You recorded your live EP at Rain City Recorders with Jesse Gander who you worked with for your albums Night Danger and The Weight of It All. How did you decide where to record?

Sarinn: Jesse Gander is one of the best recording engineers around and it is an incredible privilege to work with him. He has built an incredible legacy from a punk, DIY ethos that makes him a pleasure to work with every time. He has this innate ability to listen to what you’re saying, understand it, and integrate it into the work, even if you don’t have the technical language to convey what you mean. Sometimes it feels almost magical, like he has this psychic connection to the song we’re working on. Working with Jesse is one of the most comfortable and supportive experiences we could ask for. It helps that Rain City Recorders has such a big and beautiful room, of course, but Jesse is the main sell. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

You recorded both this EP and the video that goes along with it in a single take. How did the idea to record this way come about? What was that experience like?

Alex: We knew that to do the video right, we needed to capture the chaotic feeling of a punk show. As a viewer, when you only have one point of view, it really feels like you're there with the band. As a band we always give our all when we perform and Sarinn is such a powerful frontperson, I knew that the single-take approach would capture the best of us as a band.

Robert Zawistowski, who made the video for us, got our vision right away and pushed us to take it further. We originally were going to film each song separately but Rob walked in with the vision and was 100% sure we could do it all in one take. It ended up being a phenomenal experience, and at least for me, was really life-affirming. It felt amazing to work with such an experienced and professional team that we could fully trust with our music and vision.

What went into putting the tracklist together for this EP?

Alex: It’s a little old, new, recent, and different! The first track, “Night Mayor”, is off our most recent album 2023’s The Weight of it All and is a song we wanted to highlight. I encourage everyone to really listen to the lyrics.

Sarinn: Yeah, this track, while timeless in lyrical content, is ever more present for us in Vancouver, BC. The party currently in power has repeatedly shown us that they prioritize investors over social housing, inflated policing budgets over social programming, and are not working toward decolonization while operating on stolen land.

Alex: We also knew we wanted to include a new song, which is why we chose the second track “Punching Concrete”. Choosing to cover “Down by the Water” was easy—we’re all fans of PJ Harvey and we felt like there was a lot we could do musically with the song. And finally, it was super fun to revisit “Just Another Piece of Acid”, a song from our demo. It’s a fan favourite that we still regularly play live, so recording it again nine years later just felt right.

What does “Down By the Water” by PJ Harvey mean to you?

Sarinn: This track has haunted me from the moment I heard it. It occupies the same territory as the literary grotesque, invoking a kind of reverential and chilling psychic space reminiscent of Angela Carter and Flannery O’Connor. While the song is about a horrifying act of filicide, I didn’t even realize it the first handful of times I heard it. For me, I couldn’t stop thinking about it from the position of the male gaze. The lyrics, already so sinister, take on these double meanings. The original music video features shots of PJ Harvey in a red dress, adorned with red lipstick and a huge wig, dancing suggestively alone or twisting unendingly underwater. The driving, repetitive pulse of the song thrusts forward again and again, driving you to madness. It made me want to take those movements and create a version that was even more indicial and aggressive…like a sardonic warning for all of those big bad fishies out there.

On “Punching Concrete” you talk about living under late-stage capitalism and the need to keep your community strong. What helps you nurture your community? How can sustainable change be achieved?

Sarinn: Community is all we’ve got. Social media, of whatever variety, is this kind of mind-numbing void that warps our sense of purpose and engagement. If it isn’t there to sell you a product, it’s there to surveil you and the communities you connect with. As we collectively experience the increasingly hostile alienation of capitalism in its death throes, we are forced to fight for scraps. When everyone feels like an enemy, we lose sight of what it is we are fighting for. This track was lyrically inspired by my need to step back and critically assess how my actions aligned with my words. Do I sincerely welcome dialogue? Do I have the patience to try? Am I leading by example without being exclusionary? Am I talking to my neighbours? Am I even making eye contact? Sustainable change can only be achieved when we learn to forgive - not just others, but ourselves too. Most of us are hypocritical on a daily basis if we look at ourselves hard enough. So how do we overcome that?

My community simultaneously nurtures me and holds me accountable. This is what gives me the strength to keep showing up. Whether that’s playing or attending shows or collaborating with other musicians, those points of contact are the spaces where resistance thrives. I feel so privileged to have recently collaborated with friends in other projects like FRANKLIN’s “Queens Revenge,” Mean Bikini’s “A Damn Hard Day,” and a handful of tracks on Spencer Jo’s album, The Water. Not only are these folks incredibly cool, they take great care to make sure they are putting their words into action wherever they can. That’s the inspiration. My biggest fear for the future is a disconnection of empathy. We need to be around each other to share our knowledge, our resources, and our struggles. This is how we fight for a common cause. No war but the class war.

Do you have a favourite song to play live?

Sarinn: Most of our songs are fun to play live! For the sake of the question, effectively the high I chase is the adrenaline of a good performance. If the song lets me be an unhinged and overly dramatic freak on stage, they’re probably my favourites. Especially if they have good breakdowns in them where I can get wild like in “Self-Critical Theory,” “Shadow Puppets,” and “The Lever.”

Alex: Hmmm…tough question. Other than the songs on this EP? “Old Friends”, “Night Danger”, and “Wine, Weed and Whisky” are some of my favourites. But as I write those, I’m thinking of half a dozen more. The truth of it is that I am so happy when we can play live and that we have a community that shows up for us.

Which part of Live at Rain City Recorders are you proudest of?

Sarinn: That it only took us 3 takes! [laughs] Sincerely, we are just one of those bands that you need to see live. Every person who comes out to our shows plays a part, even if they don’t know it yet. I’ll probably find them and ask them to. They are the ones that give back to us and help amplify our already untamed energy. We are extremely grateful for them. Even though this was shot without a crowd, Rob Zawistowski really captured that kind of chaotic movement and vibe. I am the most proud of the boys for bringing their all to this. It really shows, and we couldn’t have done it with anyone else.

What does the future hold for Alien Boys?

Alex: Lots of shows! We're playing the Jonny Bones benefit show at the Rickshaw in Vancouver on June 20. We had some plans to tour the US, but due to the current climate, we’ve decided to set our sights elsewhere for 2026. We’re thinking Canada and Europe.

We’re also in the process of writing the next album! We’ve got a lot to say and aren’t planning on shutting up anytime soon.