The Automatik

“If any of us write a song that’s negative towards a person or subject, Chris automatically thinks we’re singing about him,” claims Ferguson.

“Like ‘Good In Everyone’,” argues Murphy.

“It has nothing to do with you,” explains songwriter Pentland.

“It’s sarcastic about me,” contends Murphy.

“Holy cow,” sighs Pentland, “it’s so not about you.”

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Andrew Scott

This is going to be our 10th anniversary record. What is that, granite? Limestone? Shale? So we’re going to take ourselves out for a nice dinner, maybe buy a ring for each other.

I mean, we’re not like best friends all the time. We’re business associates in a lot of ways.

We’re the ticking time bomb of bands.

I’m like the old crabby grandfather who sits in his Archie chair all day and basically scowls at all these young whippersnappers.

Like, nobody would ever have the heart to kick anybody out of the band because everybody is too chicken. We’re passive aggressive like there’s no tomorrow. It’s a very delicate little ecosystem we have going.

We all like our band more than any other band, I think. At least I do. I’m my own favourite band.

We’re never fighting for who gets to be exposed more. Nobody really wants to be. Except Chris, maybe.

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Jay Ferguson

Chris, can we release this on DVD?

We’re going to have props on the tour. Stonehenge? Almost. Let’s put it this way�a mixture of Stonehenge with 60-watt lightbulbs.

I’m totally closed minded, all I do is read rock magazines and listen to records. I put my blinders on, I don’t know what the hell’s going on in the world.

Actually I think Canadians are patriotic but not as die hard patriotic as Americans…who are xenophobic freaks. I’m just kidding.

Don’t be so xenophobic, there’s good Canadian bands…sometimes we’re not as cool, but the music is good, if not we can go home, and if we break our arm it doesn’t cost ten thousand dollars to get repaired.

I love talking to our fans. And I always want to go out of the way and talk (to them) and sign whatever they want. To me, that’s the ultimate, because I can still remember, when I was a kid, when somebody (from a band) stopped and said hello, I’ll always remember that.

Can I tell you my Thurston Moore Story? Meeting him? There was hardly anybody left at this point (after a Royal Trux show). Thurston Moore was still standing at the door talking to somebody…so I asked somebody what time it was sort of pretending like I was supposed to be there, and then I just start looking around the floor pretending I lost my keys like a total idiot just standing there, trying to buy time. And then finally the guy left so that’s when I went over and said hi. I said, ‘Are you Thurston Moore?’, well of course he is! He said yea, yea and I just sort of said who I was, blah, blah, blah, chatted with him for a few minutes and he gave me some directions to some record stores in New York and stuff.

We’re too nice, that’s the problem.

I think Patrick will talk more frankly to a reporter than he would to me. Patrick would never say it to my face, because he’s too much of a chicken.

Chris is always going on about how everything is kick-ass. Like, was he referring to the tea as being kick-ass?

I would say that we are more real and emotional, rather than singing about playing with Battlestar Galactica toys, or saying ‘hey, remember Star Wars?’ We’re not calling ourselves “Kickstand Travolta” and making up ’70s style logos or anything.

Oh, I don’t eat food. I just take little pills that dissolve in water and drink those–like vitamin C. That’s all I have all day.

You know what? Embarrassingly, I do sometimes, just to read and see whose songs they like the most. Or, something ridiculous like that. (on whether or not he peruses the Sloan Message Board)

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Chris Murphy

Do you wanna ask questions or do you want me to just talk?

Total dirt ass fuckin’ piece of shit wrestling.

I think we actually considered calling the band Cindy. Thank the lord we didn’t.

We basically just shit albums.

I don’t think AC/DC was ever as humorless as, say, the Wallflowers.

Every time I come up with what I think are good lyrics I wonder if Morrissey would be caught dead singing them.

I’m just going to bring all my best clothes [to Japan] so they’ll think I’m a snappy dresser, with a sense of style, and they’ll fall in love with us.

I have yet to deal with them.
(when asked if he likes big boobs)

I moved to Toronto mostly for the girls. I had gone out with every girl in Halifax.

Do we have girlfriends? But of course we do.

I was scanning this and I read, “Evian, sushi and health food” and I thought, “Hey, my type of girl.” But you were talking about me.

Amen, sister. Consider these eyes blue.
(when asked about his eye color and told he was “still the hottest guy in the universe”)

Contacts look too irritating on the eyes. Glasses make for a nice accessory.

When I grow up I want to be in a rock band, and I don’t want to have a moustache.

I’ve been back and forth but I guess I’ve always got some sort of variation on the mullet. I just go long and short usually but always dirty.

Hello there, I’m Chris Murphy from the group Sloan, and I just washed my hair the other day, something I never do, so my hair’s a little poofy, and so I’m not very into it. And I didn’t shave yet today and I’ve got that disgusting combination of washed hair and stubble. And I’m here on your show. Hi, how’s it going?

When we’re huge down here, say ’98… as if, I’m just kidding, we’re so fuckin’ doomed. We’re over. Look at me! My fuckin face is falling. It’s disgusting, I gotta get a face lift. I got a fat back, I got a pot belly on my back. Fuckin’ disgusting. I’m not in shape. I look like shit.

We’re gonna keep it together, keep it pro, for Halifax.

Mostly it just got my mother psyched, on the phone to all her friends.
(on being featured in Record of the Week in People Magazine)

For those who don’t like kids, don’t have them.

I asked to field the questions myself. That was quickly kyboshed. I personally think I’m good on TV.

I thrive on attention.

Andrew and Patrick are very, very funny, but you never get to see it because they’re so reserved and subtle, and I’m so gregarious. I’m probably the least funny of the bunch, but I’m the most willing to make an ass of myself. That counts for something, right?

And it’s nice hanging out with men, instead of women, who just want to talk about cats and Sex in the City. (on playing hockey games with his friends)

We never use the word kick-ass to describe anything.

“The Good in Everyone” is so kick ass and only 2:00 long so I never get bored of it.

I hated school and I went in a ‘fairly sensitive wanting to aspire fake artist’ and I came out a cynical asshole because everyone there was way more sensitive then me and it just made me mad. I just wanted to pound everybody. Every class was a therapy class and everybody was crying the whole time and I just wanted to smash everyone.

I would never want to do that. First of all, because I’d get beat up.
(on fighting it out to keep the band together)

I hate being involved with selling anything but Sloan stuff. Selling beer is pretty far down on the list of things I enjoy being associated with, too.

It kind of becomes like, Andrew is the brooding one, Patrick is the metalhead-slash-sensitive guy, I’m the wall-to-wall bridges guy with no choruses, and Jay’s the cute, heart-wrenching, adorable one.

A lot of my Toronto friends thought I was gay or they told me that at least. I am not, but I wish there was a closet I could come out of. It seems so liberating and all. And I’m the closest one to being gay in the bunch, so I guess that’s a “no.”

I think Andrew is the sexiest but he seems to scare off the young girls. Jay is the most harmless “seeming” so the girls tend to go for him.

My ah, Sloan is the type of band that there is a guy for each type of girl. And I’ve summed it up this way…On a, if it was a date, you first go out with Jay, and uh, Jay would take you out first and you would ah, listen to some records at his house. And then he’d hand you over to me and I’d be good for some laughs and I’d get ya…I’d have you eating at some restaurant basically cause I like to eat. And then you go out with Patrick who’s a little more earnest, and you know, make you sorta like ,he’s really honest and make you …take you out for some drinks and then Andrew will take you home and screw ya.

Do you want me to just keep talking?

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Patrick Pentland

[Sizzleteen] is another term for an underaged male prostitute.

The name, Sloan, being German for “underage male prostitutes,” has also caused us problems in various cities in that country as well.

The Moffatts seem to be in a good place right now.

I’m not even a fan of the Beatles.

We tend to stick to the general drums, bass and guitars with the odd keyboard here and there. You can hear us using these on records such as Smeared, Navy Blues and Revolver.

I vowed to do everything I could to destroy Soul Asylum. But then I realized that, by letting [Dave Pirner] live, I already had.

I work with the amnesia victims, trying to help them remember their past, or just making up a past for them.

Actually, reading about Iggy Pop waking up in a pool of green vomit in an abandoned building with a sixteen year-old hooker beside him did wonders in lifting my spirits. That and hanging out in Andy’s room, getting drunk, watching Leaving Las Vegas.

People who come into the back lounge, ask what movie you’re watching, scoff, then sit down and start criticizing every aspect of it, when you both know it’s a stupid movie to begin with but you still would like to watch it in peace because it’s almost over� (on dislikes about touring)

It’s silly to complain about endorsing something like a beer company when our records are distributed by a company that manufactures hard liquor, something that is far worse for your health than life-giving beer. Why don’t we just have our records distributed by cancer?

There are no sweatshops involved in making beer, O.K.? I just want to make that clear. People who do Nike commercials are evil, except when Nike wants us to do a commercial.

These are usually people who end up 30, wearing light green low cut Converse All-Stars and tweed sport coats all year long, shaving once a month and moving back in with their parents because they were too afraid to take a chance and actually live a little.
(on the current Canadian indie music scene)

Personally, Chris frowns upon side projects as he feels Sloan should do more. Chris is a Catholic.

Andrew’s the brooding one, Jay’s the record collector, Chris just wants everyone to get along and Patrick’s gay.

“Or have that commended to you guys a little later?”

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