Paul: My name is Paul Agricola I play Guitar in Follow the Accident

Marco: My name is Marco I also play guitar

Sam: Sam... Vocals

Marco: We've known each other for a long time. I used to gig around with Paul's band, he used to be in a band Tall Man, and I used in a band called Drive Channel. We used to gig a lot together. That's how we met. Sam, we also met on the scene when he was playing with Life Theoretic. We just met through other bands and stuff like that and got together and started jamming to see what happened.

Paul: It was a bit of an interesting story. We had come up with a bunch of different names at different times and the daunting task of trying to pick a name that really kind of best defines the band, the sound and the people is really hard. We'd come up with different names, and the truth of it is that someone had suggested using a name called Frenetic. We just didn't like that name, we tried to find different ways to figure out where that word came from and use it in different sentences and we found this one where 'He frenetically followed the accident'. Just out of nowhere Marco was like, 'well just follow the accident'. We were just kind of like 'umm that might work'. It has kind of grown from there because now it went from just being this word that means something but now it kind of really means a lot more taking into account the experiences that each member of the band has had in their own previous life's and everything that we've done and everything that we've been through and seen and relate it to everything that everyone goes (through) in daily life, like you know you have accidents, accidents that make you laugh out of stupidness or accidents that really kind of piss you off.

Sam: Or accidents that happen on stage right before a show starts.

Paul: It's kinda been a little bit of our mantra, we maybe kind of dampened ourselves with the name. It really kind of bears down to everyone has accidents in their life that they don't know how to deal with or know what to do next. But really the next step of whatever mistake is how you follow is really what defines you.

Sam: Lyrically of Musically?

Sam: Everybody.

Sam: I kind of answered the question, and complicated it a little bit.

Paul: Life situations. I mean like it's different, for each of us, for the part we're working on. Sam I know is a great lyricist and a great vocalist as well, and like the lyrics that he writes about, I know each of us can relate to. It's great to have a singer like that because it's like he's saying exactly what I would want to say and thinking exactly what I would want to think, and it's great because I'm I know lot of the fans out there are thinking or saying the same thing. You'd have to ask him on the lyrical content, but on the musical content it's either me or Marco getting together and working on rifts. Ian throwing in a drum beat and we go from there. Our bassist adding his bossness into the situation.

Sam: For the record we're missing two members, Ian our drummer and Chris our bass player who is violently sick as we speak.

Marco: But I think our music gets inspired by other music that we like. We all like different styles and stuff like that so it all just come together and write what we write when we get together.

Sam: It's kind of funny because our subject matter is pretty serious stuff, whether it's experiences we've had as individuals or experiences of other people telling us what they've been through and us unfortunately being unable to affect that situation but when you see us onstage, it really doesn't transcend to what we're doing we're jokers on stage we love to have a good time. When it comes down to the actual music, the performance is pretty serious subject matter but we have a good time in the process on stage, you've got to make light of certain situations.

Sam: generally, the guys have given me kind of the go ahead to be the lyricist here and obviously they have their impact and input and I look for it all the time. Whichever way I decide to write the lyrics I try to put it in context that's not specific to my own situation or to Paul's situation or someone's situation, that anyone that's listening to it can connect themselves to it. That's the cool arty kind of answer there.

Sam: Garth Brooks (laughs)

Paul: Miley Cyrus

Sam: Rita Mcneil (Laughs)

Marco: Tool, Mars Volta, that's a couple of my favorite bands. Deftones, stuff like that. If you look at my CD collection it's everything from Jazz to Country to Hard Rock and Metal and stuff. For me it's hard for me to define what really inspires me to write, because it just comes from everywhere.

Paul: Country really?

Marco: Country yah.

Sam: Johnny Cash man, original rock and roller. Merl Haggard.

Paul: For real, music is just such a trivial thing. You listen to music dependent on the mood that you're in. If I want energetic heavy music, like in my CD collection I'll have Tool or Mudvayne. or I'll have Sevendust or Deftones, all that stuff, but there are times that I'll love to listen to U2 or Radiohead, Placebo or like Into The Anger, like Electronic bands, Project Chemical, various parts of music, like even in Hip Hop, but um, I can't really go on about Country, I can't stay I have a favourite Country artist. To each their own. But yeah, whatever strikes you at the moment, I'm really into independent bands too, I mean, one of the things I love is like, going to a club where they'll be playing a show, or seeing a show and seeing this amazing new band that you never saw before, never even knew you were gonna be hearing, or listen to a song on the radio and just get that feeling like 'wow, who the hell are these guys?' I love that thrill, and then getting a CD or listening to a tune and keeping your fingers crossed that every track from it is good, and sometimes you'll find those bands where every song is good, and really makes you go wow.

Sam: The writing is really subconsciously influenced, believe it or not. I mean, I'm a huge Tool fan, I love the Deftones and so-forth. But if you listen to our stuff, it doesn't lyrically sound like that. But you're subconsciously influenced by that stuff. Whether it comes out in your writing, or the way you are on stage, or carry yourself through a band, that's where it really kind of shines through. There's only a certain arena of notes and lyrics and melody that you can write, everything is just reworked and retouched, and kind of revamped and polished up into a different way shape or form that somebody could say "Hey, I haven't listened to it in this manner, it was a little bit different" so the arena is only so big, the spectrum is only so big so it's how you reinvent that stuff and go to town on it.

Paul: Yeah, it's true; it's kind of like the evolution of musicians of this generation too. The artists that we grew up listening to... I mean we're talking about the Zeppelins or the Sabbaths, or the Doors or whatever of that era, and now bands of this era, referring to bands we know of like the Tools and Korns and Deftones, Radioheads, all that kind of stuff. It'll be interesting to see, the next generation of kids, what they do. I just hope they're not all Rock Band and Guitar Hero and actually try to play a real instrument.

Sam: What's the next chord? Red-Yellow-Blue! (Laughs)

Marco: It's gonna be four songs, with an up-and-coming producer from Toronto. It's being recorded here at DC music... yeah, it's gonna be four tunes, and it's something we're looking forward to putting out.

Paul: Yeah, two of the tracks that we have up, we're going to redo versions of those, plus two others that we've been playing live that have not been debuted online yet. Working with Andrew is kind of fitting in perfect, because all of us know him from outside from experiences. Me and him used to play together in Tall Man, and ever since then he went on to do his own recordings, he's had great success himself, and he's worked under some great people who we've had the chance to work with. He knows our drummer Ian very well, from working with him, he knows Marco very well from working with him, so when it came time for us to pick someone to go with, it was like the choice was almost obvious, so... we're looking forward to doing that here in a couple of weeks.

Sam: It'll be an interesting first crack at it, I mean, if you look at the grand scheme of time, we're still in our infancy as a band, we've been together effectively as a band for a year. But we lost a lot of time due to personal injury in the band; we hadn't had a chance to jam and write, and things of that nature. So it'll be a first crack at things. The four songs we do choose to record, we may reinvent, and add things to it and spice it up a little bit. But it's a first crack; we're looking forward to it. End of January... we better get healthy by then.

Marco: The music scene is cool. I'm lucky enough to work in the scene, so I can see a lot of the bands and stuff like that. Playing around and whatnot. It's getting a lot better, yeah, there are a lot of good bands out there, and a lot of them influence us as well. For us it's been a pretty good ride, so far. Everyone's been treating us nicely and we've been getting good response. After the CD is out, we'll be going out across Canada, and seeing what we can do there.

Sam: That's what I'm totally looking forward to. The music scene in Toronto is great, but Toronto acts a bit of a microcosm, in terms of, it thinks it's the center of the world. But, the music scene is growing in Toronto, but it's still lagging behind places like Montreal, or even Vancouver. But it's getting there.

Paul: I don't know, I've kind of noticed a change in the years. In the different eras...

Sam: I'm not really talking about the quantity of bands, rather just the scene within itself and what it's actually producing. The Canadian music scene on a whole right now, is not being driven by Toronto. But that's my opinion, and we're all entitled to our own opinions.

Paul: No, it's true! I mean, you've got bands from Three Days Grace, to Billy Talent, who are here representing Toronto with kind of... grownups. And you've got bands out west, in the Vancouver scene, Montreal has got a really good scene, it's got promise! You just kind of hope that within each city that's got fans, that you do your best to represent the city and do your best to show what they can. If more bands happen to be from Toronto, fantastic! More from Vancouver? Whatever.

Sam: I think an unfortunate part of the stigma that goes with being from Toronto, is mitigating the effect that the music scene has on Toronto. If you go outside of Toronto, there's a bad stigma about being from Toronto, if you go to Calgary or anywhere else, and you try to talk to those people and say "hey, I'm from Toronto", it's like, ahh you're from Toronto, they give you a little shot. Unfortunately I think that stigma which has nothing to do with music, is effecting the entire scene itself. It's unfortunate, because there are a ton of fantastic bands playing in this city, and they're having a hard time breaking through, just because of the stigma associated with the city.

Paul: Um... energetic. It just depends on... every club that we play, or any club that we're going to get to play is going to be a different experience too, the bands that you'll have with you on stage is going to affect everything that happens too. We've had a small handful of shows under our belt now, and it's an exciting time to see where we're going to take it, because aside from the seven songs that we have on our set right now, we're currently working on new material too, that hopefully we can get them polished off. And in the next few months, as they get more defined, we can start bringing them into our set, and kind of evolve, play with the set and kind of give it a different feel. Different things that we'd like to do visually, but let's get the CD done first, and then work on the show, and then evolve from there. Because the energy is always there for all of us. Hands down.

Marco: Yeah, when you come to see us now, you're going to have a very energetic show. And we throw in some things here and there to spice it up, like accidents and stuff, but we throw in little things here and there, to change up the sets and make every show a little bit different. So, that if you're a huge fan of the band, and you're going to every show, at least every show is a little bit different.

Sam: Yeah! We feed off the vibe too. There's... everyone going crazy and they're killing each other, and moshing in front of us, that just takes us to the next level and acting a little crazier. I hate to say it, but a lot of being a band is all showmanship and not just our musical talents and abilities. If the fans are more subdued and chill, then we get into a kind of trance, not bringing down the energy whatsoever, just that you're transcending it in a different way shape or form. So, we do feed off the vibe of the crowd, I think it's important to do that, understand who you're catering too specifically, in a specific venue.

Sam: That's a good question... hmm... are we talking on a world level here or a Canadian level?

Sam: I look at it this way, and supported by my fellow band mates over here, but, Canadian music is so strong, in my past band, and I'm sure in their past bands, you get easily fed up when the recognition that is required to succeed in this industry is not given because you're a Canadian band, because you're not getting exposure that you should be getting. Or even worse, within Canada itself, when you're submitting for a significant festival itself, like a North American thing or on the East or something where they completely claim to be independent or need independent bands, pushing them... the fact of the matter is that they're already supporting bands that have broken through and have some form of agreement, or some form of representation of management. It does put a little sour taste in your mouth and kind of turns you off to the industry a bit, so that's the one thing that I would definitely change. Walk the walk and talk the talk, if you're really supporting independent bands, or if it's supposed to be an indie festival or whatnot, and then make it an indie festival, meaning... no representation, no management, no distribution deals, none of that crap. Make it for the bands that really need the exposure. It's hard enough being from Canada, let alone being up against North America, even England in respects to development in the music scene itself. So that's the first thing I would change.

Paul: Well it's true though, it does kind of touch on what you were saying before about the city and the fans and the clubs and scene in the years gone by. You know, with the CMW and the Indie week that they do, and even in the skirts, you know the Spring Festival they do, each little pocket city outside of Toronto, has their own little thing going on. But in terms of the whole Canadian music scene too, it's like you can probably see well known Canadian musicians, for example: Tragically Hip can play a show here for 40-50,000 people and then go down to the states and play a bar in Cleveland for 20 people. It's just the conception of Canadian bands versus American bands is the whole philosophy that I've heard many times about Canada in like, TV or music or whatever is just waiting to see what America does. If anything I would try to change about Canadian music, is just kind of say, "you know what? We know we're not them, just because we happen to be above them, you want us to be like them musically or in TV shows" we know we're not them, not very many well known Canadian celebrities can walk down the streets there and get noticed, unless they've gone down to the States and made it big. I think that kind of needs to change, like, hey listen, we should be way more proud of what we've got coming from Canada, regardless of what province it's coming from, and kind of make our own stamp on the world, and maybe the rest of the world will say "yeah, you know... Canada's doing all right for themselves."

Marco: I think that's already happened, because a lot of Canadian bands are doing well right now. What I would change is not the industry for a day, but change the listeners for a day. And maybe have every band in the world play one day and have a chance to see them all. Open up your eyes basically, and see what's out there and what's happening. Stop just listening to Radio and stuff, because there's so much other stuff going on out there that you can expand your mind to.

Paul: Yeah, that's what a lot of people kind of do. The internet has helped... MySpace and WebPages, most people are going there for their music, instead of the radio, because most of what they hear on the radio, they don't like what's being fed to them. That's why the evolution of XM radio, or satellite radio was bound to happen at some point.

Sam: The unfortunate paradox of the entire situation is like, and it's quite ironic, is like we would like to be in the industry one day as well, that's where the irony of the situation is, we're criticizing them, but we want to be there someday. It's a two-edge sword, and you're playing ping-pong with yourself, but that's the industry I guess.

Paul: Well it's good to know what you're dealing with too, I guess. So you can know how to handle whatever situations come your way. It's good to know the good side, and good to know the bad side. Each of us have had our own experiences with the music industry and within the Toronto scene itself, we're not rookies coming up for the first time, thinking 'oh, we'll play that one show and get signed!' no, we each know the amount of work and dedication that it's going to take to be a successful band. And being a Toronto/Canadian band, it's quite the uphill battle, but we're definitely here, and look forward to the challenge.

Marco: They can go to www.myspace.com/followtheaccident um, we also have a Facebook group, and we're just getting our website and all that stuff done now, so MySpace is the way to go.

All: Sure!

Marco: Gazoo!

Paul: For me, I would have to go with Skyfire. From the Autobots and the Transformers. He was the big white Autobot. I liked him because he had a good story! He was a man of science, a man of war. He was a Decepticon, he was friends with Starscream crashed on the earth, and all of a sudden Starscream finds him, and then he realizes that he was with the wrong side... there was more of a story with his character and he was only in a handful of episodes, but the impact that he made on the ones he was in was huge, so most people remember him. I don't know, for some reason I would pick him, rather than the obvious choices.

Sam: Oh, I have to answer... um... Darth Vader. He was just so cool, a bad ass.

Sam: Vanilla-rama. It's an aphrodisiac.

Marco: I'd smell like chocolate.

Sam; (laughs) We took the two big ones away, you gotta come up with something unique now...

Paul: Umm... Marshmallows!

Sam: Peace.

Marco: umm... Pass.

Paul: What? With Three S'? Um... think.

Marco: ...that's pretty deep.

Paul: Ninja!

Sam: Pirate! Arrrrg!

Paul: To err is human, to Arrr is Pirate.

Sam: You can't say that as a Ninja, a Ninja has to be quiet!

Marco: I would go for the ninja, man.

Paul: How old school are we talking?

Sam: I'd be Robert Plant.

Marco: I'd be Jimmy Page.

Paul: I'd be Jim Morrison.