QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: [ DAN BRYK ]

"Bryk's gift is that he can turn just about anything into music", Amplifier raves.

Although the name Dan Bryk (pronounced 'Brick') may not sound familiar, Bryk's other band, "The American Flag" might. Or even indie rock gods "Guided By Voices", who the American Flag opened for on tour in 1999. Other noteable names mentioned in every review available on Bryk are: American label Scratchie (co-owned by James Iha and Darcy Wretzy of the Smashing Pumpkins and Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger), who offered Bryk a home on their label after hearing a rough mix of "Lovers Leap"; Teenage USA Recordings, Bryk's Canadian label; the piano prodigy Ben Folds, a fan; Steve Malkmus, (formerly of Pavement), who Bryk opened for recently in Japan; and Gordon Lightfoot, the name of Bryk's grumpy old tabby cat.

Bryk, a Toronto, Ontario native, makes a reference to his hometown on "Lovers Leap" in song number six, "Spadina Expressway". The "Dan Bryk Rocks Nobody" EP was released prior to "Lovers Leap" in 1998, and before that was a 1996 LP entitled "Dan Bryk: Asshole".

"Flabby Road" is Bryk's home recording studio, found in his parent's basement in Mississauga, Ontario. Bryk also does freelance design and layout work in his spare time, creating record sleeves and Web sites for tons of indie bands like Danny Michel, The American Flag, Howie Beck, Elevator, and a bunch more.

So why can't you find Bryk's cds at your local music store?

"If people asked for them, maybe they'd get stocked more often...I have to remember to make a sticker next time that reads 'featuring members of Creed'."

When you requested three weeks off to tour and your boss asked you if you were an art director or a rock star, what did you tell him?

I just gave him my best Chrissy Snow look, because I really didn't want to quit the job if i didn't have to... as it turned out Lovers Leap didn't come out for another 8 months after that and I had to do ads and interviews and tour and I haven't had a real job since. I guess that's a really boring answer. I sort of liked that job though.

How do you feel about being lumped into the "geek rock/nerd music" label so many reviewers give you?

I guess I walked into it by opening with a song about a video game programmer named Mark Turmell. The last record was sort of retro-sounding and sort of obsessed with the past, especially getting over all that teenage high school bullshit. So yeah, being a geek figured strongly into those songs, but they're really not what I'm all about all the time. It's not like I have hornrims or wear a pocket protector or anything like that.

David Lee Roth used to joke that "all the reviewers like Elvis Costello because they _look_ like Elvis Costello", and for Lovers Leap, Scratchie did these ads with a really nerdy picture of me, pigeon-toed (a sly reference to Elvis Costello that no-one really picked up on) so a couple of reviews were like I was the fifth member of Weezer or something. I guess I do look more like Rivers Cuomo than Scott Stapp (though I suspect both of them wanted to be Robert Plant at some point.)

My new songs are all about the present and future of rock. And feelings... nothing more than feelings. Trying to forget my feelings of love. I think the next record is going to sound very present-tense. Or maybe just tense. I don't think it's gonna have any fab four factor like Lovers Leap, all of Rondinelli's tube gear and the 12-string Rickenbackers and the "born to run" celestes. I think there's gonna be a lot of vibraphone and saxophone and rocking the microphone. I can't freestyle to save my life, so I draw the line at old school breakbeats.

Do you find the American music scene has been more accepting than the Canadian music scene?

America is just bigger and more fucked up. Basically there's more people who are less likely to find my music as weird as they seem to here. I'm just living my life and setting it to music whenever it seems to get interesting. The longer I keep doing that, the more people seem to tag along and maybe enjoy the voyeurism in that. It helps that the tunes are catchy.
Canadian campus radio has been really supportive, but as far as getting calls for shows, to be on TV and stuff but even actually getting CD's into stores where people can buy them, it's sort of tough in Canada. What was creepy was how Toronto industry people started to take me seriously after my aborted Mercury deal with Scratchie and after all of that fell through (when Polygram and Universal merged) they sort of stopped returning my calls. It's not so bad now, I seem to get shows and press fairly often now, though I think being in Spin and going to Japan might have had something to do with that. I know I complain a lot, but I've been pretty lucky compared to some of my friends. Still, I sell ten times as many records in the US or Japan as I do in Canada. Maybe if record stores outside of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver would stock them...

I don't know. All along I've been thinking I'm this singer-songwriter making pop music, but in Canada singer-songwriter means Danny Michel or Sarah Harmer, real easy going almost friendly stuff, and pop music means the Popstars girls or Prozzak. I have a feeling I don't fit into either category.

Nelly Furtado is the Canadian music industry's wet-dream crossover act... a good-looking cartoon character that writes her own songs. I'm a comparatively live action sitcom, though I keep waiting for that call from Nelvana anyhow.

What did you learn from Bob Pollard while touring with The American Flag, and from Steve Malkmus while touring in Japan?

From Bob I learned tons of stuff... leave the drinking to the pros, every song doesn't need a goddamn bridge, always add that extra pizza and bucket of beer to the rider for the opening act, and always stay in nice hotels when someone else is paying for it. Japan was amazing, kept me from spinning into a really deep depression. I'm not sure I learned any particulars from Steve except be really nice to everyone. Find yourself a cute, over-educated girlfriend. Relax and enjoy your good luck. Oh, and only cover the most obscure songs.

Why do you think your music is appealing to so many people?

It is? I'd be really happy if that turned out to be true. I've always been totally obsessed with music, and opinionated in the worst record-store-employee sort of way, but also I really do listen to EVERYTHING. I would love to be cool and play hipster collegiate art rock and limit my audience to music snobs who listen to Neu or Squirrel Bait and think they're cool too, but who would I be kidding? At heart I'm too much of a music slob to not be influenced by ELO and Judy Collins and Righeira and god knows what else.

Perhaps more cynically, when you rip off as wide a variety of artists as I do, you're bound to cross a few formats. People who like my music seem to really obsess over it (and me), but they're not all record collectors and stalkers. I know it's sort of uncool nowadays, but some of them simply like music, it means a lot to them and it's an important part of their lives. I'm pretty lucky that my music means something to them, god knows they wouldn't talk to me otherwise.

[ JEN ]