Meet: Sandman Viper Command

If anyone’s poised to inherit Still Life Still’s rocking-the-suburbs crown, it’s Burlington’s Sandman Viper Command. An amicable group of musicians in their early 20s comprised of Rob Janson, Daniel Reardon, Aaron Harvey and Matt “Damon” Meyer, the foursome’s self-released debut Everybody See This (recorded on a 1970s-vintage 24-track in a converted barn) combines lo-fi fuzz, garage-rock and '60s poppiness to create hook-heavy oddball favourites, like the lonesome breakup anthem “Midwest Moses” and the slinky “Strawberry Quick.” EYE WEEKLY spoke to frontman Rob Janson about the group’s roots, if they’ll ever move out of their parent’s houses and what the hell Sandman Viper Command means. They play the Dinosaur Bones two-year anniversary party this Saturday, with Hollerado at the Academy of Sciences (225 Sterling Road, Unit 19) with a residency at C’est What every Tuesday in February.

So how did you guys get started?
We always did music and stuff, but Matt’s a year older than us, so we started playing music in high school. I went to Mac [McMaster University] for two years before stopping to do this and eventually we all decided to give it a shot. You can hear old recordings of us, when we first started doing live shows and we were sooo bad. Since we did the album, things have really turned around and we’ve got more of a sense of when to cut the absolutely horrible stuff. There’s some really bad stuff out there that could make me break down in tears of embarrassment.

What is the most embarrassing song?
We had this song based on when we used to hang out in our friend’s garage. It was about high-school life, so there were always varying amount of intoxicants around, but our friend would get into this character and wouldn’t break character for hours of time. The song that was dedicated to him ended up being so brutal! Some people are really super lucky and can hit the ground running. We definitely have ideas but couldn’t execute them in our complete vision. I guess you learn. Good thing we didn’t started playing shows until we cut the tumorous body of fat haunting our musical career.

I’ll say. So what the hell does the name “Sandman Viper Command” mean?
Uh it’s based on when we were fooling around with recording equipment I got for Christmas. The movie Outbreak was on, and there’s this one scene where every A-list actor in this scene, Dustin Hoffman is yelling at Donald Sutherland, one of them is called “Sandman” and the other is called “Viper” — and they keep shouting back and forth, “Sandman to Viper Command!” Some people definitely don’t dig it. We have to be behind it, but you know it’s just a band name, except our band name is 17 to 19 letters long. We actually have t-shirts and they were very hard to make them.

Does the success of suburban- or small town–based bands like Still Life Still and Born Ruffians inspire you?
I guess we have no choice than to be from the suburbs. The stigma attached to the suburbs is there but you can’t really avoid it. The good thing about being from Burlington is that you’re in between Hamilton and Toronto, which are two of the best music scenes in the country. Hamilton was where we found our footing first, we made friends with Huron and Arkells, who gave us their opening slots, and that right when things started happening, or at least, when people started returning our emails.

We played so many, not only bad shows, but bad shows that had no thought behind them. They were almost like battles of the bands, but venues who were just filling their schedules for the week with five leftover bands on the bill. No one comes out to those shows, so we owe our friends a huge, huge amount, because at any given night we had 15 people to, at least, stand in front of the stage, though sometimes it must have been hard for them to listen to us. It was definitely discouraging, but I know that if you want to make it, you have to play the shit shows. That was our formative year — of course, we thought that we were the cat’s meow, having so much fun playing to our friends and our friends only.

There’s a real sense of cultivated musical references on your record. What does Sandman Viper Command listen to?
Obviously, it was just a point of listening to The Beatles way too much. We just all hit upon them at the exact same time, every single song, every which way they recorded it. Obviously, you also take in the current ongoing flood of music you get from the internet, the suburb bands you mentioned, Grizzly Bear and the very obvious choices. Quite possibly if this album ever takes off, we’ll receive a million lawsuits from the stuff we subconsciously referenced. Hopefully we’ll get away with short-enough snippets, so the case won’t hold up in court. With so much music out there, it’s impossible to do anything new or fresh, so we’d rather slather a production of new freshness on there. We’re happy the end result — it’s the product of listening to a lot of classic rock but not wanting to sound like a classic-rock band.

How do you like living in Burlington?
Hey, it’s a beautiful place to grow up. When I went to McMaster University, I lived in Hamilton, but it’s hard justify moving there when it’s free to live at home with our parents. The proposition is looming over us constantly. Obviously, it would be much more fun to live in the city and much more valuable experience in terms of networking. But the free aspect is really what keeps us here. Creatively, we’re definitely comfortable here; socially, we don’t know. I can’t imagine we’ll be 40 still living at home with our parents. We might be.

What do you do for fun when you’re not playing shows?
Downtown Burlington is scary. There are a lot of fights that go down on a Saturday night when you’re wearing skinny jeans with muscles smaller than trees, and hair longer than two inches. The people in Burlington could probably make up a good Jersey Shore-type series. They could call it “Hamilton Bay.” All I can say is that it’s a great place to grow up but we have run out of ideas.

There’s only so much pot that you can smoke.
Exactly. That’s what it comes down to.

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