Border-Hopping With We Are Scientists It's probably because they just crossed the Canadian border that We Are Scientists can't get the experience out of their minds.
"You should have seen what we had to do at customs," says drummer Michael Tapper. "It was really degrading."
Bass player Chris Cain nods in agreement. "We basically had to show physical fitness, which we don't really have."
"They gave us the drunk test too," adds singer/guitarist Keith Murray. "There's nothing more embarrassing than failing the initial alcohol test â?? not being able to walk a line, not being able to touch your nose â?? and then having them test your blood and find that, indeed, you are totally sober. And they just sort of look at you like, 'You can go, sir.'"
The border crossing in question is near Buffalo, New York, where the Brooklyn trio played the second date of their Collapsed Morals tour before their first-ever Canadian show at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern on January 14. The nine-date tour is to promote With Love And Squalor, We Are Scientists' major label debut. It was first released in October in the U.K., where it entered the sales chart at #45.
The album was released in North America a mere four days before the sold-out Toronto show. Its consistently upbeat dance-rock sound has caused more than one reviewer to brand We Are Scientists as the next Killers, Franz Ferdinand or Hot Hot Heat. Murray says the band "pore over" their reviews ("and correct the grammar," Tapper adds), so the comparisons aren't news to them. But that doesn't mean that they're acceptable.
"It depends on the tone of the reviewer because some reviewers say that in a dismissive way, 'there's nothing new here,'" Tapper says. "And that's annoying because I don't think we're, like, aping anyone.
"We hadn't heard, for instance, The Killers when we made our record, so it's annoying to be dismissed as a Killers rip-off or something like that. Which doesn't happen much, but sometimes bad-spirited reviewers will just say anything they want. But to get in the ballpark, I think it's fair."
Cain agrees.
"I think for a reviewer to say, 'If you like The Killers or Hot Hot Heat, you should check out We Are Scientists' is great. It's useful. For them to say, 'If you already own the Hot Hot Heat CDs, why bother with We Are Scientists?' is something we don't agree with. Although if they really think that's true, they should write that."
But for now, Cain has more pressing issues at hand. The Montreal-born bassist says he just discovered that he's technically a Canadian citizen.
"When I was 18 I knew that I had sort of lost dual citizenship. I thought it was because Canada made me give it up. Turns out, this was explained to me today at the border, I am still a full-fledged Canadian citizen. It's just the U.S. refuses to recognize alternate citizenships. So I can get a passport and everything. I can come up here and take whatever I want. You guys owe me a lot of back stuff â?? Christmas presents, birthday presents, things like that."
"All those bundles of cash the government gives out," Murray adds. "You should go get the medical treatment."
"I'm owed welfare for 28 years," Cain claims, "and a lot of medical treatment."
