The last time we saw Lullabye Arkestra wildcat Randy Ray fronting a band at Wavelength, it was at WL 201 with a collective called Wiches. As last-minute replacements for the lovely and talented interviewer Andrew Lloyd Moseby and interviewee Victoria Klingenstierna, Wesley J Ramos and Randy Ray had an e-conversation on the name change-back, geographical inspiration and the sloppy details of the Motley Crue biography.

WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? I THOUGHT YOU'D DROPPED THE "RANDWICHES" MONIKER IN FAVOUR OF THE NOT-AS-CLEVER "WICHES." SO WHAT'S THE STORY, AND WHO'S IN YOUR BAND? Last year when I played Wavelength, I thought it was becoming more of a band and less of me, so I wanted to take my name out. Later, there was some talk of calling it Bandwiches for the same reasons, but then I thought, these are still all my songs, and they fit into the now nine year-long body of work that has gone under the Randwiches name. The current line-up includes two friends who I met in Montreal long ago, Victoria Klingenstierna, formerly on keys, now on guitar live (you may know her - and me - from Blackeyes and The BackTheFuckUps), and Shawn Cantelon on bass - who plays hockey for Three Gut Records, but this is his first band. Kevin Chlebovec is the drummer, who hails from Thunder Bay via Ottawa and Seoul. We played at the Cameron in December, so this Wavelength will be the first time I've ever played live with the same Randwiches line-up twice. After eight years of trying in this city, I've finally found a whole band of people who are willing and able to put in the time to learn my songs and play them right.

DOES TORONTO GIVE YOU ENOUGH INSPIRATION, OR DO YOU FEEL YOU REQUIRE STIMULATION FROM PLACES LIKE MONTREAL, NEW YORK CITY AND SARNIA TO KICK YOUR ASS INTO GEAR? I always feel like I get a much more positive response to my music in NYC, Montreal, Vancouver, and yes, even in Sarnia, than I do in Toronto - and sometimes you need somebody to say something good about your music to feel like you should keep doing it. But generally, I love Toronto. Maybe I go through four-week cycles of loving, feeling indifferent about, and hating Toronto. We've got it pretty good here. Right now I love Toronto because I was in Brooklyn last month. I go to NYC at least every year, and each time I go I want to live there less (maybe because of Bush), but it definitely always inspires the rock. I haven't spent much time in Montreal lately, but three years there developed my aesthetic a lot more strongly than eight years here have. And Sarnia, where I grew up, gave me a life-long love of Led Zeppelin and hockey, but that's about it.

ONE OF THE RECENT BOOKS YOU'VE BEEN READING HAS BEEN THE DIRT, THE TELL-ALL AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF '80S METAL BAND MOTLEY CRUE. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU'VE LEARNED FROM THE MEMBERS OF MOTLEY CRUE THAT YOU CAN BRING (OR PERHAPS AVOID BRINGING) INTO YOUR OWN ROCK'N'ROLL LIFE? I thought I'd done a lot of drugs in my youth but the fact is, I really never had enough money to be that much of an abuser. I was impressed that the book kept me reading when it was talking about phases of the band's career that I really don't give a shit about. Justin Small (of Do Make Say Think and Lullabye Arkestra) called this the best rock bio ever and I might have to agree (me too - WJR), although Tony Sanchez's Up and Down with the Rolling Stones was also a pretty compelling read. This is my heaviest thought though: When I was listening to Shout at the Devil when I was 11 years old, did that put ideas into my head that would later lead me into a life of sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and disenfranchisement with society at large, rather than stability, safety, and trust in our system and its leaders? If so, then it would follow that rock really does corrupt the youth... and maybe someday I will make my children listen to Pat Boone.

Wesley J. Ramos