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I was kind of late to the party when it comes to Ottawa, Ontario’s The Creeps. But when I first heard 2018’s ‘Beneath The Pines,’ I was sold right away. Flawless albums are few and far between so you cherish them when you find them. And I can honestly say that ‘Beneath The Pines’ has become one of my all-time favorites. From there, I worked my way back through the band’s discography and found out along the way that two thirds of The Creeps - Scott “Skottie” McCash and Jordy Bell - had also spent time in the shorter lived yet highly regarded Crusades.

Since then, I have been eagerly awaiting new music. A few months ago, I heard the first single by Scott and Jordy’s new project, Fossil Record. It’s everything you love about the Creeps and Crusades, but different. More mellow. More depth. Richly layered. Equally good. So we caught up with Scott to talk about Fossil Record’s debut album ‘A Little Weight,’ which is out now digitally and will be available on vinyl and CD later this year thanks to Stardumb Records.

PRT: When you first started writing the songs that would become ‘A Little Weight’, was it clear to you from the start that it would be different from The Creeps? Or did you decide along the way that it would best be released as its own thing?

Scott: At the start of the pandemic, I wrote a handful of songs that I thought would be new Creeps tunes. We eventually got together and played through some of them, but they didn’t really work. They were maybe a little too slow, maybe a little too weird. I dug the songs, though, just not for the band. And so even though I more or less scrapped those tunes, I decided that I was going keep exploring the songwriting path I was on, but intentionally not for the Creeps. That ended up being pretty liberating, since I was no longer encumbered by the context or the history of the band, my own conceptions of what a Creeps song should or could be, or even concerns about how a song might eventually be played live by a 3-piece band. Not that those were ever great considerations in the past, mind you. But these were suddenly thoughts I was having as I was writing these songs. And so, yeah, it was clear that this needed to be it’s “own thing”.

PRT: I read that you moved out to the woods on the outskirts of Ottawa during the pandemic. Is that different setting part of what inspired this different sound?

Scott: The pandemic had a literal impact on the sound of the record, namely because one of the things I did when we were all locked down and trapped inside was to splurge on an expensive guitar and play the living hell out of it. I even took online guitar lessons for while, which is a true sign of the end times for me. Haha. The result was that rather than writing songs around vocal melodies like I always have, I started writing guitar parts first. That was all before we moved out to the woods, though, so I guess I was already started down this path before then.  

I think the move had a bigger impact on the lyrical aspect of the songs. We are truly surrounded by nature out here. We can see our neighbours and have a nice little community, so it’s not like we’re off the grid or anything, but as I sit outside writing this, all I can hear is the forest and the animals that live in it. And so, in that there is a sort of ecological bent to this whole project, I think you can draw a pretty direct line there.

PRT: Maybe not the most original question, but how did you decide on the name Fossil Record? And what does it mean to you?

Scott: I wanted a name that evoked the idiom "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" because I think that sort of sums up the thematic through line of these songs - they're all sort of about the ways in which we distract or otherwise shield ourselves from reality and truth. For me, “FOSSIL RECORD” was sort of a way of pointing at the fact that even when we're all flattened by tidal waves and their corresponding floods, scorching heatwaves and their corresponding droughts or the human violence that will surely accompany them, we just join the millennia of crushed bone and rock that preceded us on this planet. In the meantime, we’ll all scroll on our phones and argue about politics, or whatever.

PRT: If you look at everything you have done from Black Tower to Crusades to The Creeps and now Fossil Record, it sees you toning down on the more aggressive sounds with every new project. Is that you losing interest in louder music?

Scott: Oh, definitely. Even at the height of my dalliance with “heavy” music, I was super choosey about what I could tolerate, and even that has mostly evaporated at this point. These days, give me “Dad rock” and “indie classics” and “pop country” and “podcasts about the English Premier League”. Mostly the latter.

PRT: Everything you have done up until now - Fossil Record included - always sounds like the logical continuation of what you were doing previously. Different, yet familiar. I think it’s that warm, melancholy sound that makes it stand out. Is that a sound you seek out? Or is that just what comes out when you are writing?

Scott: I guess both..? I ultimately just write what comes naturally to me. I never really try to emulate anyone else or even really try for a “sound” - my process is really unintentional. I am convinced that I can tell when other songwriters hear music the way I do, though, and I’m definitely drawn to those artists. I think “warmth” and “melancholy” and a certain approach to melody are part of that, for sure.

PRT: You recorded the album with Alex Gamble, who has previously worked with artists like Alvvays, Fucked Up and Broken Social Scene. What was it that he brought to the table?

Scott: We actually recorded the songs ourselves at Jordy’s home studio, which was really great in the sense that we could take all the time we needed to get all of our ideas on tape without worrying about running out of studio hours or money or whatever. But that’s a double-edged sword, for sure, because you can tinker away forever - and that’s definitely a place we found ourselves at, eventually. And so we both agreed that it made sense to have someone outside the process (i.e. madness) unravel all of the pieces with some fresh ears. I’d worked with Alex previously on the Surrender album and was blown away by not just his technical skill as a mixer, but also his ear as a producer, and so he seemed like an obvious choice for us, and luckily he agreed to work with us.

We invited him to be really hands on not just with the mix but also in terms of production. Alex might be an actual wizard, and so there are lots of his magical flourishes throughout. With that said, he also really took the time to understand what we were going for with each song and really helped bring each one to a place that we were really thrilled. It ended up being a really fun, collaborative project working with him.

PRT: When I first heard about 'A Little Weight', it looked like it was going to be a digital-only release. Was that you just wanting to get the music out there without it being this whole thing?

Scott: The plan was always to do the digital release ourselves, regardless of any other considerations. One of my mantras throughout the whole time of making the album was exactly as you say: “it doesn’t have to be this whole thing”. I just wanted to focus on writing the best songs I could and making them sound as great as we could and trusted that the rest would just sort itself out if we did that.

PRT: Luckily, Stardumb Records will be giving the album the vinyl and CD release it deserves later this year. How did they enter the picture?

Scott: After we released the first single, Stefan from Stardumb Records contacted us asking about a physical release. We’re longtime admirers of his label and we all met and hung out when the Creeps played the venerable Punk Rock Raduno festival in Italy back in 2019, so there is a history and friendship there that made the whole thing make sense for us. We’re super excited by the prospect of there being physical copies of this album that we worked so hard on.

PRT: Not to be dismissive about Fossil Record, but seeing as ‘Beneath The Pines’ is one of my favorite albums, I have to ask… is The Creeps over and done with? Or will there be new music at some point in the future?

Scott: That’s awesome that ‘Pines still resonates with you. Super cool. I think it’s safe to say that we’re not an active band at this point, but some people would have argued we weren’t an “active” band even when we considered ourselves one. Haha. We don’t currently have plans to play shows or anything, but I could see us making new music some day for sure. We’re all still friends and love playing music together. But we live pretty far apart and all have busy lives, so we’ll see what happens.

PRT: Now that ‘A Little Weight’ is out , what’s up next for Fossil Record?

Scott: The album is out now on all the streaming platforms. Physical copies courtesy of Stardumb Records will follow this fall, likely in October. As for what’s next, who knows? Maybe get a band together and play these songs live? Maybe write another album? Maybe drift off into obscurity? All options are on the table!