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By BRENNAN SARICH
Staff Writer

I arrive early at the Tattoo Rock Parlour, waiting to interview the reggae-rock band, Street Pharmacy. For those who have never been to the Tattoo Rock Parlour, the staff is as friendly as the venue is dark and edgy.

As I wait for drink, a friendly guy in his twenties walks up to me and introduces himself as Nate Triano, one of the guitarists for the band. The other guitarist, Brandon Ventresca, appears soon after and we talk a bit about their sound check. After chatting for a few more minutes, we retreat to the basement, where I talk with both Nate and Brandon about the band.

Ryan Guay the lead singer shows up as we sit down, and announces that he is going to park their van. Both Nate and Brandon roll their eyes a little bit.

“Ryan is the guy who knows everything about our band,” says Nate, “He’s the person you really want to talk to if you want to know anything our band is doing in the future. He has all the tour dates mapped out in his head.”

Nate says that they have been playing several shows with Stereos, a band from Edmonton that has recently been signed to Universal Music Canada. Street Pharmacy has been touring with a variety of bands to promote new and old material.

“We’ve had around 16 or 17 shows booked in May, I think,” Nate muses, “I don’t really know. But we’re doing this for more play-time on MuchMusic, more requests for our songs. We’ve all been in school for the last 4-5 years, and this is the first time we’ve really had a chance to invest all our time into the band. Each of us is really putting our time into the band right now because we’ve all just finished school. Well, except our drummer, Danial. He’s got a real career,” Nate laughs, “But still, it’s hectic to play 4-5 shows a week.”

Ryan, recently returned from his parking duties, readily agrees.

“We just finished doing a tour with Down with Webster, which was cool because we really got to see how a corporate music tour works. It was a great experience, it was to promote our new video ‘Degenerate’ … I guess we’re calling it ‘Just a Degenerate Tour’ now,” Ryan jokes, “It was awesome playing for sold out crowds. It was unreal because we got to open for them, and they just brought all the fans with them.”

Both Ryan and Nate talked about how the band is really starting to get into a groove of being on tour full-time.

Street Pharmacy started with Ryan and Nate releasing their first album in 2006, Self-Prescribed Feel Good. In September 2006, they had a show in London, Ontario, and they sold 21 albums. Ryan says he wrote the single “Welcome to the Street Pharmacy” in the parking lot that night, and the band took off from there.

They’ve been on a steady climb of tour dates in Ontario ever since, releasing their second album Free Delivery in 2007, and their new album, Legacy of Rudy, should be released sometime later this year. In speaking about the new album, Ryan says that they are trying to focus on making authentic reggae music.

“We went to Cuba and we have been working with Cuban musicians to give the album a more Latin-reggae feel,” Ryan says. This will be an interesting twist for a band that has influences from rap and hip-hop to alternative rock. And given the vast variety of musical influences they tend to draw from, the future albums might take Street Pharmacy in a whole new direction.

On commenting on the kind of music they’ve produced in the past, Ryan says that they are primarily a party band.

“We like to make music that makes girls dance, and make their boyfriends like us and be jealous of us at the same time,” Ryan says with a grin, “Definitely the best work we’ve produced so far has been on Free Delivery, and we want to make as many albums as we can.”

Indeed, Ryan says that they are already working on their fifth album. While it probably won’t be out for a while, Street Pharmacy is definitely looking into the future with their music.

To check out more from Street Pharmacy, visit their website at www.myspace.com/streetfarmacy.