This was my first interview conducted by myself with my wife Jen on photos. We had this interview as well as theSTART to interview the same night, another first for COMA. We sat down with Chibi and Rainbow of Toronto based The Birthday Massacre for another fantastic interview made possible by the awesome Shannon at Metropolis.

Interview written, conducted and transcribed by j. ward

[COMA] The original name of the band was Imajica did you pick that up from the Clive barker book of the same name or where did that come from?

[Rainbow] Yeah, it was a combination of things. Obviously we read the book but it was also a reference just to a lot of the themes that we were interested in exploring at that time obviously imagination and magic, that sort of thing it just fit with the band.

[COMA] Between your website, Vampire freaks, MySpace, FaceBook, Pure Volume, Bebo, and Mind Viz you have quite a web presence. Why do you think it's so important these days to be part of all these social networking sites?

[Chibi] We've always sort of used the internet as almost a tool, you know what I mean? We've been together for a while and been online and in that way you are able to develop a very broad fan base. All kinds of different people and also set up a sense of community which we try to do with our forum and just with MySpace and Vampire freaks and different sites you can join and all communicate its a good way to develop a fanbase and just be able to share your ------

[Rainbow] It's something we really wanted to take advantage of when we first started out but even now as times passed a bit I think now its just a common way for people to communicate and connect you don't have to worry with Skype and all that good stuff its just way easier to communicate online and that way you can reach internationally regardless of distance.

[COMA] Why did you choose to sell Red Stars as a digital only single when you release Looking Glass and Kill the Lights on the social networking sites for free?

[Rainbow] There was no real strategy behind it we just wanted to, that was the one we picked to be the single and then we just wanted to offer the other songs just to give people an idea of what the new album sounded like.

[COMA] Do you plan on releasing Red Stars as a full digital single as opposed to just the one song once the album is released?

[Rainbow] I'm not sure. Honestly, I'm just more, all I know is, were just concerned that the album is coming out on time. I mean thats what we put our focus on just making the album as one cohesive package and all the singles and when we release this and that, it goes by us but were not doing all... As long as people can listen to it were all right.

[COMA] Is this your first time working with Dave "Rave" Ogilvie?

[Chibi] Yes it was.

[COMA] How is he to work with?

[Rainbow] He was alot of fun. He came in sort of at the tail end when *** songs were written and we just wanted someone who we thought had a grasp on the sort of mesh of elements that we use and he just seemed like the right choice, he's a fellow Canadian and we always wanted to work with him, we liked alot of the other stuff he worked on so---

[Chibi] Yeah, we had alot of respect for the projects he's done

[Rainbow] So, he came in, he primarily worked with Chibi on vocals and stuff and he brought some ideas to a couple of songs. He primarily, I think the mix was he really came in and Falcore and I went to Vancouver for 2 week with Dave and we mixed the album.

[Chibi] He's really funny, he's got alot of really interesting stories cause he's worked with so many different artists.

[Rainbow] Yeah, his stories alone are well worth it.

[Chibi] Yeah, we'd just end up sitting and talking with him. Yeah, he was really funny, really nice.

[COMA] There seems to be a theme of purple throughout your albums and your website what is it you guys like about purple so much?

[Rainbow] I think it was something that just started without too much reason behind it but as we started using it we started looking into the color theory behind it and just discovering it was the color of the theater, the tragic comedy and that just went with the theme so we just decided to stick with it.

[Chibi] Red and Blue are also songs and they become purple.

[Rainbow] And it's also red being a hot color and blue being a cool color we went with the contrast dynamic. It just fit.

[COMA] Your website is one of the most visually impressive that I've come across but it seems like it's been up for a few years now, are there any plans to change it anytime soon?

[Chibi] The old website, the Nothing and Nowhere site? I think were going to keep that one, we've kept it around for a while it's almost like an archive now and we really love it and everyone has really loved it alot but the Walking with Strangers album were trying to balance touring and doing the album and coming up with a new website. I mean it's definitely, were planning on trying to get as much together for that---

[Rainbow] I think thats going to stay nothing and nowhere and were going to have a site that's the walking with strangers site which is being worked on by Vincent Marcone

[Chibi] From Johnny Hollow

[Rainbow] From Johnny Hollow. And theBirthdayMassacre.com is gonna be the the link site that links to the sites for each album and stays current with news and whatever's coming up.

[COMA] How did you guys come up with the idea for the video for Blue?

[Rainbow] That was largely Danny Oulette the director from New York, he got in touch with us a few years ago just interested in what we were doing and there was sort of a mutual respect for what he was doing, he's actually an illustrator but he does alot of film work. He showed us some stuff that he'd done and just said he'd love to work with us in some capacity and---

[Chibi] He had alot of ideas. He was in the states and we were in Canada so we were able to meet, he came to Toronto and we had lunch and he sort of brought along his idea book---

[Rainbow] Yeah, different treatments and stuff---

[Chibi] Some of his stuff was really good and we had some ideas as well for some visuals things like that but he really worked hard on that video so we were very happy to work with him.

[Rainbow] I think when you really trust someone's creativity you don't really want, there's no real need to get your hands in there and make sure, we just let him do his thing cause we trusted him to do a good job and thats how that turned out.

[COMA] well, the video itself is quite creepy, have you ever gotten any negative reaction to it?

[Chibi] My Mother won't watch it, she refuses to watch it, she heard the rumors from my Dad about the end scene, the surprise "gory" end scene. She won't watch it. That's pretty negative reaction, when your own Mother won't watch your music video. Just my mom.

[Rainbow] Its not that surprising. I think anyone that doesn't like subtlety creepy stuff may not be into this video but we like it thats whats important.

[COMA] that little creature icon you have on your forums and elsewhere on the internet---

[Chibi] The little robot guy? The little guy with the broken heart.

[Rainbow] That was one of the themes of Violet, there were lots of icons on the cover the robot was one of the icons on the cover that we just worked into the web ascetic, the robot with the broken heart--

[Chibi] He was kinda cute and has a little personality so, it was either that or the duck.

[Rainbow] That was Owen, he really loved it--

[Chibi] Our keyboard player.

[Rainbow] That was his little character.

[COMA] Who came up with that?

[Rainbow] The robot? I think that was Owen, it was just a combination of like, we wanted to use kind of generic icons that you'd find on keyboards coma:and things like that so we just played around with them. Actually Aslan I think did alot of----

[Chibi] He put together alot of the little icons and came up, our old bass player, came up with a lot of the icons but then Owen made a design and just latched onto this one icon that Aslan made.

[COMA] Where do you get the inspiration for your children's fantasy imagery you use?

[Rainbow] i think alot of the inspiration comes from, i mean were big music fans but were obviously big fans of film and I think alot of it, alot of our influences that have really stuck with us are the movies and books that we either read or had read to us when we were kids so I think it's just, it's kind of nostalgic for us its something that we like and that we feel there's kind of a lack of that we just want to project and thats part of who we are and thats where we came from so we want to project it.

[COMA] And one last question here, how'd you manage to get picked up by Metropolis?

[Rainbow] I think we just got contacted by Dave (Heckman), form the label, we had some material out on a label in Germany called Repo and I guess just trough that, through someone there they got in touch with Metropolis who then got in touch with us and then we just kinda took it from there. But they've been really cool----

[Chibi] Yeah, they've been really, really good to us---

[Rainbow] Yeah, they've been great. They just kind of support us in what were doing and they don't really----

[Chibi] Want to jump in and tell you what to do, we wanted to avoid that kind of thing which is why we stayed independent for as long as we did. We didn't want to get into the cliched idea of what being on a label is like.

[Rainbow] So they just basically support and they let us do our thing and we let them do theirs and we get along and Dave's a great guy, pretty simple.

[Chibi] He's got a cool hair style, thats actually the clinching factor, we were like "well, he's got a good hair do so lets do it."

[COMA] If you could tour with anybody who would it be?

[Chibi] I would just list off my favorite bands, I like a lot of old stuff, I don't know that it would be physically possible to tour with the type of bands that I'd want to tour with.

[COMA] How about bands that you could tour with, that you would fit in with---

[Rainbow] There's just so many, I don't want to pick just one.

[Chibi] I'd like to think that we could play with a band like DragonForce or Cannibal Corpse or something but that would never work.

[Rainbow] At the end of the day probably Placebo or Lafytron, kinda obvious stuff but I think you always want to go back to your favorite bands when you were a kid. Does that answer our question? In a roundabout, useless way?

[COMA] Yeah. Well, thats all I've got for you guys.

[Chibi] Thank you so very much.

[COMA] No problem, thank you.

The Birthday Massacre's new albumn "Walking With Strangers" is now available.
Visit The Birthday Massacre's official website at thebirthdaymassacre.com

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