The History of The Carnations
by Thomas D'Arcy (a Carnation)

I probably met the first Carnation in 1993 or so. At the time I was running something called a bulletin board system (BBS) which was the closest thing to running a web site before the internet was popularized. People would call in to my BBS and pay me a monthly fee to download pornography. Steve Krecklo was one such customer and later became my partner. As time passed and we became closer, I learned that Steve was a great bass player, having been taught from an early age by his father who was a country musician. Every thirteen year-old wants to start a band - and I was no different - so Steve (who was fourteen), taught me to play the bass and began to teach himself
the guitar and we proceeded to form our first band which we called Pseudonym. Rock and roll seemed like a lot more fun than computers.

In 1995, our drummer left Pseudonym. Drummers leaving our band became a common occurrence from this point on. To this day, we have gone through ten different drummers. I think it's probably because they don't like me. They all end up thinking that I'm an asshole. So we found another drummer and renamed ourselves The Carnations. Today our drummer is Patrick Conan, and while I think Patrick thinks I might be an asshole as well, he is a good guy and it doesn't seem to bother him too much.

I met Nathan Rekker in 1996 at a party in Newtonville, Ontario. I liked him immediately, sort of in a schoolgirl crush kind of way. We needed a drummer at the time (as per usual), but he later revealed that he was a guitar player, so I figured 'what the fuck, we'll become a four piece and have two guitar players from now on'. A month after he joined and we had found another drummer, we recorded our first record together called Superluminal. I still like that one, unlike our second record (A Return to Melody) in 1999, which I think we all hate. Not until our self-titled record in 2001 did I like another recording that we did.

"Tight musicianship, sweet-and-sour vocals and great guitar hooks make this one of the most compelling variations on CanRock to emerge in ages. Four stars." Eye Weekly, Toronto

Let me next pose a question to myself: Why do I need to write a biography? Well, for one, we need a document that gives the press a correct spelling of our names (Thomas D'Arcy - bass/lead vox, Nathan Rekker - guitar/vox, Stephen Krecklo - gtr/vox, & Patrick Conan - drums), and to tell them what to write about in their articles and what questions they should ask in their interviews. The most common question I am asked by the press is to list my influences or to describe my music. I find this process very trying and will avoid it at all costs. Some reporters, mind you, have compared my voice to bands like The Buzzcocks or Supergrass and seemed to genuinely like the way that I sing. Others have called my voice 'too nasally' or described it as 'indie'. Others still have called it 'gritty' and 'powerful'. Either stance could be considered accurate. The song writing has been compared to bands like Elvis Costello or The Pixies. Although I don't consider these to be direct influences on our music, I can definitely see how one might draw that comparison. For what it's worth, my favourite band is the Beatles.

In any case, I should probably try to bring us up to date. With a solid line-up and a new record under our belts, we are ready to begin touring Canada and trying to promote ourselves in various ways on bills with various bands. This new record is called In Good Time. We have shot a video for the first single, "I've Got Spies", which people generally seem to like quite a bit.