Possibly one of the coolest Canadian bands to hit an international music scene, Finger Eleven recently had a resounding hit with ‘Paralyzer.' Band member Rich Beddoe took the time to talk with me about the fans, the music, and stolen modes of transportation...

July 14, 2008
By: Amanda Waschuk (Calgary Correspondent - Canada) 

Possibly one of the coolest Canadian bands to hit an international music scene, Finger Eleven recently had a resounding hit with ‘Paralyzer.' The band just performed at the Calgary Stampede last week on the Coca Cola stage, which gives patrons of the Stampede free concerts with admission to the grounds. Finger Eleven has shown time and time again that they appreciate their fan base and band member Rich Beddoe took the time to talk with me about the fans, the music, and stolen modes of transportation... 

A ‘n' E Vibe (Amanda Waschuk): Where do you guys call home?
Finger Eleven (Rich Beddoe): In and around the Toronto area is home for us. 

Amanda:  I ask because you guys all make separate recordings and then send them to each other via the internet; do you find this is an easier way to collaborate?
Rich: We've been writing for so long and so many songs that we just wanted to try different things.  When we're sitting around we just work on music, like we always have, but we also wanted to work on ideas from home since we all have our own little home studios and it's so easy to use.  I would send a drum track over to Shaun? And he'd send the bass and drum track over to the guitar players and by the end of the day you have a skeleton of an idea.  And it's a really nice way to do it you know some days it's just comfortable to be in your own house, working in your own basement as opposed to driving to rehearsal hall and being loud all day.  We also went up to Conches for two weeks just the five guys, thinking that would be our period to just work on new songs. 

Amanda: On your new album, you had originally wrote over 100 songs.  What is your process to determine which songs make it onto the album?
Rich: It's easier than you think.  There were a lot of the ideas and all completed songs.  We've been a band for so long, we kind of know when a song is worthy enough to put on a record.  We narrowed it down to 25 songs and put it on a play list on our iPod.  We listened to those 25 songs and when we came back and spoke to each other we wrote down 12 songs that we wanted to record in the studio and all five of us came back with the exact same songs.  You just know when you've been a band as long as we have....when a song should be on the record, when it's just too long, or just don't fit the mold of the record.  We had some country and some funky stuff but just wouldn't fit into a Finger Eleven record. 

Amanda:  So how long has the band been together for?
Rich: The band's been together for 16 years.  I'm the latest edition to the band I started about 10 years ago.  There are two brothers in the band and everyone went to High School together.  There's a bond there and we all know each other's ups and downs. 

Amanda: ‘Paralyzer' set the record for the most downloaded song by a Canadian artist, what do you think made this song such a big hit?
Rich: I think if I knew that we would make lots more!  It's timing and luck.  Maybe 5-6 years ago it wouldn't have been such a big hit. It depends on the climate of things around this sort of profession.  We've had songs in the past where we were so sure were going to be big hit songs and when they weren't we couldn't figure out why.  We knd of write every song on the record with the frame of mind it's going to be a good song and you have to have a reason to put every song on the record.  I wish I could give you the answer for ‘Paralyzer' and write some more big hit songs. 

Amanda: Do you credit the song ‘Paralyzer' for much of your recent success?
Rich: Definitely, it's changed everything.  We've gone international; it's the number one song in Australia and New Zealand.  It's brought us places we could never imagine with tours and record sales.  The band has become more known to people all because of ‘Paralyzer'.

Amanda: Are you planning on going on an international tour?
Rich:  We just had to cancel our European tour with Seether and we were going to do a bunch of big festivals but Scott hurt his neck a couple days ago and wasn't going to be able to travel and didn't want to risk further injury so we cancelled that two-week tour.  October will be a lot of international stuff. 

Amanda: So tell me about the music video for ‘Paralyzer,' you're song is all about rejection in the club yet it's a video shot outdoors.
Rich: The director works for a video company and they come up with an idea, a visual and they send it to us in a script-form.  We go through a couple and pick what you want.  We thought about the obvious choice of a club for our video and realized we would look ridiculous like we were trying to be Usher or hip-hop.  And we saw this script with the innovative dance technique and everything about it seemed fresh and unlike the other scripts.  None of our videos are really about what the song is about.  There's the song and then there's the lyrical matter and you want a video to compliment the song's vibe, which isn't always the song's words.  For ‘Paralyzer' we wanted something very different, so that's what we went with. 

Amanda: Is your band big in the States?
Rich: Yes, our last two records went gold. 

Amanda: Do you find a difference between the Canadian and American music scene?
Rich: I think Canadians have better taste; the bands in the States aren't as good.  You can only have so many rock bands that can do well and I think there's a reason for that.   If one band does well, every American record label will sign 50 bands that sound exactly like that band thinking they can cash in on the success.  So you have this environment with a bunch of bad bands that sound like every other band and then they get dropped and their careers are over.  Every week there's new bands coming out in the States and it's hard to keep track of what's going on.  The labels in the States aren't looking for bands that are always great and have good songs, they're looking for ones that sound like another band that's doing well.  If Nickelback is doing well, they look for bands that sound like them.  Why don't you just let Nickelback be Nickelback?  In Canada, there's less population of people and it's more diverse with very different sounding kinds of bands playing shows together.  But in the States, like with Ozzfest, there's one kind of formula all piled together.

Amanda: Who has been your favorite band to tour with?
Rich: We're friends with so many bands and we tour with a lot of bands I like to listen to.  There's too many to name.  But you know Nickelback have been our good buddies for over ten years, they're really nice guys and they're fun to go on tour with because they're playing to 30,000 people a night.  It's fun to open for them when you get to open in front of these major crowds.  Nickelback treat you really well and they're on such a huge level you kind of kick in to what it's like to be that big. 

Amanda: You guys used SKYPE to allow for communication between you and your fans, what did your band gain out of it?
Rich: It was great for us because we'd been off the road for 2 years, and who doesn't like getting a bunch of attention?  That's one of the perks of being a band. We got in the studio to make the record and didn't know if anyone was going to care anymore, if anyone would be interested so when we had people calling from all over the world telling us how excited they were for the record, it made us super-pumped to work even that much harder.  And hopefully the fans got gratification out of speaking to us. 

Amanda: When you guys were in Chicago a while ago, you're trailer was stolen.  How did this happen and what was inside?
Rich: We were actually recording, our last two albums were recorded in Chicago, and thankfully there was nothing inside because all of our stuff was in the studio.  We don't even know when it was stolen, one day we walked by the parking lot and were like "hey man, where's our trailer?" The ironic thing is it was a piece of garbage trailer that we were trying to get rid of and we had already bought a new trailer so these thieves put all their possessions in it and somewhere along the road it's going to fall apart on them, so somewhere out there we karmically got revenge. 

Amanda: What are your plans for the future?  Are you working on an album or just focusing on touring?
Rich: We're in the middle of touring right now and we'll be touring into the New Year for sure.  But we're also writing whenever we have breaks, we're starting the next record.  In the past, we never really worked on songs until we finished the whole album (usually two and a half years per record) but this time around we know we want to get the record out a little quicker so we're trying to get some ideas together beforehand so we're ready.

Amanda: Is it hard to write on tour?
Rich: It's incredibly hard, I envy bands that can.  There are eleven guys on the bus, five in the band, so there's people working all day and it's hard to make them leave the bus when they're living with you.  It's hard to find privacy and time while trying to focus on the show ahead of you.  We don't have a ton of ideas popping out at us when we're in this world we just think about playing and drinking beer. 

To learn more about Finger Eleven you can visit their official website here .

Paralyzer Video: