The lowlights, would have been when shows got cancelled because the tour was just so punk that venues didn't know what to do with the hordes of kids puking on the walls.

What's your favorite Wednesday Night Heroes Song? Right now, it would be Open Fire, just because it rips and I can blow out all my anger in two and a half minutes and feel totally refreshed. I think that it has a great energy to it, and it sums up what our live show is like.

If you could travel through time, when would you go back to and why?I would travel back to the middle ages and make the maidens all moist and wanting with the serious sounds from my flute.

Where is your favorite place to play shows?I love playing anywhere where the kids are coming down to go off and have a rippin' time. Canada rules, lots a cool places in the USA and shortly, we will see if the European kids have what it takes to fuck shit up!

What's the worst thing about Punk Rock today? I think the worst thing about punk, is when people hear a band that gets popular or successful and than think it is important to clone them to a T. The thing about punk for me was seeing all the new creative ideas just popping up with no limitations or expectations, just total free thinking. But now, so many people want to make a buck that they have stripped down all the raw passion and injected large amounts of sterility in their sound with the hopes of getting airplay on the radio. I also hate little cliques of punks, and you know they exist in every scene; where kids have to live up to this idea of punk/hardcore just to fit in. I've given up on that shit, because to me punk has always been about thinking for yourself and doing whatever you wanted to do. I felt out of step in high school, and I feel the same when I see the cool kids with something to prove.

What is the absolute WORST song you ever heard? Pretty fly for a white guy by the Offspring. Fucking shit by a Shit band!

What's the most embarrassing thing you can tell us about one of your band members? A few weeks ago while blowing my nose over top of my garbage can in my room, I was half asleep/awake and for whatever reason decided to piss in the garbage can. It was fucking surreal waking up to the sound of the crinkling garbage bag. Luckily, I didn't piss my pants, but running out to the garbage can in my alley at 6am at -20 sucked in me underpants sucked pretty good.

What are two social issues facing the country that are the most important to you? The two things that are important to me is the gentrification of a city: watching all these multinationals come into your town and suck out any life and character that was once existed. In our city, we had so much property sold to slumlords and corporations that any old building would be torn down for brand new salmon coloured abhorations, and the cost of living sky rocketed. So poor people are being kicked out of their homes so that rich people can move in.

What is your evaluation of the current punk scene? I think that there are a load of great new bands and in the last couple of years, it has been exciting to hear a plethora of cool new bands cropping up. Whereas ten years ago in the 90's the scene was fucking hurting and nothing new was getting me going. But now, it seems like there is a ton of cool new bands and indie labels everywhere I look.

What musicians/bands do you currently listen too?I love all types of punk but for old stuff: I love- Minor Threat, Toy Dolls, Bad Brains, GBH, Sex Pistols, Cockney Rejects, Thin Lizzy, Slade, Naked Raygun, Negative Approach and tons and tons of bands. But for new stuff- Government Warning, The Regulations, The Observers, The Red Dons, the bayonettes and the Tranzmitors have been tearin' up my turntable.

What other kind of music do you like to listen to besides punk rock?I love old 60's reggae like the Upsetters and a ton of stuff from Lee "scratch" Perry. I also am a huge fan of British Mod music like the Small Faces and the WHO, cool clothes and the music just rips. I also love Rock 'n Roll like Rose Tattoo and Thin Lizzy. Public Enemy and Ice-T as well as a host of rap from the late 80's and early 90's seems to hit me as hard as punk rock does as well. I am also a fan of old 60's garage like the Sonics, the Remains and the Flamin' Groovies...I just love great tunes.

Closing comments? Thanks for the interview and please keep your ear to the ground for some upcoming 7" this year. We are also gonna do a ton of touring so I hope you come out a rip shit up with us. Cheers The WNH ;