Are You Ready To Rock with Elegant Devils

Elegant Devils (Lovingly stolen from their site)

Dear Ottawa, I'm sorry about your Senators. Not the current ones, but the original team that moved to St. Louis, became the Eagles, and promptly folded.

In the meantime, check out your home town rockers, Elegant Devils. You can learn all about them and sample their wares HERE.

1. Every major band worth its salt has released a live album. Tell me about your favorite A list band's live record and your favorite underground live album.

DREW: Big Wreck Bag of Tricks 2013. 

Anything with Ian Thornley gives me tingly feelings. Man that guy can SING. Underground album - a band called Inward Eye played a show in Ottawa opening for Finger 11 when I was a younger lad. 

They had a demo that I bought off them after their set. Didn’t have a name but I listened to it non-stop for MONTHS.

ROB: Alice In Chains Unplugged. The album just works. It’s a very good show, has a solid set, the songs transition well into the unplugged format, and it just captures a moment. 

It also doesn’t really seem to age as time goes by. That’s a very positive thing for me when it comes to live albums. 

WEST: I personally am not the biggest fan of live albums, so I’ll just leave it at that. 

2. Kiss, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, etc, all have released several live sets. Tell me about a band who's gotten you to purchase multiple live sets and why?

ROB: The Rolling Stones. I’m not saying I have everything. 

I’m just saying that I have more than one. The length of their career and the catalog they have lends itself well to live albums. I enjoy hearing the changes in the set and the performance when you can jump around such a wide time period. 

DREW: I’m embarrassed by my answer so I’m not gonna say it.

3. Now, it's time to take a stand. Would you rather have an album like Kiss's Alive! where the tracks were doctored into perfection or would you rather have a Jimi Hendrix Live At Berkeley set where they just mixed and mastered the tapes?

DREW: No question - Jimi Hendrix. If people are going to fall in love with us, I want them to do it honestly. Without lots of bells and whistles. Live music should be left “raw” otherwise it’s not Live, is it?

WEST: No doctoring and just mixed and mastered. Leave it alone and let it be as it was meant to be. 

ROB: Leave it as it is and just mix and master it. 

That’s what you did, that’s what you sound like, that’s what people will hear when they come to see you. It’s like a time capsule of your band in that moment and I’d prefer to preserve that as authenticity as possible. 

4. In the early 90's, Anthrax released a live album called Live: The Island  Years. Due to reasons beyond Anthrax's control, this one just never felt right to me and I soon unloaded it. Tell me about one that disappointed you when it came out?

ROB: Jimmy Page and The Black Crows - Live At The Greek. In theory that should have been amazing. That band with Jimmy Page rocking Zeppelin and other rock standards should have been a clever and unique live album.

Instead, it really fell flat and was very underwhelming.  

5. What's the right length for a live album?

DREW: Doesn’t matter. A good show is a good show. 

ROB: I don’t care if it’s an EP, double live, or single disk. A good show is a good show. 

The set length doesn’t matter so long as the energy can be felt between the crowd and the performers.