Best of

SPANKY REVOLUTION BEST OF

1. Lips Like Cancer 2. Anthem 3. Sleepless 4. Saint-Rédempteur (Kicks Asses) 5. Riot 6. Blasting Off the Sun 7. Prove ‘Em Wrong 8. She Won’t Smile 9. Loverdose 10. Tout Doit Brûler (En collaboration avec Spectre) 11. Chromatic Milkshake 12. Here Comes the Revolution 13. I Hope You Were Thinking About Me

When You Forgot Your Seatbelt and Crossed the Windshield

14. Snowstorm 15. Crossing Oceans 16. Snow On Manhattan (Never Drop My Hands)

Spanky Revolution started in 2006 with Étienne, Éric and Steve. Three boys wanted to make music and dreamt of conquering the world. They had the guts, the energy, the fierce, the charisma but they were missing an important piece. In 2008, in a crazy show at the Vana’s, the band gave the best of what they were made of in a setlist that would include the eventual classic “Snowstorm”. Few mosh pits and instruments smash later, the band Weedz came on stage, led by the amazing John. After Weedz would collapse few months later, Spanky Revolution decided to ask John to come and join them in studio for a guest appearance. It was supposed to be quick, an affair of one day or two in studio, but the chemistry was too great. The puzzle was solved: the missing piece was called John, played guitar like his life depended on it and just finished detox. While in the middle of financial problems with their shitty label, Spanky Revolution would release two albums with material that was recorded before John was in the band. In November 2009 though, the band decided to slam the door of their label and create, with Leoshi, Cookies & Biscuits Records. The band would soon release the experimental “Tonight Is the Night”, originally a solo project by Étienne, before releasing their first real official album “Racing the Sunset”. Music videos and North American touring would start after what, the band hit back with “We Won’t Die”, which launched Spanky Revolution in the punk-o-matic stratosphere. “You Won’t Know”, an EP recorded in the same process that “Tonight Is the Night” was released shortly after and got a great reception from the public. In June 2011, Spanky Revolution gives their fan “Poneycore” with warm critic reception. The public was also very enthusiastic and helped the band to play the best show on this fucking Earth.

Now here we are. 4 music videos, 6 long play albums, one EP, four singles, one label founded and administrated by the band only and over 80 unique songs. We cannot count though the amount of exploded amps, smashed guitars, destroyed drum kits, days sleeping in a van, nights spent partying with our friends and fans, the amount of mosh pits, circle pits, body surfers, fists in the air, and the amount of great memories. We are living the best life possible and it’s all because of you. We love you and always will. Cheers!

Étienne, Éric, Steve and John

Track descriptions 1. Lips Like Cancer

Album Exclusive Lips Like Cancer is one of those tracks where things get together so easily. We worked a lot on it but still, it all felt so natural. The song is more smooth and mature than our precedent work, but it’s one fucking great piece of music! We wanted our next LP to sound like this song but we simply can’t. This track is unique and deserves a spot here for sure.

2. Anthem Album: We Won’t Die

Anthem is Spanky Revolution. If some guy asks you how we sound, make him listen to Anthem. This is when the crowd goes crazy. This is when the body surf begins. And God knows Éric likes to play its bass solo. Have fun in its hooks and double rhythm parts!

3. Sleepless

Album: SnR Back when we recorded this in a garage for SnR in 2008, little we knew about the world. We were three, young guys making short punk music. The song was released a year later in August 2009 and became an instant success. It became our first song to chart in the Pomboard top 40. It also appeared in the cult compilation “No Sunrise for the Punk-o-Maddicted” made by Leoshi.

4. Saint-Rédempteur (Kicks Asses) Album: Tonight Is the Night

In holydays 2009-10, Spanky Revolution was pretty much on hold with

the new label to take care of and all the other things we had to work on. Even though this, Étienne started to work on a solo project, which would soon take the shape of an experimental LP. As Étienne was ready to record, his three mates decided to come in studio to help him out and record instruments. Even if Étienne wrote all instruments, he decided with the rest of the band to simply call the album a Spanky Revolution release, especially since it would be the first official album with John playing instruments. Just like for the songs of the “You Won’t Know” EP, the songs on “Tonight Is the Night” have a very distinct sound compared to what the band gives on their other album. Saint-Rédempteur is a simple song: one guitar, one bass and a constant energetic drumbeat. It was quickly indentified as a highlight of the album and a crowd favorite.

5. Riot Album: We Won’t Die

Riot was one of the first new songs to be played after “Racing the Sunset” was released and the tone was set for a new album. This song is about giving all you got, which is Spanky Revolution’s motto. Sometimes, you just need to let your problems behind and just dance and not give a shit about the rest. It’s an A+ song for mosh pits. Believe us, we’ve seen it. The music video for this song tied in second place for “Best Music Video of the Year” at the second C&BR Awards.

6. Blasting Off the Sun Album: Racing the Sunset

Between January and November 2009, we recorded a lot of songs with John while with our shitty label, but only two of them were actually good enough for us to be on “Racing the Sunset”. Blasting Off the Sun is one of them. It’s the #1 summer song. It’s ska, quite simple but it was a real hit. It won’t give us big mosh pits but we know from the screams that start right as Étienne starts his beats on toms that it’s a success.

7. Prove ‘Em Wrong Album: We Won’t Die

John was just jamming with his guitar during breaks in studio when he came out with the opening riff. Soon enough, the whole band was pumped enough to write a song about it. Even Steve decided to join John in one of the most memorable double lead bridge of the band. We gave this song to all the bands, somewhere, who are giving all they have inside to get known and to live from their art. All four of us have different stories but we all, one day, had people telling us we were shit and we would never do anything good. Hundreds of shows later, we prove them how fucking wrong they were.

8. She Won’t Smile Album: Tonight Is the Night

There are not a lot of songs like She Won’t Smile in our discography. The synths, the violin and the heavy bass drum make this song one of our most memorable efforts. When “Tonight Is the Night” came out, everyone agreed that this song was one of the highlights, and it got nominated as “Best Song of the Year” at the very first C&BR Awards. This song was written as a sad song, the story of a girl that used to be so nice and all with a boy but all of a sudden, she starts to treat him like shit. The girl is not happy, neither is the boy. And all the boy has left is the memory of a girl that once was smiling at him.

9. Loverdose Album: Poneycore

Loverdose is the definition of blast. It’s so right in your face it makes no sense. The song is short but delivers like no other on the setlist. We recorded a music video for it, which included live footage of a show at the Vana’s. It was fucking hot inside and everyone was drunk or high except for us (we never get drunk until the show is over). This is pure “balls-off-the-wall” rock and roll music. Enjoy!

10. Tout Doit Brûler (En Collaboration avec Spectre) Album: We Won’t Die

Spectre is the manager of the band “Pay the Price”, a band with which we had the chance to tour with a couple of times. Those guys are really amazing and talented members and really easy to work with. Soooooo, we were working on the song and taught it would be great to have a featured artist in it, for the bridge. Spectre was our very first choice. He really got the trick to catch the spirit of a song, so his part (and the amazing bass solo) feels so very natural when you listen to it. The song got nominated for “Best Collab Song” at the 2Nd C&BR Awards and had a sequel on Poneycore called “Tout Droit Vers la Mort”. The song is also very light with its ska-oriented verses and its great catchy choruses. 11. Chromatic Milkshake Album: Racing the Sunset “Chromatic Milkshake” was our second music video, after “Saturday Night’s Game” that features NHL footage. For this song, we decided to do it big with a “one shot” video where the members of the band would move around and swap place without the viewer to see them moving. To achieve such an effect, we had to take a ridiculous amount of takes and to make two edited copies of the videos, one of them was to make zooms over the zooms already done to hide the trick correctly. It took over 60 hours of shooting and editing. Add to this the make-up, the costumes, the set-up… this was one freaking complicated video but in the end, the final result is stunning and was nominated for “Best Music Video” at the 2nd C&BR Awards. And of course, the song is really amazing too! We worked a whole lot on this song and made about three totally different versions to achieve it. The song became a crowd favorite almost immediately after the release of “Racing the Sunset” and it felt really good to see that all these efforts were not done in vain.

 12. Here Comes the Revolution Album: Here Comes the Revolution

Our second album, “Here Comes the Revolution”, was recorded with Éric on guitar and without John, just like SnR. The album was not bad, it was actually a really great album, but since we wanted to showcase more work with our four band mates, we decided to only have one song from this LP on the Best of. There were a lot of great tracks on it: “Anarchy and Chaos”, “L.EMO.Nade Under the Stars” and “Kicking Myself in the Nuts” to name only those. But the title track of the album is just too mesmerizing to leave it behind. This song might be the most powerful opener we have ever written and features two tracks in one. At a time where all songs were supposed to be 2:01 long or less, “Here Comes the Revolution” clocks at 3:36 and features four guitar tracks as well as two drums tracks. This song is our most praised song from what we call the “POM1” era and is part of our set list for every show we make; We often have a fourth guitarist to fill in the blank as Éric, Steve and John play guitar. This song drives like no other and is stuck deep in our hearts. 13. I Hope You Were Thinking About Me When You Forgot Your Seatbelt and Crossed the Windshield Album: We Won’t Die SnR had “As Your Face Gets Through the Windshield”, Tonight Is the Night had “The Feeling of my Face Kissing the Windshield on High Speed” and Poneycore had this track. All these album-closing songs are part of a series of experimental progressive pieces that mixes smooth and rushing alternative music. The Poneycore one though has something more than what the others have. The progression in it is really great and leaves room for a blasting bridge in the middle that soon made it the most popular song on the album after “Loverdose”. It’s a song that grows into you the more you listen to it, so take your time.

14. Snowstorm Album: SnR

If you don’t mind, this description will be longer than the others. Snowstorm is the song that made us get here. We composed and recorded that song in Étienne’s basement on a June 24th, the national day for Québec. We just happened to have a good riff to start the song with and the rest felt together really well. The name comes from the fact snowstorms are frequent in winter in Québec and because the drum roll-leaded bridge reminded us of a snowstorm. We played the song for the first time during summer at the Vana’s and the crowd immediately went wild on it. Things were going so well that we decided to self-release a demo EP, including this song, a demo of “Earth Despair’s Message”, “Welcome to Heaven” and of “Bullet in my Chest” that appeared on SnR. This is the demo that got us signed on a shitty label, which we don’t even want to name but hey, we were young and we wanted to be heard. This is the song that made the EP get some sales as the song got some airplay in University radios. This is how we got able to make the first part of John’s then band “Weedz” in a sold-out show at the re-opening of the Vana’s after they made some renovation in order to make it bigger and therefore, have more people to come to their shows. The crowd was crazy and already hard on booze, so we took advantage of this and played as loud as we could. At the end of our performance, when Steve started the first notes of Snowstorm, things got just wild. There were people stage diving everywhere, screaming, moshing and body surfing. We added an extended bridge with hard, fast solos and by the end of the song, we destroyed each and every one of our instruments. The directors of the Vana’s were unhappy of us at first but later, they had to admit it was one of the most memorable nights they had. Of course, the crowd was fucking pumped and ready for Weedz, in what would be one of their very last show. After the show, we met the guys and they told us how they were impressed and how they taught we were crazy. It then became easy to communicate with John to get him to work with us on “It’s All About to Smile” and eventually, to have him in the band.

 15. Crossing Oceans (radio edit) Album: You Won’t Know (EP)

“You Won’t Know” is somewhat of a side project we had between summer 2010 and April 2011. We wanted to make a kind of sequel to “Tonight Is the Night”, but it soon became clear we could not release a full length-LP out of it without making compromises on our other releases, so we made an EP instead. Crossing Oceans is chaos. It’s a mess. But it’s controlled mess. You listen to it and you simply don’t understand it but somehow, it still makes sense. The song is catchy and presents a really cool outro, followed by a glitch-influenced finale, thanks to Cognition Vault, which we were listening to when making the record. 16. Snow On Manhattan (Never Drop my Hand) Album: We Won’t Die Snow on Manhattan is not just a ballad. It’s our best ballad. It’s a smooth song to listen on a cold winter night. The song is just about this moment. The one frozen in time where you walk with your loved one under the snow. It can be an afternoon when both the sky and the sidewalk are white, or late at night when the sky is pitch black but you have all those colorful Christmas decorations. The song was a change in the sound compared to what we wrote before but it still is a classic. It’s the perfect closer song before we tell you bye-bye.

 CREDITS: All songs made with the punk-o-matic 2 except for -Tracks 3, 12 and 14, made with Punk-o-matic -Tracks 4, 8 and 15, made with Fruity Loops Studios 9 Punk-o-matic and Punk-o-matic 2 are the creation of Evil-Dog / Marco Arsenault. Musicians: Étienne: Drums, handclaps on 15, synths on 8 and glitches on 15. Éric: Guitar(s) on 3, 12 and 14, bass on all other tracks. Steve: Guitar(s) on all tracks but 4. John: Guitar on all tracks but 3, 12 and 14. Jenna “The Brunette”: synths on 8 and 15, piano on 15. Pay the Price (Carter Wright (Drums), Devon Durand (Guitar), Rob Ramirez (Guitar) and Alex Galiarti (Bass)): Bridge in 10

• All songs composed by Spanky Revolution between 2008 and 2011 • Track 10 composed by Spanky Revolution and Spectre from Pay the

Price in Fall 2010 • All tracks recorded at Cookies Basements except for tracks 3, 4, 12,

14 and 15 recorded at Étienne’s basements and tracks 6 and 11 recorded at Nocturnal Media Studios

• All songs mixed by Spanky Revolution except for tracks 6 and 11, mixed by Downfall-RiD at Nocturnal Media Studios and track 12, mixed by Spanky Revolution and Leoshi

• All songs produced by Spanky Revolution • Cover art concept and album note by Spanky Revolution • Cover art production and album note’s design by Éric • All photos by The Brunette • Fleur de Lys photo by Trace of Hatred, SPANKY sign by

TheGhostOfRickJames Our label: www.cookies-biscuits.weebly.com Our website: www.spankyrevolution.webs.com Our website for non-pom projects: www.spankyrevolution.weebly.com Punk-o-matic’s official website: www.punk-o-matic.net The Corner: www.pomcorner.weebly.com/spanky-revolution2.html

THANKS TO: You, the fans. It might be cliché, but you are the reason we’ve made it this far. We love you! Thanks to Marco Arsenault AKA Evil Dog for creating the Punk-o-matic 1 and 2. Thanks to Leoshi to start Cookies & Biscuits Records with us. Thanks to Sid for garage time when we needed it back in the first days. Thanks to the Vana’s for all these years of amazing shows: you know we will keep coming back. Thanks to Raptor, Jellyfish and Jack-strap for all the great years of “Weedz”. Thanks to Vc2, Marco109, Warlost, Madmatt09, Spectre and his band Pay the Price, Trace of Hatred and his band Suicide by Spoon, Superkowz and his band “Dudes with Grey Pants”, Nocturne and his band “Into Avoca”, Zenester and his band “Hello Sunrise”, Burger and his band “Giant O’ Mine” and The Ghost Of Rick James with his band “1st Assault” for getting your touch on one song or another somewhere in one of our albums. Thanks to Rokkross and Blackstatic for their experience and their help on Fruity Loops Studios 9. Thanks to Jod.Drummer for his cover arts as well as everyone who helped to get all the covers on RTS (we’ve named you all already!). Thanks to everyone who helped us during the last years to improve ourselves, including White Divinity, Saiga/Warning Shot, Pom Pom’s, Necromancer, Keane, LotWPro, Rofl Monster/ReVision, DecyferIt/ScaleTheSummit, AgentOhoolahan, Bishop Butters, God, MuFFinZ, 101, Thirdboy, ZenixA, Icklejabob, Kyoufuu, Cyros Lugoth and all the others. Thanks to Poe as well, even if we had hard times and numerous fights, we still love you. Thanks to our loves, friends and families. Thanks to all the bands we’ve played with, all the bands that influenced us, our groupies, the booze, the parties and everyone who helped us coming back home.

WE LOVE YOU! We Really do!

Étienne, Éric, Steve and John