It's hard to tell whether The Unicorns are the coolest people in the world or the most patently offensive. On one hand, they do everything you always told yourself you would do if you were a rockstar -- they make up elaborate stories and nonsensical questions during interviews, they wear outlandish pink costumes on stage, they badger the venue's sound guy in the middle of their set, and they walk off the stage with nary a last word or goodbye gesture after they're done playing, hammering in the fact that you should be thankful for them, not the other way around. You have to admit that you'd be tempted to do the same, knowing full and well that no matter how big of an asshole you pretend to be while in the limelight, people will still listen to your record and venues will still book you; you only make yourself more popular when everyone comes back from the concert bitching about how your attitude overshadowed the rock. Deep inside all of us is a part that enjoys being taunted and teased, and The Unicorns play to that desire perfectly.

There's a bit of a danger in doing this when you're not yet a true blue rock star. As much fun as the mock prima donna guise may be, you have to wonder if the enjoyment that the band members and a select group of equally subversive fans gain from such behavior is great enough to outweigh the fruit of an attitude of humility and sincerity. Irony (which, in case The Unicorns haven't realized, has been all but rejected in a world where The Rapture and Death Cab for Cutie are indie rock's big draws) and faux egotism will inevitably make the crowd feel as though the joke is on them. Can a band afford to alienate their listeners like that when their record sales haven't yet hit six digits?

But stop for a moment. Did I mention that The Unicorns are phenomenal when they're reproducing their songs on stage? Every qualm you might have had about Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? (and you couldn't have had too many of them, as it's a mesmerizing record that becomes friendlier with each listen) disappears when you see these three Canucks having the time of their lives playing rock and roll. The Unicorns' live show is full of the energy that their album sometimes lacks; perhaps it's because the band feeds off of the vibe from a slightly disillusioned, confused audience, but there's another, more likely explanation: their songs are exposed as the brilliant, truly rocking tunes that they actually are when they're removed from the album's air of penny whistle novelty. By the night's end, it's clear that The Unicorns are a bunch of adept, swaggering badasses rather than bored kids with a taste for kitschy instrumentation and the overly-obvious juxtaposition of ridiculously catchy pop and deconstructive lo-fi pastiche. If you can overlook the Kylie Minogue cover they're likely to play and the pissy disposition they're likely to adopt, The Unicorns' music is, oddly enough, its most sincere when they're actually playing it in front of you. It would be a lot easier to truly love them (as opposed to just appreciate them) if their attitudes matched their music's straightforward, earnest passion.

I met up with the band at a vegetarian restaurant in Athens as their first US tour wound down. Before you ask, no -- the answers they gave didn't always correspond to the questions asked. In The Unicorns' defense, it had been a long tour, and a long day in particular, so I took what I could get. I'll let the interview tell the rest of the story.

Splendid: I know you guys did some dates with Hot Hot Heat up north around New York in the fall and winter, but is this your first time coming down south?

Nicholas Diamonds: Sure the fuck is.

Splendid: Awesome.

Nicholas Diamonds: It's our first US tour, really.

Splendid: Has there been a pretty good reception?

Nicholas Diamonds: Yeah, it's been wonderful.

Splendid: Yeah, I've been reading a lot about how people have been really receptive to the songs. Does it feel really weird to come to all these places you've never been before and to hear people singing along?

Nicholas Diamonds: Yes, it's surreal. It's definitely a new experience.

Splendid: Were you expecting that at all or is this totally blowing you away?

Nicholas Diamonds: I didn't know what to expect going into it, but I was definitely blown away the first day, in Boston. It was packed... people knew the songs and stuff. I had no idea -- I thought maybe a handful of people would be there. I just had no idea.

Splendid: I've heard tell that you guys have gotten some homeless people to impersonate you at one of your shows.

Nicholas Diamonds: No. Just a joke. We lie a lot.

A roadie draws attention to the fact that Nick might be lying right now as well.

Splendid: What about the puppet shows, is that also a lie?

Nicholas Diamonds: Yessir.

Splendid: So you guys just get up there and rock.

Nicholas Diamonds: Yeah

The same roadie points out that Nick might once again be lying.

Splendid: This is going to be very confusing, discriminating between the lies and the truth.

Nicholas Diamonds: You never can tell.

Splendid: So how do you approach the live show?

Nicholas Diamonds: We have other people playing behind the stage.

Splendid: So you guys are like The Monkees.

Nicholas Diamonds: A lot like The Monkees, in more ways than I think you'll ever know.

A pause, and some aimless banter.

Splendid: I wanted to ask a few questions about the new album. Why all the songs about death and ghosts? Why the fixation on all that stuff?

Nicholas Diamonds: I think our main influences are this band called Jellybones from Atlanta. So we listen to a lot of music, like lately that's been our main influence. They're just really a driving skate rock band. (To another roadie) What else have we been listening to?

The roadie answers with "Heart of Amulet"

Splendid: So how does this play into all of the death fixations and whatnot in the lyrics?

Nicholas Diamonds: Well, we're at a vegetarian restaurant, so it's a bit different, but somebody has to die in order for us to stay nourished. It depends, really, depending on where we are. But someone is always going to die -- but we're at a vegetarian restaurant, so it doesn't apply.

Splendid: (Noting his rice dish) But someone could have died in that rice paddy.

Nicholas Diamonds: Yeah, and I'm hoping to taste it.

Splendid: How many people do you estimate have died for your nourishment and sustenance throughout your life?

Nicholas Diamonds: People and animals? One hundred thousand, indirectly.

Splendid: That's pretty incredible.

Nicholas Diamonds: Yeah, I mean, it's a status thing.

Splendid: So are you willing to put your life on the line for someone else's nourishment?

Nicholas Diamonds: No. I don't have to. I'm the ruling class.

Splendid: So I guess you're not ready to die then, like the last song on the album says.

Nicholas Diamonds: I didn't write that. Jamie wrote it.

Splendid: So he'd probably be the one putting his life on the line.

Nicholas Diamonds: Yeah. He's the martyr. I'm not the martyr.

Splendid: I wanted to also ask you about some of the other lyrics. In "Tuff Luff", are you making any sort of political statement?

Nicholas Diamonds: No, that's a common misconception. What's trying to be said there is that love is a tunnel, and that love sets you free, and that love will tear us apart, and that love don't cost a thing, stop in the name of love... it's about all these things, and more.

Splendid: Money can't buy you love.

Nicholas Diamonds: Yup, it's about that too.

Splendid: It's good that you have a grip on your history of love songs... What about the other lyrics? A lot of them seem pretty lighthearted, and that fits pretty well, but do you ever have any underlying themes, or do you pretty much mean exactly what you say?

Nicholas Diamonds: Well, I grew up in Campbell River, and Alden grew up in Lawrenceville, Quebec... so we're all from Canada.

Splendid: What's your favorite unicorn?

Nicholas Diamonds: Are there different ones?

Splendid: Out of all the fictional places that you would find Unicorns -- maybe a unicorn you saw on a poster somewhere or something.

Nicholas Diamonds: I think I'm my favorite Unicorn.

Discussion gets more sidetracked than it already is for a minute or two.

Splendid: You guys have a new single coming out, right?

Nicholas Diamonds: Yeah.

Splendid: Are those going to be new songs, or re-recorded?

Nicholas Diamonds: One is going to be re-recorded, of an unreleased song -- you can stream it on our website. The other one is a brand new song. It's a two song seven-inch, should be good.

Splendid: When did you find time to record the new songs?

Nicholas Diamonds: We were touring in November and December with Hot Hot Heat, then we took some time off for the holidays, and we came back in January, met up in Montreal -- kind of our home base as a band -- and just hunkered down in a friend's studio, and yeah, we just whipped off these two songs in a few days. They sound alright; it was a bit rushed, but I think people will like it.

Splendid: Are you pretty prolific songwriters?

Nicholas Diamonds: We are. We don't have time work on songs together or to introduce new songs because we're always on the road, so we don't have time to rehearse and work on parts of songs and piece things together. We've been playing the same songs for a while, slowly introducing more here and there.

Splendid: You have another album, Unicorns Are People Too. When did that come out?

Nicholas Diamonds: That came out in February of last year.

Splendid: Wow. You put out two albums in one year.

Nicholas Diamonds: Yeah, and we've got tons of songs backlogged that we're going to work on in Florida. We're going to hang out in Florida for a little while, so that's exciting. Yeah, Unicorns Are People Too is something we put out ourselves, quietly, like 500 copies. We sold them at shows and record stores, and it's long out of print, all sold out, hard to find.

Splendid: Any plans to put that back out again?

Nicholas Diamonds: People are still discovering us, so we want to wait to put it out, I think. Maybe one more album... We want more people to have an idea of what we're doing, because that might throw people off. It's a bit different -- really, really lo-fi, and goofy, kinda.

Splendid: Do you do a lot of recording on your own, like with four-tracks?

Nicholas Diamonds: Yeah, Alden does a lot of four-tracking.

The waiter comes and gets dessert orders, and the band and friends ask me a little about the Athens scene, and that leads to the following.

Nicholas Diamonds: I don't know what shows are like here, but a lot of times people just cross their arms and stare at you and wait for you. They don't dance and don't move. We played some all ages shows that were really cool, like in Philly we played a church basement.

Splendid: The Unitarian Church?

Nicholas Diamonds: Yeah, it was awesome, packed, kids seemed to be having a good time, dancing.

Splendid: I think there'll be a decent amount of dancing tonight... people will enjoy themselves.

Nicholas Diamonds: People really don't know how to enjoy themselves sometimes.

Splendid: And I think that's what's really good about you guys. It's clearly an album about enjoying music and not making it some isolated type of thing.

Nicholas Diamonds: Thank you. We don't want to limit our audience and only play to an elite crowd. It's about letting everyone have a good time and not be afraid to enjoy it, to not be afraid of death or something.

Third Unicorn Alden Ginger shows up.

Splendid: So then, how did you end up on a label with Merzbow, Set Fire to Flames, and all of this really different-sounding stuff?

Nicholas Diamonds: We haven't left North America, but we're looking to go to Europe.

Alden Ginger: The thing with Europe is that it's a completely different continent. It's not a part of America, like Canada is, it's its own place. It's got it's own money, and that's cool.

Splendid: You guys have your money with the geese on it.

Alden Ginger: That's not real money.

Splendid: When I worked at Dairy Queen we had to take your money.

Alden Ginger: I'm sorry to have to break this to you, but the geese money is part of a Canadian board game.

Nicholas Diamonds: It's called Canadia.

Alden Ginger: It's like Monopoly, you've got this fake money that you use to play the game.

Nicholas Diamonds: And the funny thing is that we can come down here and use it. When you got that money at Dairy Queen, you got snowconed.

Alden Ginger: To fool you into believing it, we set the exchange rates pretty low. That's just a joke.

Splendid: So you guys are really the center of wealth in North America, because you've been giving us fake money and you're hoarding everything.

Alden Ginger: We've got diamond reserves and gold mines that would boggle your mind. Why do you think we hold on to the Northwest Territory?

Splendid: Do you guys have gold?

Alden Ginger: I've got enough gold to buy and sell you many, many, many times over.

Nicholas Diamonds: All my teeth? Gold, but with white.

Alden Ginger: When gold gets really, really concentrated, it becomes white, so each of those teeth is like 65 pounds of gold, concentrated into this tiny little thing.

Splendid: That's got to weigh your mouth down a lot.

Nicholas Diamonds: It makes me talk slower. I lean forward a lot.

Splendid: (To Alden) So how are you liking Athens so far?

Alden Ginger: It's got some big venues, I'll tell you that.

Nicholas Diamonds: Is that the downtown down there?

Splendid: Yeah, that's all there is to the town. It's like a fifteen minute walk from my home to the venue.

Alden Ginger: Is that a sexual proposition?

Nicholas Diamonds: "I've got a big bed!" Don't worry, I'll wear my underwear...

Alden Ginger: We'll probably stay in the basement of the club we're playing at. Otherwise, we'll just throw sleeping bags on top of the van and sleep out in the woods.

Splendid: You guys being from Canada, and mining gold and stuff, are probably used to extreme things.

Nicholas Diamonds: We are, and we like to hold on to our money.

Alden Ginger: We also know how to wrestle grizzly bears. I don't know how that figures in at all, but we learned to do that in second grade.