Efrim: I think that the band has to open its mouth more, to urge people to collectivize themselves on a million different levels, and I don’t mean in the Soviet sense or anything like that. People need to start building community. That’s necessary. There’s a million ways to be a part of that process, and I also think that’s the only worthwhile thing to be striving to do at this point in history, is to work on building communities.

We need to do a better job of making clear that that’s the history of this band, that’s the history of our little community in Montreal, and … it shouldn’t be mysticized or romanticized, you know? We’ve been able to do what we’ve done because, on some level, we got our shit together and we made our own space. A label came out of it and a band came out of it, and then a whole bunch of bands came out of it. It’s the only way; if you wanna do something, you’ve gotta involve people and that’s hard. It’s difficult, people are difficult…

Signum: Do you run into a lot of other people with their own really cool, homegrown communities as you travel?

Efrim: Yeah. Not as often as we’d like to. It’s sort of like… in the same way that I don’t go to twelve-dollar, out-of-town band shows in my own city, it’s like, I don’t really talk to people in bands when I go see them. I feel like there are probably people out there who I’d like to talk to, but they generally aren’t walking up to any of us and going, "Hey, how’re you doing? There’s this really neat thing in our community, do you wanna come check it out?"

And I know it’s out there; sometimes you look into it, and you see it. It’s everywhere, beautiful stories everywhere of people trying to build stuff. I wish we saw more of it. We don’t. We just see the inside of a lot of rock clubs and halls, and… all of a sudden there is no community, the community doesn’t exist anymore in those spaces. We might as well be at a fucking sports complex.

Signum: I think you just answered my next question: A lot of people look for some sort of hope in the alternative culture or some particular subculture, for finding meaning, for finding community, and being able to insert themselves into an existing community.

Efrim:…When that’s done on a superficial level, it’s just awful. I think it takes your whole life to figure out how to better be a part of your community, you know? You can’t just sort of insert yourself. I think everyone feels a lack on that level. Everyone. It’s a constant tragedy that we don’t do a better job, all of us getting together….

Shared experience doesn’t mean community. I think that’s what I’m saying. I think it ends up with uniforms, and maybe even hand gestures or – I don’t know – a certain way you carry yourself, and that can be deceiving? You can look around and think, "I’m part of something." But the real community stuff has nothing to do with any of that. It has to do with conclusions that you come to when you’re lying in bed at night. That’s where it’s at.