MuchMusic's Nardwuar makes Canadian history rock out

If you have seen Nardwuar's many interviews, heard him on the radio in Vancouver or seen his band, the Evaporators, you know that Nardwuar is a strange character. His tendency to obsess on everything from Courtney Love to cheese and his screechy voice will make you either love him or hate him. Nardwuar's musical talents and interview skills seem to go hand in hand as the Evaporators formed in February 1986 and Nardwuar did his first interview October of 1985, which was school related.

Nardwuar has done numerous interviews with musicians of all genres, but he says his favourite was a few years ago when he did a nine minute phone interview with Iggy Pop.

"Iggy was laughing so hard and was answering all the questions and talked about a lot of obscure stuff such as time he showed his cock-ring to Tina 'Ginger' Louise from Gilligan's Island," says Nardwuar.

"Any time you get Gilligan's Island and cock-rings and rock 'n roll together, you know it's going to be a good interview."

If given the chance to interview himself, Nardwuar would interrogate himself on his eating habits.

"I'd probably ask myself why I didn't quit eating cheese earlier," says Nardwuar. "Because I got a disease, I am addicted to cheese, as it says on our new CD. I read years ago [from an interview with Courtney Love] if you stop eating cheese you'll lose weight and I wish I had followed that advice."

Nardwuar has been in the business for a while and has seen musicians progress from playing in small pubs to stadiums, musicians he had opportunities to talk with, including Alanis Morissette and Jewel. Even though Nardwuar is not particularly a fan of either of them, he believes everyone has a story and it is his job to find out these interesting facts.

"Any of the old rockers that are about to die I want to talk to, because they live such cool lives," he says. "Apparently Little Richard discovered Jimmy Hendrix in Vancouver and I have to find out about that. There is all this stuff that is going to be lost if people keep dying. There is so much work ahead of me I don't know where to start."

Nardwuar did get the chance to talk to Kurt Cobain on Jan. 4, 1994, but it was not any easy task.

"To get that Nirvana interview was two days of basically waiting in the rain and stalking him," says Nardwuar. "I think it was probably the last interview he did in Canada before he died."

Switching to his music, The Evaporators' live shows involve Nardwuar yelling at people, talk about Canadian history and food and a little bit of back hair.

"It's like me doing an interview, in the same way that I yell at people in an interview I'll yell at people from the stage," says Nardwuar. "My shirt might come off so don't be offended by my back hair."

The Evaporators want to be classified as history rock, though Nardwuar insists it is anything but boring.

"We love exploring events in Canadian history and we love food, so food and history rock," she says. "An example is in our new album called Ripple Rock. There is a song about a rock they blew up near Vancouver Island; it was a rock that got in the way of ships so they blew it up."

"And we have another song from the past called 'United Empire Loyalist' about the dudes that left America and came to Canada during the American Revolutionary War," says Nardwuar. "This song is based on the hypothesis that it wasn't necessary the Americans fighting the British but that it was Americans fighting Americans!"

The Evaporators play L3 in St. Catharines on March 3.