Movies of War

1 of 2 2 of 2 Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter. The last time I caught the Still Spirits before Jonny Bones’ cancer diagnosis, it was at a memorial show for Mr. Chi Pig at the Cambie, on a bill with the Campfire Shitkickers. I broke out my cellphone for one song. This, fortuitously, turns out to have been “Tiny Operator”, which kicks off the band’s newest album, Small Time Crime, dropping this week on Kinda Cool Records. The album release show is tonight (February 28) at Red Gate.I dug the song, but couldn’t really make out the lyrics. For instance, for a long time, I thought they were singing about a tiny man in a tiny crater, like, maybe the kind left by a tiny asteroid? It made no apparent sense but had a pleasantly surreal quality. I further assumed that “tiny operator” was old-timey slang of some sort, maybe a term of respect for someone working behind-the-scenes to get things done, unseen and unsung but still valuable? Nope! Jonny Bones informs the Straight that “the song is far more literal—and utterly ridiculous—than that.”The lyrics, he explains, were basically the work of Erik "Skiff" Kallweit, who is playing the banjo and singing lead in that clip. Thus, if we want to get the skinny on what the lyrics are about, we should talk to Skiff.So we did. Skiff explains “Tiny Operator” thus: “At the time I wrote that song I was a long way from home, going to school in New Brunswick. I hadn't written anything in a few weeks and while I was out having a smoke there was this road crew and a tiny like, half-size grader operated by a very small guy.”Yes, folks, it wasn’t a crater, but a grader that the man was in.“So I was inspired," Skiff continues. "It's a silly song but I guess it's a bit of an ode to all the hard working machine operators out there, and also harkens back a little bit to my youth growing up in the back country of Alberta. The machines were always out there in the rain and snow so that we could get to wherever we needed to go.”So it’s not a metaphor at all? Skiff is philosophical in response.“If you find something in that song that speaks to you, then that's a very welcomed bonus.”Turns out we’re not the only people who have trouble figuring out what Skiff’s songs are about. His bandmate Jonny Bones himself is sometimes at a loss, he admits: “Half the time I have no clue what he's singing about!”He still is a big fan of Skiff’s songwriting, pointing especially to singles like “Guilty Hands”, the first song off the album to drop on Bandcamp. Skiff is not the only songwriter in the band, Bones explains. Gassist David "Daddy Longlegs" Gough wrote, for instance, “Shattered”, also on Small Time Crime—a song that sounds a bit like Jeffrey Lee Pierce gone bluegrass. But he notes Skiff usually comes up with the basic idea, melody and lyrics, kind of the ‘core’ of the song idea, then brings it to the band.“Myself and our drummer, Will [aka Willie "B. Sober" Navarro], look at it and sketch out a structure to put it all together," Bones relates. "Intro, chorus, verse, bridge, et cetera. We've played in a band together for over 20-plus years now, so we have a very good shorthand and see song structure the same way. Then the other boys add their own flavour and flourishes on top. I'm the one who generally comes up with all the backup vocals and arranges and orchestrates that.” Video of Still Spirits "Tiny Operator" off Small Time Crime, live at the Mr. Chi Pig Memorial event 2024 As for language and influences on his lyrics, I thought maybe Skiff maybe be a fan of prohibition-era crime writers like Dashiell Hammett (who would have dug “Tiny Operator”, I’m sure. It has the feel of something you might hear at a speakeasy while flappers danced and yeggs plotted a caper. But again: nope, he hasn’t read Hammett at all.“As far as lyricists”, Skiff tells the Straight, “I've always loved Tom Waits for the poetry in his words and Corb Lund for his ability to tell a great story. Mike Soret of the Molestics—a local legend if you ask me—was very inspiring, and also some of the old timers like Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Hank Williams, and Marty Robbins. I could go on and on. I've always strived to write in such a way that is timeless and relatable and perhaps sometimes a little tragic.”One of the songs on Small Time Crime takes on unfortunate new meaning, however, given that Jonny Bones has late stage 4 cancer. The song “Dead Before My Time”—which Bones in fact pegs as another favourite on the album—was not written about the actual impending mortality of any particular member of the band.“It's just something Skiff dashed off about the kind of life we all live—drinking too much, smoking too much, basically just doing the things in life we know will eventually catch up with us, but doing it anyways," he relates. "I mean, you only live once, right? The song was written well before my diagnosis. It is kind of funny how it turned out with my condition and all, but it's just a really fun, high-energy song, and I love playing it.”“I think of Jon every time we play the song now,” Skiff adds. “But I'm pretty sure that's one of his favourite songs, so I still have fun playing it.”So how did Skiff get into playing such a vibrantly old-timey style of folk punk?“As long as I can remember I have always loved old-fashioned music," he shares. "Theres something about swing, country western, or jug band music that just stirs my soul. Maybe my mom dragged me around too many antique stores when I was a kid but I have always had a profound interest in times of the past. When I first learned to play guitar, I was an angry kid so I played punk rock—it was the natural outlet and was a lot of fun. I always aspired to play something more jazzy or ‘old timey’ but I just didn't know how—I didn't have the experience or know the chords."So I started from punk," Skiff continues, "and it's been an awesome journey, and here we are years later, I still don't know all the right chords but with the help of some good friends we have created the Still Spirits which draws from a little bit of both styles.”The individual journeys of the other members, including Wes "Chesterson" Coderre on mandolin and harmonica, and Jeremy "Dumb Stumps" Addinel, who plays washboard—remain unknown at press time, but the band coheres marvelously. It began as an offshoot of Maple Ridge ska-punk band the Bone Daddies, which was more Jonny Bones’ project.“We all played in the Bone Daddies together, minus Jer and Wes," Bones says, "but Skiff came back from basic training with all these new songs that were really fun, but they just weren't Bone Daddies songs. So we played ‘em a bit for fun while drinking, as you do, and got the idea to go down to the local corner near the liquor store and busk them. It didn't matter if it was only three or four songs we knew, the store had walkthrough traffic, so it was a new audience every time they walked past the door! When we started taking busking more seriously—show up in a suit, look dapper—we started to make some real money doing it, and that turned to back yard parties and BBQs, barns, basements and before you knew it, we had a whole other band on our hands.”They even created their own genre label for themselves, “Yardcore,” not intending it to be a reference to “a certain kind of dancehall reggaeton,” though Bones was aware of that subgenre. They meant something entirely different by it.“The term ‘Yardcore’ came from us playing impromptu gigs in friends backyards" Bones shares. "We weren't a ‘hardcore’ band, I mean we play folk and bluegrass stuff in back yards while drinking moonshine, but we all came from a punk rock background, so we became YARDcore band. It was all in good jest. I mean, that's pretty much the Spirits in a nutshell; just a drunken joke that went on too long!”The record release party features a stacked bill: Colin Pearson, Die Job, The Fomites, ATD, Contra Code and Rong (the latter being the main project of Dead Bob’s Kristy-Lee Audette. Doors are at 7. Bones urges people to come to the show and to buy a record, but aside from that, he would also like to draw readers’ attention to the Jonny Bones Forever Foundation, a non-profit set up “to help keep the things I care about in life—music, art, culture, community and all ages access to them—alive and strong, long after I'm not around anymore to see it myself.”The Small Time Crime vinyl release party is tonight (February 28 at Red Gate. For more info, go here. 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