This month Miles Baker decided to rattle the cages here at Wavelength and actually phone the person he was assigned to interview. Armed with a decent long distance plan and a mircotape recorder he hit up Quebec's Sam Murdock of Lesbo Vrouven for a little girl talk.

Do you mind if I record this?

No.

I ask for legal reasons.

I've never been misquoted in English. I've been misquoted in French so many times and I've only made a handful of interviews in English because we're a band from Quebec, and there're so many bands from Quebec City.

Oh, you're from Quebec City? I assumed Montreal. I don't think it says that in your press release.

It really doesn't say in the press release?

Maybe I missed it.

We played with my other project called (Swedish) Death Polka in Halifax a while back. And I lived in Halifax for two and a half years and was doing an interview for a paper and I asked him, like, how many bands does he know out of Quebec City from the last 600 years, and he couldn't name one band. He said Wolf Parade or Arcade Fire, I'm like that's Quebec the province, they're outside of Quebec the city. And I'd say like 75% of the bands in town here sing in English. There are so many bands and no one knows any of the bands from here. It's sort of a shame. I'm working to make up for that.

So would you mind telling us how the band got together? The origin story?

We've got this small record label called p527 (p527.com), a small independent thing... wanted to make things really personal and sort of unique. We were releasing vinyl and CDs all hand numbered -- a little more personal. And we created a community because we live in this big house here; a huge place, with a recording studio, and all these bands.

Hugo Lebel was the bass player from Les Goules, which is glam rock from town, and was also the sound man for (Swedish) Death Polka, and had this solo project called Headache 24. I was doing all the artwork and all the layout for his album and he was doing the mastering for Gab Paquet, who is a singer/songwriter from France and Quebec. I had met this drummer named Max Vrouven from Berlin. I met him when he was 16, and he was this amazing, amazing drummer and I was like 'œI should play music with this guy.'? He was playing in this folk-rock band. So when he turned 18 and could play in bars we started the band.

You seem to embrace your influences where others might distance themselves from them, care to comment on that?

Our band is a mix of everyone's influence. What's really amazing about the band is that our drummer is 20 and our bass player is in his 30's.

That's a pretty huge gap.

It's pretty funny because our drummer has never listened to Nirvana ever. And most older people tell him his drumming is like Dave Grohl. Then he went back and looked at it and said, 'œIt doesn't really touch me, and I didn't really like it.'? His favourite band is probably Bloc Party, and our bass player has never listened to Bloc Party. Our bass player's favourite band is Sonic Youth, so Sonic Youth is a big inspiration, and then our drummer, Max, has never listened to Sonic Youth.

That must make for an interesting collaboration experience.

I'm sort of in between because I understand both guys. I listen to Bloc Party and I listen to Sonic Youth, but not as much as they did. So I know what they're talking about. It sort of makes it perfect because it's not like all of us were 21, born in the same town, raised in the same country '“ I think that's what really makes the band.

I'm curious as to why you would do a vinyl release. Isn't it a lot more expensive than doing another CD?

Oh, it is. We're in it for the art. I want to create something beautiful, that's sort of my calling. I've read the Bible a few times but I've never really had a heavenly figure talk to me. There's so many things that are ugly and if I can make something that is touching for a minute, and I like the object...

People don't take as much time now. People put a playlist on their computer and they have 17 hours worth of mp3s and they put it on random and it's music forever. But the vinyl is sort of a ritual. They have to sit down, know exactly where the music starts and finishes, if there is a hidden track you can't really hide it '˜cause you can see it. And the art work is so big -- the gatefold vinyl. People have to sit down and look at it. If I was to make a thousand CD's and sell them all, I'm not going to get rich off it anyway, so I might as well make something even more unique and beautiful.

By Miles Baker