ERIC'S TRIP INTERVIEW ARCHIVE March 23, 1994 - New Brunswick University, New Brunswick, NJ, United States

Personnel

Interviewer(s)

Rob

George Vlahogiannis

Interviewee(s)

Julie Doiron

Chris Thompson

Rick White

Sources

Medium	Publisher	Date of Issue	Title	Transcript
Print	Honeyrider issue #3	03/25/1995	Eric's Trip.	Yes

Transcript

Rob: We were wondering, where are you guys from?

Julie: We are from Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

George: ALRIGHT!

Rob: That's what I thought. I first heard you on that Sub Pop thing, that compilation... we wanted to get veryone's name while we get a chance.

J: I'm Julie, and I play Bass guitar.

G: What's the name of your band?

J: Eric's Trip.

Yep. Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

G: What's in New Brunswick? Tell me about it. The other day I had this big long conversation with my mom and we tried to figure out what New Brunswick would be like.

J: Well, where I live in Moncton, there are 100,000 people, and I think there's only one other city in New Brunswick and it has more people than us. There are lots of trees,

G: Isn't it arctic land?

J: No,... well, most our winter this year was about minus 27 degrees Celsius.

Rob: What does that figure out to be?

J: All I know is that 20 degrees Celsius and 68 degrees Farenheit

G: So it's about -10 or something.

J: It was cold, it was record breaking cold.

G: What do you do when it's that cold?

J: We dress warm, I wear a lot of long johns,

G: Do you drink alot of beer?

J: Me? No. But some people probably do. It's a pretty neat place and I'm not planning on moving away soon. There aren't alot of people and there are not alternative clubs or anything but whenever there's gigs they're usually all-ages. There's one university in Moncton and it's a French one...

G: Are there a lot of shows?

J: There used to be a couple a month, and now it's like one a month.

Rob: How far out of The States is Moncton?

Depends. Someone said it's seven hours from Boston. It's a pretty long drive. It's like 12 hours east of Montreal.

Rob: Do you get a lot of people to play up there?

J: Not very many big bands, but some are actually making an effort to pass through now, because they've heard there is some kind of scene. There's a bigger scene for the local bands than for the bigger bands. Red Kross played there because we toured with them so they played in Halifax andd then in Moncton because of us.

Rob: What o you guys do for work over there?

Julie: I used to work at a hamburgeer takeout place for two years. I just quit because we were doing a cross Canada tour and we were going to the UK. I was getting kinda tired of going on tour and then coming home and having to work all the time and never get a break. Everyone at work always says, "Wow, it must be so nice to go on tour", like a vacation, but it's not. Mark has been working at the same record store for about fifteen years now and they let him go whenever he needs to get off. Chris quit his job about two years ago and Rick has never really had a steady job ever. Rick has pretty much just lived in his room since he graduated.

G: So that far up in Canada you must see alot of UFO's?

J: No, I haven't but it would be pretty cool if I could.

R: Do you believe in UFO's?

J: You never know! I bet something has happened and the government is just hiding it.

G: I saw this crazy program on television a few weeks ago and they were saying that there is some secret government thing in Canada, that somewhere north of Toronto there was a secret UFO landing base and this guy had actual video tape of it.

J: I wouldn't be surprised.

G: They said that there is some guy named "Guardian" who held the secret behind this base. (everyone laughs)

J: That sounds a little far fetched.

G: Have you ever met this man?

J: No, no, no.... wow. I didn't know Canada was so....

G: Canada is a hip place, I'd like to live there.

J: I think we're pretty lucky. I am so confused about this whole Medicare thing. Like, you guys don't have any...

G: We can't get it straight here.

Rob: Is it like a socialist health care system there?

J: We have Medicare which means if you get your arm broken, you get treated. Everyone who lives in Canada gets it, it's provincial health care. If you break your arm you can go to the hospital and get it fixed and you don't have to pay a thing. ... and that's what discourages me about the States when I come here, I can't believe how many people don't get helped. There are so many people in the States that it's so sad to think about how many people get hurt and can't afford to pay so they lose their houses.

(Enter Rick and Chris)

G: Introduce yourself, guys.

Rick: I'm Rick, and I play guitar.

Chris: Chris, guitar.

G: We were just talking about health care in Canda. (laughs)

J: I just made this realization that there is something like 27 million peopl in New York City alone. That is our population for our whole country. I think that's good because we can actually get away.

G: Are you guys touring the States?

R: No, we're just between here and Boston.

Enter two people walking by with a gauze pad and ask for an autograph aon the pad wrapper. Weird conversation and tour dates are mumbled.

G:(trying to regain control of the interview) So why the name Eric's Trip?

J: Well, because...well... I don't know why. When we first started our band we wanted to play out and stuff but we never planned on playing outside of Moncton, so we went over albums that we liked and stuff and we came across tat name and it sounded really neat. So we sorta have a whole story behind it, like we haave a guardian angel and that's Eric. (Julie loses control of her English abilities and begins to have difficulty translating her thoughts into English.)

G: Well then, say something in French.

J: NO!

G: Are all of you French?

C: No, just her.

G: Is New Brunswick, a Bilingual province?

R: In New Brunswick it is.

J: Canada has two official languages an that's French and English, but New Brunswick is the only province (underlined) that has two official languages.

R: (To Julie) Canada doesn't have two official languages!

J: Yes, they do! That's why they put all that money into making all the signs into French andd all the English people were complaining.

R: In New Brunswick schools, they have to teach it and stuff, but I never learned it.

J: But I went to French school so it didn't matter to me.

R: I' like to learn it though. I know it but I can't speak it.

G: Tell us more about Canada.

J: The highways are not as good as the USA.

R: Yeah, the New York Highways are the best. The Turnpikes down here are pretty good. In Canada, most of the highways are single lane, especially throughout the prairies.

J: Not in Ontario.

C: Once you get in a city there are at least 6-8 lanes.

J: It's mostly Quebec and Ontario that have the best ones. I can't think of anything else about Canada.

C: Tell them about Magnetic Hill.

G: Yeah, tell us about Magnetic Hill.

R: Yeah, okay... Magnetic Hill is this big dirt hill right outside of Moncton that looks like it goes downhill and you drive your car all the way to the bottom and you put it in neutral and you go up the hill.

Rob: Wow!

R: Some say there is like a UFO underneath it.

J: We already talked about UFO's, you should have been here.

G: Tell us more about the UFO's!

R: Y'know...UFO's! There's a big UFO underneath it in the hill. They dug it up a long time ago, but I don't think they dug deep enough. THey wanted to find out why it does that. Then they realized about twenty years later that there was a UFO and they didn't want to dig anymore because of radiation.

R: I think that's what's underneath.

C: Yeah, I think it would wipe out the planet.

J: Let's see... we have Crystal Palace...

R: And a tidal bore.

J: There are only four tidal bores in the world and we've got one.

Rob: What's a Tidal Bore?

J: Y'know how at the beach there are tides? A tidal bore is where the water would come up and go eight feet high.

R: See, it's like a funnel or something, and it makes a big wave about two times a day, and then it goes back.

J: Back when my granma was young, it was about eight feet high. Now people look at it and go "That's a tidal bore?" There's another one in China and those are the only two in the world.

R: There are four.

Rob: Any crazy tour stories?

R: Well we got caught in a riot in the UK. We're walking down the street in England and we hear this screaming and we thought it was a soccer game in the street, and we were nervous about crazy stuff like that anyways, and then wthere were hundreds of people running our way so we ran for our lives.

J: I wasn't there, I stayed to watch the other bands.

G: Are you guys really big in England?

R: No. We opened for Red Kross there.

J: The shows start so early in England. They have curfews that bands have to be done by eleven so they usually start around nine. You can stay and drink longer, you just have to be a little bit more quiet.

Rob: So, whats the story with Sub Pop?

R: They heard of Sloan, so they came up to Halifax to see us after they found out Sloan was signed already and made us an offer and asked us to play the Sub Pop festival in Vermont.

Rob: Is Jale from around there?

R: Yeah, they're from Halifax.

G: Cool. Can we expect anything new from you guys in the future?

R: We have a Canadian EP coming out in June. It's about 5 songs on CD an 7".

J: It's a Canadian release, but it's gonna be distributed in the States too.

R: And then our next album which should be out in October.

G: Great. I think we should go see Trumans Water now. Any closing comments?

J: I'm not as afraid of the USA as I was before, but I still am a little bit.

R: Spring has sprung in the USA, its green all over. It's snowing in Moncton right now.

G: Thanks alot. By the way, you speak just like my friend from Canada.

© Rob, & George Vlahogiannis, 1994