"We knew we had to do it quickly because we wanted to have it released by the summer. That's when all the kids would be out of school and a lot of them would be buying records," explains 15-year-old lead singer and guitarist Ryan Dennis.
The band was well-prepared for its week-long recording stint at the state-of-the art Metalworks studio in Mississauga, Ont. and weren't at all intimidated by the prospect of working with producer Dave "Rave" Ogilvie, whose clients have included Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails and 54.40 (Ogilvie goes way back with Serial Joe's co-manager, The New Music reporter Kim Clarke Champniss).
"It was our first time meeting him and he was a really nice guy," says Dennis. "He helped a lot with ideas in the songs, like effects and stuff. It was pretty straightforward. Some of the effects even sound like keyboards, but it's all guitar."
Ogilvie also shared a lot of stories with the budding young rock stars about the Los Angeles music scene. Dennis, who starred in the Our Lady Peace video "Superman's Dead" just when Serial Joe was getting going, doesn't flaunt his cool extra-curricular activity at school, he says. He is noticeably uncomfortable about talk of being treated differently by his peers.
"It's not that major for us at school because we don't walk around talking about it that much and we keep it really low key," says Dennis. "It's pretty much the same as it would be (if we weren't in a band) except you meet a few more people because they see you on TV or something."
The band -- comprised of Dennis; guitarist Ryan Stever, 15; drummer Dan Stadnicki, 14; and bassist Jon Davidson, 14 -- made an indie EP, KICKeD, in 1997 and sold nearly 3000 copies through Outside Music. Videos for "Skidrow" and "Obsession" received medium rotation on MuchMusic, the former winning a 1998 MMVA for Best Independent Video. The group was also recently honoured with a YTV Youth Achievement Award in the band category.
The video for "Mistake", the first single from Face Down, has already been placed into heavy rotation at both MuchMusic and MusiquePlus. Once the album is out, Serial Joe will be heavily promoting it throughout the summer, most notably on the two week Edgefest tour, which will take the band across Canada with the likes of Hole, Silverchair, Moist and Edwin.
When asked about his idea of a rock star, Dennis says, "I always thought of rock stars as those eighties guys with big hair and 10-piece bands."