The Boomtown Rats didn't have an enormous impact on the state of pop music in Canada, "I Don't Like Mondays" notwithstanding. When the Irish band came to Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition Gardens in 1981, however, there was at least one budding musician in the audience who would be forever changed by what he saw.

"Bob Geldof invited some girls up to do shadow dances," recalls Robbie Morfitt, all of eleven years old when he attended the show. "They had these lights beaming off the side of the stage. So you couldn't really see the girls, but you could see their shadows. These girls started rippin' off their clothes. All of a sudden, the band is turning sideways. This is my first concert, and I'm, like, 'I gotta keep coming to these things!"

Morfitt still goes to a lot of rock concerts, but these days, the guitarist for Vancouver's Econoline Crush is more likely to be found on the stage than off. And it's a good thing he enjoys it so much: With the band's latest album The Devil You Know just release in the United States, Morfitt will probably log a whole lot of stage time before the year is over.

The day he and singer Trevor Hurst sit to be interviewed at an Italian cafe on East Vancouver's colouful Commercial Drive, their single, "Home," has been added to 43 American radio stations. On February 16, the title track of their new album reached millions of Americans in the opening sequence of Melrose Place. The two speak eagerly of making their mark south of the border, even if it means playing the same songs they've been performing for nearly a year in Canada. "I'm not bothered," Morfitt says. "We made a really strong record. It still stands up a year after we made it, so it'll be exciting to go play it for people who haven't heard it before."

The band's former rythym sections won't be coming along for the ride. Bassist Ken Fleming has been replaced by Tom Christiansen, and drummer Robert Wagner was handed his walking papers in favour of former Mudgirl skin-basher Nico Quintal. Nor is this the first time the group's lineup has shifted: Bassist Daniel Yaremko and drummer Greg Leask left the band after the release of its first full-length album, 1995's Affliction. In roughly the same time-period, guitarist Ziggy Sigmund (formerly of the infamous Vancouver punk combo Slow) joined the group, and Sons of Freedom bassist Don Binns was brought in to lay down The Devil You Know's bottom end.

"There have always been a few changes in the band, that's for sure," Hurst acknowledges. "But I think they've always been because we wanted to grow as a band. We've always wanted to surround ourselves with a positive vibe, people with a positive attitude."

Such frequent comings and goings must surely be cause for alarm with Econoline Crush's management and the folks at the band's label, EMI. It's probably a safe bet that people with a serious financial stake in the group are somewhat concerned by these ups and downs. [Not to mention the fans -- Conscientious ed.] "They have been in the past," admist Hurst. "We've had record company people fly out here and find out if we're on the crack pipe or not."

"Without sounding harsh, I don't think they're too worried about it now," Morfitt interjects, "because every time we've done a change, no matter how much people have stressed out about it, it's always proven to be a better thing -- better than what was going on before that."

Neither would elaborate on exactly what issues drove this particular lineup apart, but it seems as if spending months together on the road brought the band members' differences to the fore, and the personal rifts were beginning to have an effect on the way Econoline Crush operated. "Definitely, the road is the test," confirms Morfitt. "When we got signed, we'd only toured once. We did a few more tours, and a lot of stuff comes out on the road. And, working with people in different situations, we've had to make changes to continue doing this. If we didn't make the changes, we would have never made The Devil You Know."

Personnel shifts aside, there were some other major changes that made the latest album possible. On Affliction and Purge, the band's debut EP, Econoline Crush displayed its more ferocious side, perferring to drill its way into the listener's ear with thrashy, industrial-style rhythms and the sort of heavy guitar riffs that would make even Ministry's Al Jourgensen sit up and take notice. Unlike Ministry, though, Econoline Crush has always had a melodic sensibility; Hurst's knack for writing a catchy chorus shone through the grinding gears on tracks such as "Wicked" and the decidedly Trent Reznor-esque "Close."

For The Devil You Know, the group inlisted the aid of producer Sylvia Massy (Prince, Red Hot Chili Peppers) and cranked up the pop quotient. The edge is still there, but the album sounds like the work of people whose emphasis is on writing songs, not just making cool sounds. Affliction was produced by Rhys Fulber, formerly one-half of pioneering industrial-music duo Front Line Assembly and currently a member of Fear Factory. With Fulber's production and keyboard work, it wouldn't be too great a strech to label Affliction an industrial album. On its most recent trek into the studio, however, Econoline Crush decided to downsize, stripping away some of the technological trickery it had previously employed.

"I'm still a fan of it," Hurst says of the metal machine music that originally inspired his band. "The thing that I found was a challenge for us was that a lot of the electronic stuff seemed a little soul-less. Rhys always called it 'sproket music'. I thought that was the perfect name for it, because it does kind of sound like a machine just clicking along. And we wanted to kind of pour some blood and guts into that sound, and kind of give it some emotion."

"I think that sometimes you mask your ability to write songs behind a bunch of noise and stuff," the singer continues. "I think it's evident, even when I hear the Nirvana Unplugged record compared to Bleach or whatever -- you hear some of those songs when they're stripped right down and you go, 'Woah, is that ever an amazing song.' And so we developed our songwriting. And then, going into the studio, Sylvia gave us the confidence to actually record them more as songs, and not really hiding behind all that technical stuff that we've used in the past. We got more into using the electronics as a tool to enhance the dynamic of the songs, rather than to become the song."

While the band's shift to a more streamlined, radio-friendly sound might strike some as a calculated strategy to sell a few more CD's, the move seems to be a natural one, given Hurst's formative influences. When the Cromer, Manitoba farmboy first arrived in Vancouver in the late 1980s, he found himself immersed in the music of Moev, Skinny Puppy, FLA, and Lotus' Land's other industrial/electronic forerunners. Before the West Coast beckoned, however, the soundtrack to Hurst's life was pure pop. Well, that and a bit of cheesy metal. "It's almost required learning out in the Prairies to listen to AC/DC and Ratt and everybody else," he says, "but the biggest influences were probably U2, Simple Minds, INXS, The Cure, Killing Joke, that kind of stuff."

As Econoline Crush took a step away from bludgeoning industrial thrash and toward songdriven, melodic rock 'n' roll, Hurst's lyrics became more personal. The singer has made no secret of the fact that the bulk of the songs on The Devil You Know were inspired by the dissolution of a tumultuous relationship. Judging from the lines -- like "You took me in, you sold me out/Is that what this was all about?" (from "Elegant") -- the breakup was not a pleasant one. His ex-girlfriend, who Hurst says is "in the witness protection program," may have other ideas. But the charismatic frontman says he has no qualms about airing his dirty laundry in public. "The way that I approach songwriting is kind of like it's my therapist, and I get to unload during the songs," he says. "The interesting thing about playing those songs live now is, it adds closure to the whole relationship. And they tend to take on new meanings, too. As you grow, so do the songs."

Hurst says the songs he writes reflect the events in his life and his state of mind at the time of writing. If this is the case, one wonders if Econoline Crush fans can expect an album full of that hoary, time-worn rock 'n' roll cliche, the road songs, given the amount of touring in store for the group. "Yeah," Hurst says, laughing, "like all these titles (affects old-fashioned radio announcer voice): Econoline Crush, featuring 'Gas Station Rock', 'Another Truckstop in the Middle of Nowhere'..."

"Leave that to Steve Earle, he does it well," Morfitt chips in.

"I don't know," says Hurst. "I just have to keep breaking up with girls constantly to write good songs." To which his bandmate replies: "Line 'em up!"

They may not be standing in line to have their hearts broken, but a growing number of rock fans in this country are lining up at cash registers with copies of The Devil You Know in their hands. Released domestically last June, the album has racked up very respectable sales in Canada: The success of the aforementioned "Home" and its followup, "All That You Are (x3)," has pushed the disk past the gold mark (50,000 sold). Opening for the Tea Party on that band's recent cross-country jaunt exposed even more people to the Econoline Crush brand of industrial-tinged rock. In short, these boys are poised on the verge of becoming major stars.

Rock stardom, of course, isn't the paradise it's often made out to be. The entertainment world has a rather nasty habit of chewing up its young and spitting them out. The newfound fortunes of young musicians are often deposited in their veins instead of their bank accounts, and the stars themselves too often end lying in a pine box. Just ask the friends and families of Blind Melon's Shannon Hoon or Sublime's Bradley Nowell. Hurst is well aware that the trappings of fame come with a price. On the song "Sparkle and Shine," he warns would-be rock gods of the danger of being "killed by ambition/Sacrificed for fame."

"It is a sort of weird contradiction, isn't it?" he says of his current situation. "I mean, this is something we've been working towards for a long time. It's not such an overnight thing as it was for some artists I was considering when I was writng that song. But I think you can't say that it won't affect you, 'cause I think it will, but we'll have to wait and see how much, you know?"

One aspect of Hurst's character unlikey to be affected by the rock-star lifestyle is his dedication to take whatever he does to the highest level. That ambition, he says, has been there since long before his musical career began. "For me, personally, with anything that I've ever done, I always wanted to see how far I can take it. When I was a kid, I used to think that I was gonna play in the NHL, and when that didn't become a reality, I was kinda bummed but, hey, I moved on," he says, flashing his trademark grin. "I'm O.K. with it."