Purveyors of: Space-punk, beer baths

File next to: Hawkwind, Spacemen 3, Joy Division (first EP only!), Anagram

Playing: WL580 at the White House (Sat. Nov. 9)

No longer just one of those tiny, obscure South American countries you only know about from geography quizzes, Surinam(e) is also the name of the new band formed from the ashes of long-running Oshawa/Toronto drone-punks Anagram. Surinam (the band) sees the Mason brothers Matt (vocals) and Willy (guitar) plus Anagram drummer Clayton Churcher, along with new members Corey Wells (bass) and Katie McLeod (keys), further exploring their space-rock influence — they do a killer cover of “Silver Machine” by Hawkwind — without giving up their fourth-walling-destroying live antics.

Having played their first show in February 2013, opening up Quest for Fire’s last show less than a year after Anagram’s farewell gig, Surinam’s eight shows so far have memorably included a guerrilla show on a bridge over the Don River as part of the Against Life series — bringing them full circle back to their legendary Extermination Music Night appearance at the then-abandoned Don Valley Brick Works in '05. But enough looking back… Jonny Dovercourt connected with Matt Mason to find out where Surinam is headed in 2013, in advance of their appearance at the Wavelength ear-scraper at the White House this Saturday (November 9).

Surinam's membership is 3/5ths former members of Anagram. You guys were Toronto scene favourites for over 10 years, and played your last show just last year. Even though you have "quorum," you guys have clearly decided that by starting out fresh with a new name, that this is a new band. What distinguishes Surinam from Anagram?

The short answer is personnel. Anagram went through four or five bass players I think, but for the most part they were learning songs we'd already written. Then Jeff (Peers) came along and his fingerprints are all over the last half of Anagram’s existence. Corey is a different bass player from Jeff, and Katie is a different keyboardist from John. It all matters. Sure there were bound to be similarities, but me and Willy have always worked together and probably always will. Same with Clayton, we're all on the same page with what we what to do. We certainly didn't break up Anagram to start Surinam, we just got bored sooner than we thought we would, and took a show offer before we had anything really. We threw it together quick and it worked. Plus we would never do anything as ridiculous as ending a band just to get it back together in 8 or 9 months.

Ah! So boredom was the instigator, always a helpful motivator... Beyond personnel changes, did you guys have a desire to take things in a different musical direction when you reconvened for the first time?

Not so much a different direction, more a different shade of what we'd always done. The few conversations I had with Willy before we started, I guess the main idea was to shed the Joy Division comparisons we were never able to shake, and give more of a nod to our Spacemen 3, Hawkwind and krautrock influences

So could a lazy critic call it "space-punk" then? How did you connect with the new band members, and might we have see them on Toronto stages before?

Space-punk will do. We've known Corey for quite a while now. He's got Oshawa connections as well, I'm sure that's how we met him. When you're thinking about prospective band members, you have to think of ability, plus whether you want to spend hours or days in the same room with that person. Corey was an obvious choice for us. He's currently also in Township, previously known as Ancestors, as well as Buckets Of, with Katie, which is how we met her. She joined a few months in, but it was her try-out practice, which went exceptionally well, that nudged this from a hobby project to kill some time, into something we're rather excited about, and want to see where we can take it.

So, where are you hoping to take it next? I see you've got some "demo" recordings up on your Bandcamp. Any plans for a "proper" release in the near future?

We're not hoping for anything in particular, as long as it goes somewhere, we'll be happy. The Wavelength show will be our last for the year, after that our focus is gonna be a proper full-length.

Anagram shows — and what I've seen of Surinam live so far — need(ed) a particular environment in which to achieve maximum impact. Describe your ideal venue to play in, either real or imaginary.

My favourite venue was probably the Brick Works in its prior state, in complete darkness.

What's one fun fact about Suriname the country that's relevant to Surinam the band?

Since we're all fairly Limey, the only thing relevant to us is that we use the British spelling rather than the more common Dutch spelling, which has an “e” at the end. The only other thing I can recall about the country is that Paramaribo [the capital city] doesn't have much in the way of public transit, but that's not very fun.

What random TV show would be best to watch with the sound off when listening to Surinam, and why?

Probably Seinfeld, just because.

- Photo c/o Joe Strutt / Mechanical Forest Sound.