Mother Mother - "Eureka" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lion

Like the band's prior two album covers (for "Touch Up" and "O My Heart"), Mother Mother chose to feature an animal. While their earlier releases featured a chicken and a fish, "Eureka" displays the close-up face of a roaring lion in a rainbow of colours. Unlike their previous albums, the cover does not feature the band's characteristic triple-scratch, a shape which would be front and center on the group's fourth album, "The Sticks".

Instead, the scratches appear on the disc itself (not literal scratches...that would be bad).

Answer: Two

Losing drummer Kenton Loewen and vocalist Debra-Jean Creelman after the completion of "O My Heart", the remaining three members of the band welcomed drummer Ali Saidat and vocalist/keyboardist Jasmin Parkin in time for their subsequent tour (though their work does not appear on the original album).

This made "Eureka" their first official album. Both members appear in the music videos for "Body of Years" and "Hayloft", the singles from "O My Heart", indicating how soon after the album's release they were added in.

Answer: The Stand

"The Stand" is the only one of the three choices to appear on the "Eureka" album and it also happened to be the first single released off it. Reaching number three on the Canadian Alternative Chart, it was the band's most famous song to-date. The video premiered in early 2011, around the time the album was released in March.

The video for "The Stand" was a bit crazy, like the album artwork, because it featured the band, outfitted in kooky outfits and hairstyles, performing against a constantly changing backdrop, evoking Rorschach tests and psychedelics.

Answer: Chasing It Down

While both "Had It All" and "Bright Idea" were released after "Eureka" appeared (the former as an unreleased B-side and the latter as a single on iTunes), "Chasing It Down" was the first track on the disc, leading off a consistently whimsical album. The lyrics of this song foreshadow the album's tendency to mix things up a great deal with tempo, style, and atmosphere. The lyrics state:

"Turn around your life or we'll change
Without your consent
Without your okay
It happened again
I woke up today
And everything changed"

Answer: Getaway

"Getaway", appearing more than halfway through the album, showcases the voice of secondary harmonizer Molly as she takes the reins, much as she did at the end of the "O My Heart" album in "Sleep Awake". The tradition was followed up in "The Sticks" with the final track, "To the Wild". Molly, like Jasmin, typically plays keyboard and sings in the tri-vocal harmonies the band excels with.

"Getaway" is about someone who simply wants to get away from it all and dreams of flying anywhere else.

"Forever and a Bit" was sung by Jasmin Parkin; it was an unreleased B-side sent to fans shortly after the release of "Eureka" (and before their next album, "The Sticks").

Answer: Ali Siadat

Ali Siadat, the new drummer for Mother Mother as of this album, ended up co-writing the disc's second single, "Baby Don't Dance", with lead singer and songwriter Ryan. The song reached number eleven on the Canadian Alternative Chart, topping all of the band's other songs (beside "The Stand"). The video, partly an homage to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", featured the band playing the song in a white room and included many of the colours and images seen on and in the album and throughout their tour for the release.

"She doesn't feel the sound
She feel for the ground
She like a dead fish in a cold pan
She don't give an inch to the band"

Answer: Simply Simple

Although the "Eureka" album featured all four of these songs (though "Carve a Name" was a bonus track featured on iTunes and in special edition versions of "Eureka"), "Simply Simple" was the only one with these lyrics. Although performed live by the band for a few years before the release of this disc, it took until track six of "Eureka", a down-tempo moment, before it made an official appearance in the band's discography. "Simply Simple" was co-written by singer Ryan Guildemond and bassist Jeremy Page.

It was the third and final single from the disc; it did not receive a music video.

Answer: Oleander

"Like an oleander
White white leaves, of an oleander
White like me"

The penultimate song on the disc, "Oleander" includes both down-tempo verses and an up-tempo chorus marked by harmonies. Not an official single from the disc, it led into a faster-paced final song, "Calm Me Down", which ended the album on a bang.

Oleander is a poisonous, flowering plant often found in the wild, but also used in cultivated gardens.

Answer: Original Spin

"Original Spin", the fourth song on the album, epitomizes what "Eureka" is all about-- finding a sound. Eclectic, to say the least, but tightly-composed, "Original Spin" starts out slow but ends up switching beat and tempo throughout, constantly reinventing itself, amping up, and finding original spins for the tune.

Much of the same is echoed throughout the disc as the band flips between fast and slow, perhaps searching for their "Eureka!" moment.

Answer: Infinitesimal

"Infinitesimal" was the third single on Mother Mother's subsequent album, "The Sticks", following "Let's Fall in Love" and "Bit By Bit", both of which reached the top five on the Canadian Alternative Chart.

"Far in Time", "Aspiring Fires", and "Calm Me Down" were all songs from the "Eureka" album though none of them were released as singles. All three were performed as part of the band's live set between 2010 and 2012, until the release of "The Sticks" in September 2012.