Rody Walker is a self-proclaimed super-human. The 20-year-old frontman of Whitby, Ontario’s metal-punk quintet Protest The Hero was home earlier than planned after returning from a European tour supporting Bullet For My Valentine. The last stretch of the U.K. leg of the tour got cancelled due to Bullet’s lead singer coming down with a “throat issue.”
“I don’t really understand throat issues,” Walker says. “I guess some people are more sensitive. Then again, I know a lot of singers, and I am a singer, but I smoke a pack a day, drink excessively, and I never lose my voice. Some people just don’t know how to maintain their vocal chords.”
In fact, there is pretty much nothing that could stop Walker from performing–not even the sandpits at last summer’s Warped Tour at Parc Jean Drapeau. As he remembers the incident, Walker laughs, “[singing with a mouthful of sand] didn’t exactly feel good, but I would do it again!”
Protest The Hero are guys who like a little challenge, and sandpits don’t even register as one of them. This summer, the band, which also includes guitarists Luke Hoskin and Tim Millar, drummer Moe Carlson and bassist Arif Mirabdolbaghi, played the entire tour, as opposed to only playing one date in Barrie, Ontario the previous summer. “Warped Tour was great.” Walker says. “We didn’t think it would be the ideal tour for us, because we don’t really listen to that type of music, but it worked out phenomenally for us. There were very few days that we considered unsuccessful. We met a lot of great people, made a lot of new friends, and what else can you ask for, right?”
Walker adds that the crowd response in the U.S. was exponentially better this time around, in comparison with some of their previous tours there. Since last spring’s re-release of the band’s stellar debut, Kezia (pronounced keh-zai-yah), by Vagrant Records, Protest The Hero were able to expand onto the American market. The record was originally released by Canadian indie label Underground Operations, who are still in charge of Protest’s Canadian business.
Ever since its release, or re-release, Kezia has been labelled as everything ranging from a concept record (by the fans) to a “situational requiem” (by the band members themselves). The album translates the perspectives of three different characters, the prison guard, the executioner, and Kezia herself, in three different “acts,” each comprised of three songs and each act being devoted to one character’s perspective. The album concludes with a 10th song, the finale, a kind of epilogue to the story.
But right now it sounds like Walker is tired of all the labelling. “You know what, people can call it whatever they want. It’s up for the listener’s interpretation. We rarely define it, it’s not something that we would like to define–it’s something that we would like to have people define. If they think it’s a concept record because it follows one current thought, then it’s a concept record. If they think it’s a record with a concept, then that’s something completely different.”
“Our ‘situational requiem’ is something we thought of with our manager,” Walker explains. “And that’s because Kezia is not a story–it’s a situation from three different perspectives. And the requiem part was because a requiem is a funeral song, a song of death, and we considered it the death of who we were and the rebirth of who we are.”
In a review that appeared in Alternative Press’ June 2006 issue, Kezia got compared to “Thrice’s The Illusion of Safety. informed by Fyodor Dostoevsky.” The analogy only makes sense, as Dostoevsky happens to be one of Walker’s and Mirabdolbaghi’s favourite authors.
“I am just working through his library right now,” Walker confides. “It’s not easy, but I love it. The stories are great, the language is great. And you know, it changes everything for you. When you come back now and read things like Dan Brown, you’re like, OK, this guy’s a great storyteller, but he can’t write for shit.”
All in all, Protest The Hero are five young men with sophisticated literature taste, wicked music taste–and apparently quite a pretentious alcohol taste. “We are functional alcoholics and it’s great,” Walker jokes.
“But you know, it’s really difficult to read when the room is spinning,” he adds with a laugh.
Protest The Hero play Club Lambi on Dec. 13
4465 Blvd. St. Laurent
Opening acts:
I Hate Sally
The Human Abstract
Tickets: $13
Protest The Hero will play Kezia in its entirety to mark the beginning of a new recording process.
They will stop touring for 4-6 months while going into the studio to record a new album.
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