Thanks so much to Ahenk for the interview! I had written some time ago about the Ottawa 80s band The Crowd Theory on the blog and then suddenly last November, Chris Robinson from the band got in touch! He then put me in touch with Ahenk who was the vocalist and bassist of the band and he was keen to answer my questions! So yeah, very excited to know more details about the band!

++ Hi Ahenk! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are you still involved with music?

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity to reminisce. Nostalgic times for me and, I’m sure, the rest of the band.

I haven’t really been active musically since 2016. By not active I mean not even writing or recording originals; missing the muse for the last ten years.

++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what your first instrument was? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen to at home while growing up?

My first instrument was the trumpet. I chose that in Grade 7. Enjoyed playing right through high school in the jazz band and orchestra. Kinda fizzled out after high school; was more interested in playing pop/rock instruments and writing songs.

I didn’t start listening to music really until I was 14. Missed those days listening to Ottawa’s CHEZ 106 all through the 80s before they became a classic rock station. They used to have a Friday night Top 30 album countdown of the top-selling albums from Ottawa record stores. The full list was printed in the Ottawa Citizien newspaper so you could follow along. The style didn’t matter. They would play up to 3 songs per album. I would hear U2 followed by Tina Turner, then Judas Priest.  Other great albums as well: from Tears For Fears, Midnight Oil. The albums I ended up buying and listening to start to finish over and over were Men At Work (Cargo), Culture Club (Colour By Numbers), Duran Duran (Union Of The Snake) and, yeah, that Judas Priest one (Defenders Of The Faith). It wasn’t until I was 16 when I heard How Soon Is Now by The Smiths on the radio. Johnny Marr’s semi-tone slide that held over the next couple of bars introduced me to dischordant notes in chords which was a new thing to me, as well as Morrissey’s unconventional vocal melodies. The Smiths made a big impact on me, music and lyrics both.  Listened to a lot of early-mid R.E.M. as well. The other group that had a big impact on me was Prefab Sprout. Just couldn’t get enough of Paddy McAloon’s amazing songwriting. Two Wheels Good is still a repeat listen for me to this day. Their first abum, Swoon, just full of chords and progressions you still never hear in pop music to this day.

++ Had you been in other bands before The Crowd Theory? What about the other band members?

I bought a bass and joined my first band in high school called Moral Rage. Played a couple of gigs, most notably at One Step Beyond, a really cool all-ages club that only hosted original alternative indie bands.  Chris Robinson, Crowd Theory guitarist, had a band called Ten Miles High before he joined.

++ Where were you from originally?

I was born in Istanbul, Turkiye. We immigrated here to Canada as a family in the early 70s when I was 4. Been living in Ottawa since.

++ How was Ottawa at the time of The Crowd Theory? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?

Ottawa always had a good original band scene. Barrymore’s and  Downstairs Club were always the go-to clubs to see good original bands  Soon after came Zaphod Beeblebrox which became an iconic venue for independent indie bands for quite some time. As for record stores, Record Runner was a great one, downtown on Rideau St. Great selection if you were looking for alternative pop/rock records. Stuff you wouldn’t find at the bigger name stores. Record Runner on Bank St. was a good one as well. That’s where I bought The Smiths’ Hatful of Hollow. Probably the album I spent most time on, listening and singing along with the lyric sheet over and over … (kind of the reason I ended up sounding like Morrissey when I sang our songs …)

++ Were there any other good bands in your area?

There were quite a few good original bands during our time. I’m only referring to alternative indie bands. We had The Whirleygigs and Furnaceface to name a couple.

++ How was the band put together? How was the recruiting process?

We actually formed after a chance meeting with guitarist Chris Robinson at CKCU. I was putting up a guitarist wanted ad on the radio station bulletin board: “Looking for gutarist for original band – influences: Smiths/R.E.M.” Chris just happened to be leaving the booth after an interview for his then band Ten Miles High. He turned to me and said, “I’d be interested.” We exchanged numbers and I was at his house with my bass a few days later. Chris played some chords and riffs and I improvised some bass lines to them. We already had the beginnings of a couple of songs by the end of the visit. I  went home and came up with a melody and lyrics and we had our first song, “Colour”. Our drummer was my high school buddy Nick Wyard. We got together with Chris and jammed a 4-song set to play our first show later that evening at the Live Band Night at Sir Robert Borden High School. We later had a back-up singer to do harmonies, another high school friend, Chantelle Wilson. We then started doing gigs, playing at the afore-mentioned Downstairs Club and a few Barrymore’s shows as the opening act, our standout show being the opener for Grapes of Wrath.

++ Speaking of CKCU radio station, how important was it to music fans then? 

CKCU, Carleton University’s radio station was great for us and a lot of other indie bands. They were good with taking and playing requests for songs off demo tapes even. Our demo tape, recorded by J.P. MacDonald who I think did a great job with just a 4-track reel to reel, actually made it to CKCU’s top ten list at one point.

++ Was there any lineup changes in the band?

Nick eventually left the band in ’89 and we did jam with another drummer named Jordan. Can’t recall his last name and I don’t even think we played a show … He left for university in Vancouver. The band fizzled after that.

++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?

A lot of songs came about as mentioned above by Chris jangling some guitar parts and myself adding bass parts and then choosing from lyrics I had previously written and working them into a melody that suited the parts we had. We usually jammed at  either Nick’s  or Chris’s basement.

++ What about influences?

Chris and I were clearly influenced by early R.E.M. with the jangly guitar parts and sometimes melodic bass parts. Chris lists Pete Townshend as a guitar influence as well. My vocals were clearly Smiths-influenced. Nick was into Level 42.

++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?

It’s not that mind-blowing actually. We had a foyer at our high school where everybody would crowd together and hang out. I just looked at everybody one day and imagined them 30 years from then, all to be in different parts of the world, doing their own thing and yet at one moment in time (well, that moment in time) they were all together in one room or foyer. If you put the life film in reverse now, we would all come from the separate parts of the world we inhabit and squeeze all back into that one high school for that one moment in time. Same with any crowd obviously. So, hmmm, not really a theory but just a fleeting thought, I guess. Sounded cool for a band name I thought.

++ My favourite song of yours is “Colour”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?

I used to write lyrics in mostly a stream-of-thought process. Half of them or more written during English class while the teacher was going on about some novel we were supposed to have read. A lot of my lyrics were not really literally “about” something but rather were me trying to poeticize thoughts about that something. Hmmm, did that make sense? So in “Colour”, I’m trying to poeticize my thoughts of my future self feeling left behind when I used to be a creative soul chasing after my youth-inspired goals. “I can swing higher than you can and you just sit there” turns into future me saying “Everything’s just colour great! The only faded thing around is me”.  It’s kind of eerie to me upon reflection that a lot of my lyrics (even ones I’ve written post Crowd Theory) were in that similar vein, almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy … You know what? I think we need to get together and bang out a good EP recording of our songs … break this long-ago predicted musical rut that (I’ll speak for myself) I’ve been in for years now. There we go. Back to happy 🙂

++ If you were to choose your favorite The Crowd Theory song, which one would that be and why?

I kind of liked all of them for different reasons. I could say though,  I always looked forward to playing Evergreen With Envy at our shows because I loved playing the octave disco bass part in the middle.

++ What were the best gigs that you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?

Opening for Grapes Of Wrath at Barrymore’s was a treat. We would do some quirky things at some shows. The Grapes Of Wrath opener, we had a high school friend of mine jump on stage and sit cross-legged in the middle of the stage reading a big dictionary for the first couple of songs. Just a whimsical idea. Another Barrymore’s show, we asked for an extra mic stand and pulled the mic down in front of an empty cola bottle right at front stage-left where a second guitarist might have otherwise stood. And one other Barrymore’s show, we put a keyboard on a stand on stage and had another high school friend sit behind it. The keyboard was intentionally and obviously not plugged into anything. Our “keyboardist” for the show just sat there, hands on his lap, with a grin for the entire show. None of these were statements really. Just quirky fun. The most fun show for all of us, I think, was, ironically enough, our last one at Downstairs Club that we played knowing it was our last one since our drummer Nick had expressed his intention to leave the band which lead to our subsequent breakup soon after. We actually had a good crowd at the show. We were more relaxed than we had ever been at any previous show. We incorporated a few extra fun covers and had Chantelle sing lead on a couple of them: The Bangles’ “In Your Room”‘and “Downtown” by Petula Clark. We did a little bit to poke fun at ourselves regarding our R.E.M. influence. We pretended to play a cover of Orange Crush which had just come out around then. We started the song normally with Nick doing the 16th-note snare hits but he kept playing the snare intro right through half of the first verse while Chris and I were playing our normal parts as if nothing was amiss. Nick then broke into a 4/4 beat completely out of time and tempo. We stopped the song a few bars later and laughed it up with the audience. It was a pre-planned joke. Not poking fun at the song itself at all; I think it’s a great song. Just thought it funny to pretend to be serious about a cover we would otherwise be expected to play.

++ And were there any bad ones?

I guess it wasn’t really a gig, but before we started the local club scene, we somehow arranged a show at a bar called The Swiss Inn way at the south end of Bank St.  where it became Highway 31. It was just an excuse to play live on some stage. No sound system or anything, except for the vocal mic and speaker. We just showed up with dry drums and our amps not even miked up. The only audience was one table right in front with two ladies and a guy wearing a cowboy hat and boots. We opened with “Behind Winter Coats”, a good hard-driving song of ours. The one-table audience did not have a hint of appreciation on either of their faces. I remember one of the ladies,  after out first song was finished, commenting verbatim, “Don’t they know they’re awful?” We may have gotten one more song in before the fellow in the cowboy hat chimed in, “You guys don’t know any country or anything? Do you guys know ‘My Hometown’?” It was evident we didn’t so he offered to show us. We shrugged and looked at each other and decided, hey, if hijacking our show will make the “audience” happy, then so be it. We left the stage, sat down at a table and watched this fellow play Chris’s guitar and sing Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown” as the third and final song of OUR show 🙂 He actually did a good job.

++ When and why did The Crowd Theory stop making music? Were any of you involved in any other projects afterwards?

We broke up soon after Nick left the band. Ironically, Nick and I, still best buddies, ended up joining a cover band with some other high school friends; myself on bass and Nick drumming again. We did the cover band circuit for years afterwards. Yeah , it was fun times and memories but I do regret not staying in the original music scene. I’ve written and recorded a bunch of songs on my own at home from the time of the Crowd Theory breakup till about 10 years ago when the muse kind of left. I never released them or started a band to play them anywhere though.

++ Was there any interest from the radio? TV?

We never really got beyond the radio play we had with our demo tapes.

++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?

We were once featured in CKCU’s TransFM music magazine. We had a full-page article with our picture. Nick is not in the picture since he had left already or intended to around that time . We also were in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper with a full-page picture and a little blurb on their weekly local band feature. Again, this was just after Nick had left so the afore-mentioned Jordan was the drummer in the picture. Though , again,  we either played one show or not before this drummer left for university in Vancouver. We do have one pic featuring Nick, though. Our song “Colour” is on a YouTube channel called stoneeyedkiller. It’s a neat channel featuring tons of unsigned bands and mostly unreleased  songs from 80s and 90s indie jangle guitar bands. The “Colour” thumbnail is us at a Barrymore’s show with Nick on drums, myself playing bass and singing and Chantelle to my stage left. Chris is not in that pic though he is definitely on my stage right. Not an intentional omission. The channel just found that pic somewhere. The same channel also posted Beau Tie (a pic of some random girl as a thumbnail; don’t know who she is.)

++ What about fanzines?

Oh, what I would have done to be on the cover of TeenBeat Magazine, but alas, no …. no such luck 🙂

++ Looking back in retrospect, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?

In the the two or so short years that we were on the scene, opening for Grapes Of Wrath and having our demo tape make the CKCU top ten chart would be our two biggest highlights.

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

We had a bit of talk between us recently of rerecording some of our songs. Hopefully we’ll do that sometime soon and put an EP out there. We’ll keep you posted.

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Listen
The Crowd Theory – Colour