Sil: How long has the band been together and how did you guys get started?

Trevor: We've been together five years. I actually was living in Seattle...I'd been in one band and we broke up and I had management for that band. They continued to manage my career and I ended up moving to their house in Seattle and kind of looking for a band there. I answered an ad for a band in the paper in Seattle with a Vancouver address. It was Tom Ferris from Mauve, and he had all these electronic songs that he wanted somebody to sing on and arrange, I did that for him and they sounded really good and...Anyway Econoline Crush was born. He decided not to continue, but I kept going.

Sil: And where did the name come from?

Trevor: My dad had an Econoline van. Tom wanted to call the band Crush, but there was no way we could call it Crush because everybody's probably got a [band] called Crush. We thought well, Econoline Crush; nobody would have that name. So we just went with it.

Sil: Your videos ("Home" and "All That You Are") have been getting quite a lot of airplay recently. How involved do you like to be with the video-making process?

Trevor: Well it's a combination of a bunch of things, like I [interrupts himself to talk about his love for Folk Implosion as one of their songs comes on the radio] don't like to do videos that are literal with the song. I think it kind of robs the song. [When preparing to shoot a video] we'll talk about who's a happening director, who we'd like to work with, and they submit treatments. I talk to them and say "I like this idea. and I'd like to expand on this aspect of your idea," but [ultimately] I like to let the director have creative control. I think it's important that they get to do their art their way and I don't like to meddle with that.

Sil: What are your thoughts on the new single "All That You Are", and do comparisons between that song and Oasis bother you?

Trevor: I guess I can see why some people would draw that comparison, but I think there's a little bit more going on than Oasis's style. It does have that Brit pop element. ["All That You Are"] was written really late in the record too, which is interesting. I remember when Ziggy came up with it and I thought, it's kind of music. The lyrics came really easily then and away we went.

Sil: Is that always how you write then, music first and lyrics second?

Trevor: Either Ziggy or Rob, they come up with and part and...we arrange it, I take it home and I'll write the lyrics to it and bring them back and then...we develop the song. I call it the Lego Principle of Songwriting because you just keep adding stuff until you build something.

Sil: There seems to be a tension between the harsh sounds and the fragile lyrics on The Devil You Know. Did you consciously foster this tension when writing the lyrics to the songs?

Trevor: I'm conscious of it. I like contradictions. I like having a beautiful melody and very harsh sounding chords and the conflicts. I really can't write about stuff that I don't understand fully or know, and I think that's why I write the songs the way they are and why they're as personal as they are. I couldn't sing it night after night after night with conviction if I didn't really believe it.

Sil: How do you keep songs fresh after touring with them nightly?

Trevor: It's really neat because sometimes songs morph into something different. They start out on way in your mind and ...then because of situations that happen in your life or relationship changes or whatever, all the sudden they take on a new meaning, or they enlighten you. I saw Ray Davies talking about his life and the Kinks and...he said (now I forget what song he was talking about), but he said that it was my subconcious telling myself that I wasn't happy when I wrote this song but I really didn't listen to myself. I'm the same way. I'll read song lyrics afterwards and I'll think "Wow! I was singing about me when I thought I was singing about something else."

Sil: Your sound has changed a lot from the industrial-based Affliction to the alternative/electronica based The Devil You Know. How do you account for the change between the two albums?

Trevor: I think it was the influence of producers - also the time period - where you're at in your life. At the time we wrote Affliction there was a lot of turmoil and a lot of other things going on. Life is always full of turmoil...Now in between records we took a long look at how we wrote songs and who we were as a band. One of the things we found was that we liked certain aspects of writing songs with guitars. I think we went more in the direction of songwriters than sonic song crafters. On Affliction it was more like a sonic barrage, [while] these new songs could all stand alone with an acoustic guitar.

Sil: How easy/hard for you is it now that you're starting to be recognized on the streets as someone "famous?"

Trevor: Being recognized is really strange because it's not the reason I got into it. I just want to make music. It does kind of infringe upon your privacy and you have to kind of expect that. But it's bizarre, it's very bizarre.

Most of the people that are our fans and come to our shows are very polite and nice...they get a little excited. I did have a really cool ring that said "Think For Your Self" (you know it's a motivator) and it got ripped off my thumb in Montreal when I was shaking hands with a fan. That kind of stuff kind of freaks me out. But I guess somebody has that and they're like, "Man, I've got his ring" [cut short by fans requesting Trevor's autograph.]