Interview with Page 38 band members
INTERVIEW WITH PAGE 38 BAND MEMBERS
Date: July 15, 2019
Interviewer: Olivier
WHO ARE PAGE 38? YES, THAT MIGHT BE A QUESTION THAT MANY SLEAZE ROXX READERS HAVE BUT IT’S A QUESTION THAT IS WORTH ANSWERING AND INVESTIGATING. PAGE 38 HAIL FROM THUNDER BAY IN NORTHERN ONTARIO IN CANADA (WHERE IT SNOWS A LOT IN THE WINTER). THEY HAVE RECENTLY RELEASED A SMOKING EP TITLED ‘BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL.’ ALTHOUGH THE GROUP ONLY DATES BACK TO 2012, IT HAS ALREADY RELEASED THREE ALBUMS — THE EP ‘ROCK N ROLL YOU’ 
(2016), THE FULL-LENGTH ALBUM ‘SWINGIN’ FROM THE CEILIN” (2018) AND OF COURSE, THE EP ‘BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL’ (2019). SLEAZE ROXX CAUGHT UP WITH THE PAGE 38 BAND MEMBERS — ANDY HUBBARD (LEAD VOCALS, BASS), JASON GOODMAN (GUITAR), TAYLOR NICHOLL (DRUMS) AND NOAH ANDERSON (GUITAR) — TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS YOUNG UP AND COMING GROUP!
Sleaze Roxx: So let’s start from the beginning. How did the band get started?
Andy Hubbard: It was around 2012. The three of us — myself, Taylor [Nicholl], and Noah [Anderson] — were in grade 9. Noah and Taylor had been jamming here and there throughout elementary school. Noah and I were in the same math class and he asked me if I knew any bass players. At the time I dabbled, but I was more of a guitar player. I wanted to be in a band so I learned bass and we all got together after school one day in my old man’s garage and we just took it from there! We went through a few fourth guys until we picked up Jacob [Goodman] in 2017 and we’ve been rocking ever since!
Sleaze Roxx: Speaking of your “fourth” guy position, what happened with your previous guitarists? Why did they have to be replaced and for how long that each was in the band?
Andy Hubbard: We’ve had a few members come and go as our fourth guy. We originally started out as a trio and we were [like that] for about two years. Then we picked up our buddy Graham to play guitar. It was awesome having him around! He always had such a positivity about him and everything he did was amazing from academics to athletics to music. He was just amazing! Unfortunately, he left the band in 2015 to focus more on his engineering degree and I’m super pumped to say that he is killing it in [that] field right now! After that, we were back to a trio for about a year until we picked up our other buddy Connor Kraft to play bass and he hung around with us for a little over a year and was a major part of our formative years as a band. We parted ways with him in December of 2017. Shortly after, we picked Jacob to play second guitar. I went back to bass and this is the strongest, most diverse line-up we’ve ever had!
Sleaze Roxx: How did you guys come up with the band name Page 38?
Andy Hubbard: That, my friend, will be secret for a good chunk of time!
Sleaze Roxx: Fine. Keep that a secret [laughs]. I was really impressed with your new EP ‘Burning The Midnight Oil.’ It feels like you guys have found your sound after the first two albums. How would you characterize the band’s evolution in its songs?
Andy Hubbard: The biggest thing I’d say made the difference was that we went into this project with the idea of we’re gonna write and record this thing front to back in x amount of months. This was the first time we went through the whole album writing process. We sat down and wrote music for this specific product. The songs on the first two releases was just compiled from stuff we’ve written over the years. For example, the opening track on ‘Swingin’ From The Ceilin’’ was the first song Taylor, Noah, and I wrote when were 13-14 years old. Then the next track ‘Badass’ was written four years later. So the big difference in us finding our sound is we actually looked for it for once!
Page 38‘s “Gypsy Soul” video (from album Burning The Midnight Oil):
Page 38 – Gypsy Soul (Official Music Video)
Official Music Video for Gypsy Soul by Page 38https://www.page38band.com/ http://www.facebook.com/page38 http://instagram.com/page38Stream/Buy Gypsy Soul: ht…
Page 38‘s “Badass” (Live from the Garage) video (from album Swingin’ From The Ceiling’):
Page 38- Badass (LIVE FROM THE GARAGE)
Page 38 performing their song BadassDelivering a hard-hitting rock n’ roll sound, Page 38 brings an old school mentality to a new school stage. Page 38 is co…
Sleaze Roxx: It’s actually good that you didn’t send your first two albums to Sleaze Roxx to review as I confess that those two first albums wouldn’t even get close to the review I gave for ‘Burning The Midnight Oil‘ [laughs]. The production in particular is much better on ‘Burning The Midnight Oil.’ What are your thoughts in that regard?
Andy Hubbard: I 100% agree with you in that regard. The first two were recorded by ourselves in my basement and they were what we needed at the time. A workable release where we could be like ‘This is what we sound like.’ But I myself am pretty blown away by the production value and that can all be accredited to our producer/engineer on the project — Jean-Paul De Roover. We did the whole thing in his new studio ‘Blueprints’ and he killed it!
Sleaze Roxx: Who is in charge of the songwriting in the band?
Andy Hubbard: Songwriting is actually split up fairly evenly between us. The Page 38 writing process is pretty simple. We all get together, one of us will have a main riff or progression in mind, and then Taylor will lay down a beat. I’ll do up a bass line and we kind of just jam it out until we have a solid foundation for a hook or something and then we’ll go backwards starting to arrange the parts, figuring out lead lines. We’ll record the jam on a phone or something. Then later, I’ll grab a bottle of whiskey, sit down at my desk or at bar and write some to it, if I didn’t come up with something on the spot at jam. It’s not often I’ll write the lyrics before the music. Except in the case of the opening lines in ‘No More Lovin’ You’, I tried to work those lines into almost every tune on the new EP, but they found a home there.
Sleaze Roxx: What are your favourite songs on ‘Burning The Midnight Oil’ and why?
Andy Hubbard: My top two are definitely “Mama June” and “Get Even.” In “Mama June”, Noah absolutely killed it on the solo! We had a ton of fun recording the gang vocals too. We had our good friend Kevin Cernjul pop in when we were doing it to lend us his growl. I am really happy with the lyrics too. I’ve always wanted to write a tune with some sort of narrative attached. This tune we actually wrote in a day and demoed it the next. “Get Even” also really stood out to me because I don’t think any of us expected it to even get it on the EP. We went into the studio with it about 60% complete. The four of us were a little hesitant on it, but Jean-Paul saw the potential and that’s why we signed him on!
Jacob Goodman: My favourite songs from the EP would have to be “No More Lovin’ You” and “Get Even”!
Taylor Nicholl: My favourites would have to be “Mama June” and “Get Even.” “Mama June” is so groovy, it gets my head bobbing every time. Furthermore, “Get Even” is the hard hitter on the record. Gritty vocals and guitars accompanied by driving bass and drums make for a perfect closer and awesome song in my opinion.
Noah Anderson: My favorite songs on the EP are “Get Even” and “145.”
Sleaze Roxx: What are each of your influences music wise?
Andy Hubbard: My biggest musical inspirations come from a few different and diverse sources. The first would have to be Blink 182. I was born in 1997 so I missed their initial superstardom in the early 2000’s. But when I was in high school, I was obsessed with the big pop-punk bands like Blink, Sum 41, Bowling For Soup, and a little bit of Fall Out Boy. It’s just the energy and catchy choruses and ‘give no f**cks attitude’ that really set the groundwork for how I perform. Even now, I still wear my bass low and I can be seen vertically jumping on stage every once in a while. The second would have to be James Hetfield of Metallica. The way he sings and stands on stage just demands so much attention that only a ballsy son of a bitch can! The final biggest inspiration would have to The Wild! They’re a canadian rock band that has been killing it the last few years. It’s just awesome to see a band in our genre having that amount of success. Also their singer Dylan Villain is from a small town a few hours away from us.
Jacob Goodman: My influences music wise would definitely have to be David Gilmour for most of my guitar work. Jimmy Page, Prince Dallas Green, and Rabea Massaad — Rabea is definitely a huge influence on me these days.
Taylor Nicholl: I am influenced by a lot of different artists. I’ve never really stuck to one drummer for a long time because there are so many different artists with so much to offer. Thomas Lang has to be number one when it comes to all around technique. I try to keep my influences as fresh as possible.
Noah Anderson: My influences as a musician are AC/DC, Judas Priest , Led Zeppelin and many other classic rock bands. I like all types of music, even including Bach, Fritz Friezler and Hayden on my classical side but rock and roll is what I love the most.
Sleaze Roxx: I’ve been up to Sault Ste Marie in terms of Northern Ontario but Thunder Bay is even further. What’s the rock n’ roll scene like for a young band like Page 38?
Andy Hubbard: The scene up here is great actually! It’s definitely smaller than the bigger cities, but it’s a community and everybody supports everybody. There’s no cliches or the ‘only metal guys go to the metal shows or play in metal bands’. We all support each other and work with each other to build our scene up. When we were shooting our video for “Gypsy Soul”, we needed a ton of empties, so a good chunk of bands let me take all of ’em from their jam spaces. But specifically as a rock band, it’s 
awesome! Thunder Bay loves its rock n’ roll!
Sleaze Roxx: I understand that you have some big tour plans coming up.
Andy Hubbard: We’re a little rip around! We’re going to be in Sudbury, Oshawa, and North Bay. And then we’re doing a few dates around Manitoba! We did a really short tour last year and now we’re gonna step it up!
Sleaze Roxx: Page 38 have been fairly prolific at releasing new material with the first EP only dating back to 2016. Is that a conscious decision on the band?
Andy Hubbard: The pretty yearly releases were never really planned. It’s just how it works out. We always like to have a project on the go and I guess it always ends up getting done in a year! Like right after we’re done touring, we’re hitting the jam space and we’re gonna start writing new tunes. We want to start being a little more consistent so there might be a few singles out in 2020 so keep an eye out for those!
Sleaze Roxx: Do you have any regrets on not waiting a little longer to release that killer first album. I kind of look at Page 38’s evolution like the Alice Cooper Band instead of a band like Wildside or Skid Row who released stellar debut albums right off the bat. It was only on their third album ‘Love It To Death’ in 1971 that the Alice Cooper band really came up with great songs. What are your thoughts in that regard?
Andy Hubbard: I wouldn’t say we have regrets on that front. Those first two releases are reflective of what kind of band we were at the time. ‘Rock N Roll You’ was recorded when we were in high school and we did everything ourselves and that’s what it is — an EP made by four high-school kids. We weren’t thinking about how amazing sonically it was going to be or anything like that. We just wanted to be able to share our music. And it really goes with our story as a band. We started off rough! We weren’t a good band out of the gate. We had to work at it. We cut our teeth in an all ages scene for five years until we were old enough to play the ‘big boy’ shows. Those first two releases show where we came from and they hold a special place in our hearts as a reminder of how far we came and where we continue to go.
Sleaze Roxx: Please share something for each of you that people would not know.
Andy Hubbard: I absolutely love Star Wars! I will go toe to toe with anyone on my knowledge of the Extended Universe!
Jacob Goodman: The number one reason for growing out my hair in grade 7 would definitely be one. The reasoning behind it was that my ears were too damn big for my head at that time and I wanted to cover them up!
Taylor Nicholl: Something that a lot of people don’t know about me is that I love classical music. I’m not sure where I heard it but I read somewhere that “classical music is just metal whiteout electricity.” I couldn’t agree more. It’s powerful and has so many layers too it.
Noah Anderson: Being a classical violinist is something people don’t know too well about, and also welding is a passion of mine and I can do it fairly well.
Sleaze Roxx: Last question for each of you — what are your three favorite albums of all-time and why?
Andy Hubbard: My top three are a pretty diverse bunch! In no particular order, Aaron West & The Roaring Twenties’ ‘We Don’t Have Each Other’ is definitely up there. The way Soupy tells the whole story of his fiction charter Aaron West through his eyes over the whole album is something so in depth and genuine that I could swear that all these events have happened to him himself. I absolutely love the narrative that is told and I would love to make a concept album that tells a story like this does one day. Next, would have to be Blink 182’s ‘Take Off Your Pants and Jacket’. This was THE album for me in my formative years. When I found it among my brothers’ old CDs, I knew right then, ‘I wanna be in a band’. Finally to cap it off, Metallica’s ‘Black Album’. That production is something everybody should strive for. Just absolutely impeccable!
Jacob Goodman: My three favourite albums of all-time would be Pink Floyd’s ‘The Division Bell’. ‘The Division Bell’ was a Pink Floyd album I was introduced to later when I got super into them, I just have really fond memories learning and listening to it the first time. Next, it would have to be Led Zeppelin’s live album ‘The Song Remains The Same’. There’s not much to say about it since it’s a live album but I take influence by the energy that they give out. Finally, Lord Hurons’ ‘Vide Noir’. ‘Vide Noir’ is such a good album lyrically and instrumentally with the way how the songs are structured dynamically. The lyrics/vocals are amazing on this album and I highly recommend it.
Taylor Nicholl: My favourite albums are a lot like my influential drummers, they’re always changing. My all-time favourite rock record would have to be ‘ONYX’ by Pop Evil. It’s the quintessential rock album in my opinion. It hits so fucking hard and the mix is perfect. Second would have to be Five Finger Death Punch with their album ‘American Capitalist.’ If I’m going to the gym this album is my go-to. It’s nothing but energy from start to finish. Lastly I’d have to say Trivium with their album ‘The Sin And The Sentence.’ Alex Bent absolutely destroys this record when it comes to his drumming. One of my favourite metal drummers for sure. This album slays and has everything I love in a heavy metal record.
Noah Anderson: ‘Sad Wings of Destiny’ by Judas Priest is one of my all time favorite albums because it’s so well engineered with everything from slow melodic to classic straight on heavy metal and stands the test of time. Dokken’s ‘Under Lock And Key’ is a favorite for its fast and hard hitting crazy riffs. ‘High Voltage’ by AC/DC will always be one of my favorites too because it’s what got me into my love of rock and roll and the electric guitar.
Page 38‘s Burning The Midnight Oil album teaser:
Page 38 – Burning The Midnight Oil EP Teaser
New EP from Page 38 coming June 21 2019Pre-Save: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/page38/burning-the-midnight-oilCheck out the video for ‘Gypsy Soul’: https…
Page 38‘s “And Such” lyric video (from album Swingin’ From The Ceilin’):
Page 38 – And Such (LYRIC VIDEO)
Lyric Video for And Such by Page 38https://pagethirtyeight.bandcamp.com/releaseshttps://www.facebook.com/Page38/https://www.instagram.com/page38/https://twit…