ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JULY 1, 1983
By Steve Newton
“We’re still pretty wild,” says Bill Barker of the Scissors, chomping on a Big Mac in the Commercial Drive studio he co-owns with bandmate Ray Fulber. The Scissors’ reputation as rowdies has been built over the past few years through incidents like the band’s housewrecking party in Burnaby last year that was attended by 400 revellers and about 40 uninvited members of Vancouver’s finest.
“We had no front porch on the house, all we had was a rope swing that went out in a sixty foot circle. The police would come and we’d just pull up the ladder. They couldn’t even get in the house!
“But then,” pipes in Fulber, “we were playing raunchier last year. That was the whole atmosphere around us.”
The Scissors–guitarist/vocalist Barker, bassist Fulber, keyboardist Jan Henriksen, and drummer John Cody–were formed three years ago after the group Nytro–which included Barker, Fulber, and the Enigmas’ present drummer Randy Bowman–disbanded. Nytro had been playing the B.C. club circuit for a year and a half until the members tired of it.
In the few years that they’ve been together the Scissors have developed–along with their blustery image–a strong following of local fans. And what sort of music lover does Barker feel the band attracts?
“Drunks. No, actually we’re starting to get quite a cross-section. With any local band it’s always friends at first, and eventually you start to win some kind of of following–people who aren’t just there for the party but who actually don’t mind a couple of the tunes.”
“What was neat,” adds Henriksen, “was the time we played the Soft Rock and there were all these younger kids who don’t usually come to see us. And they were up at the front singing along–they knew all the lyrics to our songs.”
“A lot of them are into the local scene,” continues Barker. “Not that they don’t enjoy groups like, say, Duran Duran or Journey or Van Halen or whatever’s popular–but it’s always more relateable if you’ve got a local band or two that you like.
“And a lot of young people are musicians. I remember when I was 10 or 12 and playing–I’d go around and see Spring and Mother Tucker’s and local bands like that. Seeing somebody who’s from your own town up there makes you think that it’s more accessible. You know darn well that you can get there soon.”
The Scissors got where they are after placing second in the 1982 Battle of the Bands at Outlaws and releasing a six-song limited edition EP of power-pop that captured the band’s raw, energetic sound. One of the songs from the EP, “Don’t Call Me Chick”, went to number 6 on the CiTR Top 30 last year, and “Plastic Menagerie” hit number 5 on CJIV.
“There’s this lady that lives three blocks over from here,” says Barker, explaining how he got the idea for the song. “And she’s got a whole backyard full of nothing but weird plastic animals. There was a reindeer with a great bit chain around its head, bolted to a block of cement so nobody could steal it. And she’s got all these little beavers and duckies and stuff.”
Humour is one thing that the Scissors always try to look for in their songwriting. Songs on the EP like “Wrecked My Car” and “Do You Like It?” deal with serious subjects (car accidents and violence), but the message is always delivered tongue-in-cheek. And the recording of the Scissors’ EP itself was anything but sedate.
“Our first record was a 50- to 6o-hour project,” says Barker. “We got really hammered, partied for 50 to 60 hours, and did the record. Then we said, ‘Okay, that’s documented, that’s over.’ Now we’re moving on to where we’re writing way more commercially potential tunes.”
As well as with their music, the Scissors–particularly Barker and Fulber–are trying to get things moving commercially with the eight-track studio the two operate, Profile. The $15,000 studio costs $1,000 a month to run, and according to Fulber, “It breaks even. It took two years to even get to that point.”
“A lot of people seem to think that because we’ve got our own studio, we’re rolling,” he continues. “But it’s not that simple.”
But isn’t it an advantage for members of a band to own their own studio?
“Yes and no,” concludes Barker. “There’s the advantage that we learn a lot from it, but we don’t get to use the place for the Scissors that much because our overhead’s really high. We’re trying to make a business out of the thing too.”
“We’re always wondering, ‘Should we have built the studio, or should we just be rehearsing in a basement like every other band and coming here once in a while and paying 300 bucks.’ We really toss the question around, but I think that in the long run what Ray and I are up to with the studio will pan out.”
“And I’ve noticed,” adds Fulber, “that now it’s not so hard for us to draw players. You’re in the studio working and you see a guy who’s playing in some of the hottest bands around town and say, ‘Would you mind coming over here and doing some Scissors tunes?’ and he says, ‘No problem’.”
“And it will make record companies look at us better,” says Barker, “because we’re not putting our egos into it so much. It’s not like I’m saying that I want to play all the guitars, do all the singing, do all the songwriting and all the producing. We have our engineer, and we’re also looking for a producer who will come and work steady with us.
“I’d like to just write the songs and sing, not play any guitars. It’s too easy to get spread out, so we’re all trying to narrow in.”
The Scissors just recently returned from a West Coast tour that took them to Los Angeles. They have a tentative gig July 15th at the New York Theatre in Vancouver, and will be playing in Seattle in the weeks to come.
To read over 100 of my interviews with local Vancouver musicians since 1983, go here.
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