Jason Collett Interview: SXSW 2010

With the release of 'Rat a Tat Tat' on March 9 and his upcoming performance at SXSW, Toronto singer-songwriter and Broken Social Scene alum Jason Collett has plenty of cause to celebrate this month. Out on the road in support of the new disc -- a tour that also features good buddies Zeus (his longtime backing band) and Juno nominated Bahamas -- Collett took a moment out to share with Spinner his love of expensive tequila and childhood lust for Patti Smith's arm hair.

Describe your sound in your own words.

Seeing as Zeus is my backing band, it's like thunder bolts from the gods.

How did your band form?

Zeus has been backing me up for some time but they've evolved into their own thing over the last couple of years. I got my start here in Toronto and cut my teeth down at a place call the Spadina Hotel back in the late 1980s where there was a small scene of singer-songwriters. I was kicking around in Toronto doing that for quite some time, but it wasn't until Broken Social Scene came along that many of us had the door kicked open.

What are your musical influences?

My musical influences are all songwriters, anything from Kris Kristofferson to Bob Dylan to Elvis Costello to Patti Smith.

What's your biggest vice?

Probably top-shelf tequila. It's not cheap.

Who was your first celeb crush?

Probably Farrah Fawcett or Cheryl Tiegs, but that was when I was too young to know better. My first real musical crush would have been Patti Smith. And it was before even her music. I came across 'Easter' in a record store and on the cover she's got her arm up in the air and her arm pit hair is showing. I came from an anemic suburb where nobody did that and I was shocked, shocked right to my loins, for me the first imagine was that she had a pussy under her arm -- that was really my first true crush.

Beatles or Stones?

Bob Dylan.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

Kylie Minogue maybe, but I don't feel guilty about that. Maybe Bob Seger is more guilty. 'Night Moves' is awesome.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced on tour?

It may very well be this tour we have coming up. Zeus has a release coming out around the same time [as me] on Arts & Crafts too, and a fellow that used to play with us but left to go play with Feist now has his own project called Bahamas. So the three of us are going on tour doing this thing called the 'Bonfire Ball'. It's a classic revue so we're not playing three different sets, we're playing one long set and sort of expanding and contracting as one band all night long. It's a bit of an experiment on our part and we'll be tweaking it as we go, but I don't think it can fail. It's how we would be playing backstage anyways, so people will get more bang for their buck from a band of brothers like us.