1. The New Deal is Dan Kurtz, Darren Shearer and Jamie Shields. How did you come together?

Dan (bass player) and myself have been best friends since we were about 14 and have played together in bands since then, so we've been together for a long time. We've both known Darren for about 10 years but only started playing with him in late '98 when he had a weekly gig playing acid jazz and r&b at this club in toronto. darren asked me to sit in every so often and eventually was playing with him every week. dan joined in and that was the nucleus of the group (and the start of the new deal). we were supposed to be playing all these tunes but nobody was really listening (it was kind of a lame club) and it was getting boring so we decided to just start making it up as a means to keep it exciting for us. people still weren't listening but at leat we were enjoying ourselves now. anyway, we decided that what we were doing was interesting enough to merit a gig at a real club in toronto, so we booked a show, told all our friends and played the show. about 4 people turned up.
by chance we had taped the show onto a cassette so we could listen back to it. the house soundguy (msg, who's our touring soundman now) did a great job of mixing it and when we listened back to it, we were so blown away that we decided we had to release it as a cd. so, our first real show was our first release and we haven't looked back ever since.



2. How have you been recieved so far in Canada and the US?

It's been great. We've played about 450 shows in the past three years so it's due to a lot of touring on our part but overall people have been very receptive to us. our curve has been upwards at a steady pace for a while and we're taking some time now to ease back on the touring and work on our record.



3. Your music could be mistaken for sampled, dj House-electronicia, but The New Deal does not use any samplers, sequencers or overdubs. What type of audience do you generally draw to your shows? Is there a mix of both the d.j scene as well as a jazz and live band crowd?

yes, we draw a diverse cross-section of people and as a result are able to play many different types of shows. a typical new deal tour would find us at a jazz festival show one night, a club show the next night and in a dance club the next night. it's interesting because we draw people who want to dance, people who want to listen to the improvisation going on and people who enjoy the songs we have created and wish to listen to our melodic and harmonic creativity.



4. "Exciting New Direction" (track 03 on your second album "The New Deal") directly references the Dot Com Crash. How much of your work reflects elements of your everyday lives and were any of you directly affected by the Crash?

the phone message on the song is a recording of the phone message our drummer darren received. you can hear her say *hello, darren* at the beginning of it. our intention wasn't really anything global or even political - we thought it was funny that darren was fired on his answering machine by a person he had never met. she probably made 200 of those calls that day. we also thought that their spin on the whole situation (we're heading in an exciting new direction, etc.) and how he wasn't coming with them was pretty interesting as well.



5. Is that a Hammond I hear on "This is Live" ?

no, it's the organ keyboard i use now (the korg cx-3 organ). i rarely get an organ sound out of it, as i wash it in wah-wah and delay, but sometimes the organ sound peeks thru! there's lots of hammond on our new album. i collect vintage keyboards (about 30 of them or so) and i have three hammonds. one of them (M3) is at our studio making many guest appearances.



6. You have been touring extensively throughout North America since 1999. Is there any particular performance that stands out from the rest?

i guess that would be the Coachella Festival in 2001. Palm Springs, CA in April, 35,000 people, 108 degree temperature at 3 PM. Some great acts (chemical brothers, fat boy slim, sigur ros, weezer, jane's addiction,) and a great time.



7. Your favourite T.O hangout when in town?

my house. people who spend their professional lives in clubs, theatres, etc., tend to like the confines of their home when they're not working...



8. When can we expect the next album? Will it be live?

the album will be a progression of the last one. while the performances were live on the last record, for this records we have taken the idea that we formed in concert and have explored them in out studio. having our own studio opens up a lot of time and eases off pressure for us. we are able to try new things and that's what we're doing. i would imagine it will all be done sometime in the summer. things are moving along well and it's a project i'm quite proud of at this moment.



9. What was the last great movie you have seen?

I very much liked Bowling for Columbine because I am a big fan of Michael Moore. even though i'm canadian i do lock my doors (unlike his portrayal of us in his film) but most of the rest of the film was pure michael moore and, as a result, truth that's scarier than most fiction.


Your live performances are absolutely incredible guys......can't wait to see you in Toronto!