popYOUlarity.com: Can you please introduce yourself?
Darrin: Hi, I'm Darrin, drummer for Goldfinger.

popYOUlarity.com: I always hear it takes forever to make music videos. Are there ever times when you just get sick of it and want to scrap the entire thing?
Darrin: No actually, it doesn't take that long. Our last video for Open Your Eyes (I don't know if you've seen it or not) but it took one day, which isn't too bad because I know some videos take weeks to film and edit. We've been lucky enough to have people work efficiently and quickly to make good quality videos.

popYOUlarity.com: Is it true that you have a fan doing the official website?
Darrin: Well, he started as a fan. his name is Simon Clayton, a Vancouver guy, and we just became friends over the years. He came to one of our first shows in Seattle and we've been in contact ever since. He's been doing our website and he's my drumtech for the Canadian shows.

popYOUlarity.com: Are you going to release a Greatest Hits album?
Darrin: I don't know.
Kelly: Not until we're old and decrepid.
Darrin: Yeah... in three years maybe... we haven't thought about it yet but we're not opposed to it.

popYOUlarity.com:There are so many bands out there that you can't tell the difference between many of them. Do you think that music is lacking because of this?
Darrin: I don't think it's generally the music's fault or the band's fault. It's pretty much the program directors. I wish program directors of radio stations would mix it up. You know they can, it's just that money talks in this industry, and it's really sad. You know, the labels like the big Sonys and Columbias and the RCAs have big money and they throw it around. There's a lot of good bands out there that aren't getting recognized and they aren't getting played that would really mix up and diversify the playlists of radio stations. I think what is lacking is diversity in radio.
Kelly: Plus I think some of these record companies find something that really blows up and think "We want the next one!" and it just overflows and becomes saturated.
Darrin: We talked about being a boy band but we decided that we're too ugly and none of us can dance, so we figured it wasn't going to work.

popYOUlarity.com:How does Open Your Eyes differ from your other albums and what is the significance of the title?
Darrin: I think with Open Your Eyes, it's the actual track. It's pretty similar to Stomping Ground. That was pretty heavy, raw, rough and in your face - and so is this song. It's actually one of our heavier songs. I think the message is just like... John's a vegetarian and a big animal rights activist, so I guess there's some of that in there. But particularly don't be fooled by ads like "Drink Beer and Smoke Cigarettes" or Sprite's "Obey Your Thirst" and all this crap, it's like you are being bombarded by it.
Kelly: Don't be fooled by marketing!
Darrin: It's like if you try something and like it, whether it's something like Coca Cola or whatever, just don't listen to advertising. Be yourself. Don't fall prey to these advertisers.

popYOUlarity.com:What do you think could be done to music today to bring back the preceptions of it a couple generations ago?
Kelly:That's easy - blow up the internet.
Darrin: Bring back The Beatles. I don't really know, I think it's getting worse and worse. It really is. Not that bands are getting worse, there is a lot of great music out there, like Goldfinger and other bands, but the internet really isn't helping too much even though some people say it is. It is a great medium to get your music out there and to get to people with a computer.
Kelly: It's good for smaller bands, but I think it's going to destroy the record industry after awhile because people... they just buy everything they want off the internet, and you don't even need to go to a store. You can sample the music already.
Darrin: It's sad, because we go back to radio and it's almost at the point now where if you don't have a song on the radio you aren't gonna sell a lot of records. The radio and MTV and MuchMusic really dictate record sales and it ****ing sucks because back in the day you didn't have to have a song on the radio. Once you had a following, it was word of mouth. "Hey, this band... they're doing whatever... they're really good, go see them live!" and then they would really explode. We're lucky that we have a fan base, but the radio really does control the music industry. It sucks.

popYOUlarity.com:Do you think you've had more success in Canada or the US?
Darrin:Oh absolutly in Canada. We have one record here in Canada, second one is on it's way to gold, so Canada is probably our biggest market.

popYOUlarity.com:There have been many artists that have created new styles that have radically changed the music scene. What style and when do you think will be the next "Elvis" or "Nirvana"?
Darrin:It's almost like predicting lottery numbers... you don't know. I mean, who knows? Everything's been done almost, which is another sad thing. I mean every style of music has been cross-bred with another style (like country-jazz, country-death metal, hip hop-rock, pop rock or punk reggae). It's been mixed up in every combination. Everything has been thrown in one big pot and meatballs have been made with different styles.
Kelly: That's why I say at the end of the day it's all about the song, because a good song is a good song.
Darrin: At the end of the day, it's kinda like how Richie says it, melody is king. As long as you have a good song with a good melody, you can hum it.

popYOUlarity.com:The album seems like it stays true to Goldfinger. You didn't go out and copy some fad to make the top 10. Do you look at music today and wonder if Goldfinger could or should try to save it?
Kelly:No, I think we go off and try to write good songs. And when we perform live, we just try to give it 110%.
Darrin: I don't think we conciously think we need to save the music, we just go out and write songs. When we write a song, we try to make it the best song possible by changing lyrics, changing melodies, changing keys...
Kelly: Changing our underwear and maybe taking a shower...
Darrin: It's all about the songs. This record is pretty true to Goldfinger, actually it's more like our first record I think with a little less ska. But yeah, we just write songs and if people like them, great. There's no higher goal like, Goldfinger must forge the way.

popYOUlarity.com:Obviously as a well-known group there are people that idolize you, fans that can't get enough of your music and amateur bands that try to copy you. How do you deal with that?
Darrin: We're well known? Try to copy our style? I don't really know if there have been a lot of bands that have copied our style.
Kelly: We don't care.
Darrin: When we came out with our first record I don't think it was really an original type of music. It was power pop, there was Green Day doing it. A lot of other bands were doing it. We decided it was really cool, so we threw our spin on it. Goldfinger doesn't really sound like any other band because we mix up our records a lot. There's a lot of different styles on our records from ska to reggae to punk to metal and what not.
Kelly: But what about people idolizing you?
Darrin: I love it!

popYOUlarity.com: When you are going through a period when nothing will go right, how do you get back on track?
Kelly: Just like anyone, you just persevere. And write more songs.
Darrin: I don't know, we just pray to God and hope it gets better, that's all. I mean, it's going to get better, it's like that in life. You go through the hard times, you go through the good times.
Kelly: It's like a roller coaster.

popYOUlarity.com:After being around for so long are you finding it hard to come up with new ideas for your music while still keeping it in your own style?
Darrin: No actually. Writing songs is something we do fairly well, pretty prolifically. As a matter of fact we have about 10-15 songs that we didn't use, so we could actually release another record right now. Writing has never been a problem, John, Kelly and myself all write pretty quickly. The songs are actually fairly decent songs and once we all get together in a room and shape them the way we feel - it's an easy process. There are a lot of bands out there, I'm not going to give any names, that really have problems writing songs. After a tour they'll get together and say "okay guys... let's write something now". We write all the time. Each of us has Pro Tools on our laptops so if we have an idea we can throw it down on the computer and when we get home we take that idea, broaden it and make a song. It's never been a really big problem.

popYOUlarity.com:What drove you to write FTN and what's it about?
Darrin:F*** Ted Nugent... well... I don't know if you know who Ted Nugent is, but he's this old school seventies rocker. His big thing is hunting, and John like I said is a big animal rights activist. I don't really have a say on hunting. If you live in Montana and are 300 miles from civilization and you're hunting to survive, okay that's one thing. But he does it just for... like "oh there's a deer I'll kill it hehe", just for fun. He's kind of a dick and he kills animals and puts them on his walls, eats meat, cheats on his wives (well I don't know anymore)... I guess he's got some school where he teaches people how to hunt, like to shoot arrows and guns. He really doesn't need to be alive. He sucks. He's a dick. Jennifer Lopez, according to John who did some research, she is a really big fur activist. She loves wearing fur, and apparently she makes these eyelash things out of fox fur... I mean f***ing gnarly... come on... don't women have eyelashes naturally? Do you have to enhance them with fox fur? It's really f***ing stupid... she needs to die too. She's pretty and all, but she needs to die.

popYOUlarity.com: Do you have anything you'd like to say to the readers of popYOUlarity.com?
Darrin: Thanks you for your support. Canada is a very... I love this country. Don't get me wrong, I love America, born and raised in America and it's my home... but Canada is my adopted home and I love it very much. I'd like to thank the fans for supporting us here.

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