Record Review: Robyn – S/T

 

Robyn’s first official North American release in about a decade isn’t actually that new. For those not in the know (re: people with better things to do with their life than read about 90s pop stars on the Internet) Robyn was a contemporary of Britney Spears back in ‘98. In fact Max Martin, who penned hits for Britney, Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, co-wrote her two big US hits “Show Me Love” and “Do You Know (What It Takes).”  Most of these tracks were on the Swedish version of this record when it was released over there in 2005. This North American release does a bit of juggling with the tracks adding “Cobra Style” and the excellent UK hit single “With Every Heartbeat.”

At this point, what more can anyone say about Robyn. This was one of the top reviewed albums of 2005 and rightly so. The record stands up three years later which says a lot for a pop album (albeit an incredibly sophisticated one). Half the album is single worthy while the remaining tracks are far from clunkers. I have no idea why it took Robyn three years to get this damn thing a domestic release, but now that it’s here, I just hope everybody (re: people outside the blogosphere) will stand up and take notice so that next time I won’t have to wait.

Alterna Wha??

I was reading a recent article in Spin about music-themed movies that are coming out this year (like the new Patti Smith and Joy Division documentaries), and it got me thinking about how far punk/post-punk/alternative/indie have moved into the mainstream (or the mainstream moved to it). In fact, the Joy Division documentary is the second movie about the band after last year’s Control. With more and more films like Control or even Last Days joining mainstream rock-star biopics like the rather dull Ray and Walk the Line I started to worry.

I think most of us would agree that punk was, among many other things, a reaction to the music and values that the boomer generation (ie: those dirty hippies) identified itself with. Likewise, 90s-alterna-nation/indie rock underground was the flipside to the commercial pap that was mainstream music and film in the 1980s. But with punk now in its 30s and Nirvana’s Nevermind three years shy of 20 (Kurt would be 41 if he were alive today) is this where we’re headed?

Both Ray and Walk the Line celebrated well known musicians who baby-boomers grew up with, but the films were essentially vehicles for their stars, Jamie Foxx and Joaquin Phoenix. So were movies like La Bamba and The Buddy Holly Story (Foxx and Phoenix should take a hard look at careers of Lou Diamond Phillips and Gary Busey as a manual for what not to do in life).

So is this where we’re headed? Johnny Depp in the Robert Smith Story? John Travolta as Morrissey: Born to Mope? It could be. But then Generation X, as Jeff Gordinier explains in his new book “X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything From Sucking,” have always done things a little differently. Just look at the films I mentioned above -the upcoming Joy Division and Patti Smith films are documentaries, so even if they’re not exactly mindblowing, they’ll at least be worth watching and will in no way tarnish the good names of their subjects (with the exception of films made by Nick Broomfield, I find music documentaries are always worth watching). And while Control and Last Days were in fact biopics (alright Last Days wasn’t explicitly about Kurt Cobain, but we all knows what they were doing), but they were made by real filmakers - Anton Corbijn and Gus Van Sant - both who have more than a little experience with musicians. Generation X has seen the mockery that the boomers have made of their idols. They won’t be making the same mistake with their own, and they’re sure as hell not about to let anybody else fuck it up for the rest of us. While the boomers are continually content to rest on their laurels (the exception here being social security) Generation X continues to blaze its own path, not caring what anybody else thinks or says.

Little Orphan Annie

Scandinavian pop princess (well the other Scandinavian pop princess) Annie has returned with a great new track called “I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me.” It’s somewhat reminescent in theme to the Donnas’ “Too Bad About Your Girl” It’s a worthy successor to 2005’s excellent singles “Heartbeat” and “Chewing Gum.” I’ve never been able to really articulate what it is I like about Annie – maybe it’s the way she substitutes ”Ur” for your –  and I may just have to admit that even this hardened music snob needs some good old fashioned bubble-gum pop everyonce in a while.

Buck 65’s Orchestral Manoeuvres

Buck 65 is feeling a little scared at the moment. On the phone from his home in Toronto, the Mount Uniacke native is on a brief tour stop before returning to Halifax to perform with Symphony Nova Scotia on April 18. The gig is part of the symphony’s popular Maritime Pop series.

“It’s totally insane,” he says of the show. “You don’t play with the symphony everyday.” He’s just received demo mp3s of his songs being performed by the symphony and is understandably knocked out by the sound. “Just to hear my stuff taken to these places, it’s really hard to describe the way it’s made me feel.”

His feelings are understandable. Although this isn’t the first time performing with a symphony (he played with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2003) it’s still a major step outside his comfort zone. Buck 65 (AKA Richard Terfry) usually hits the stage with a confidence 15 years of live performances affords a musician. But this time is different. On Friday night Terfry will be backed by dozens of musicians, creating a sound unlike anything he’s experienced while onstage, but he still has to be the focus of the audience’s attention.

“It’s big and it’s just little me up there,” he says. “The biggest challenge for me is to just not get too overwhelmed.” With all his touring commitments surrounding the gig, Terfry only has two days to prepare. “We’ve got one shot at this thing—it’s not like I can take a couple nights to get used to it.”

Certain to be the highlight of the evening is an original piece of music the CBC commissioned SNS conductor Dinuk Wijeratne to compose specifically for Terfry. Norman Adams, the symphony’s principle cellist, was the person who originally pitched the idea, arguing that of all the pop musicians Symphony Nova Scotia has played with he felt Buck 65’s music best lent itself to experimentation. “My idea was that the orchestra could play a more collaborative role with the guest artist,” Adams says. “By creating a brand-new piece it makes that possible.” Terfry was thrilled with the idea. “It’s something that I wasn’t even expecting as a possibility,” he says, noting he didn’t think the situation would lend itself to this level of experimentation.

In Wijeratne’s piece, Adams and Terfry perform a double concerto (a double solo on cello and turntables respectively) with the rest of the symphony backing them. The two seem perfectly matched for the performance —both are open to musical genres outside their realms of comfort and expertise and express a love of working with other musicians. “I’ve even argued that I’d be willing to collaborate with an artist that I hated because I think it would be a great creative exercise,” says Terfry.

Adams says CBC’s support of the show (the gig will be broadcast over CBC Radio) and its financial support in commissioning the concerto is a testament to the quality and artistic merit of Terfry’s music and the expectations of the show. “It’s a big deal to get commissioned by the CBC,” he says. “It shows they have a special interest in the project and really want the work heard by the nation on radio.”

While Terfry is certainly aware of the significance of the gig and the amount of work he has ahead of him, he also has ulterior motives for getting back to town early. His girlfriend, who can be heard in the background listening to 1980s cult band Erasure (“She’s the only person I know who’s really into Erasure,” he jokes), and her parents will be accompanying him back to his hometown.

Also on his mind are a handful of upcoming projects, including his collaboration with Belgian-Vietnamese video-artist and musician Joelle Phuong Minh Le as Bike For Three and the next Buck 65—Terfry says he has over five hours of material written.

But the project he’s most excited about is the possibility of collaborating with Roland Gift, former lead singer of ’80s pop-group Fine Young Cannibals. Terfry has been a fan since he was a teenager, and more recently has been working a version of the band’s 1985 hit “Johnny Come Home” into his set. “Even more so today, the song just kills me.”

This story originally appeared in the April 17, 2008 edition of the Coast

Go shawty, it’s your birthday

And the winner for the best use of a porn star in their music video is…the Roots!! Yeah so the girl in this video is Sasha Grey, who is apparently, quite a dirty girl. But she’s just so coy in the clip, which is, you know, way hotter. Whatever…

So the song is very-unRootsesque what with the use of Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump in the chorus, but something tells me this is going to be the “When the Night Feels My Song” of this summer except, you know, better. Oddly enough it’s not going to be on the new Roots record Rising Down (out April 29) because the album is very political. So I have no idea where you might find it – itunes maybe?

And speaking of the Roots how about that ?uestlove dj set last week…

Weerez!

So Weezer has a new record coming out in June and it’s going to be self-titled…again. But its red this time, so they’ll have the Blue Album, the Green Album and now the Red Album…clever, I know. But serously, I love this band to the point at which a girl I was dating during the long run-up to the release of Maladroit started calling me “DJ Weezer” in a really high-pitched voice cause I wouldn’t stop listening and talking about them. But their last album kind of blew, so I didn’t have such high hopes for this one until I heard the first single “Pork and Beans.” It’s produced by Jacknife Lee (who did that nifty new REM record among other things) and its essentially what Weezer fans have been waiting for since the band came out of hibernation in 2000. Check it out…

?uest is the love

I saw ?uestlove deliver a killer DJ set at the Marquee on Thursday night – wow, what a show. He spun for somewhere between 2 and 2 1/2 hours and what he may lack in razzle dazzle he more than makes up for in his song choice. Essentially he’d drop old soul and r ‘n’ b tracks then segway into the more well known song it sampled. Pretty spectacular if you ask me. Apparently he gave a 2-hour seminar on the history of hip-hopearlier in the evening. Much Music’s Paul Brothers got some footage from this as well as a quick interview with ?uestlove where Paul fool’s around with his ‘fro pick. Check it out on an upcoming episode of Paul’s show Going Coastal.

What was really so inspiring about ?uestlove and his set was that his love of music was so obvious – he wasn’t there to drop the latest tunes making there way around the blogosphere, or cut up weird dance remixes of rock songs. He was there to showcase the music he loved to the audience. I think that really comes through in his set and the fact he gave that seminar before the show. In fact, I think it shows based simply on the fact that he came to Halifax at all. His main gig, as drummer for the Roots, keeps him pretty busy and though I’m sure they’re not rolling in dough, he’s probably not hard up for cash. They’ve got a new record dropping in the next few weeks, so what the fuck does he need to come to Halifax for? Obviously because he likes exposing new audiences to the music he loves.

For further listening I suggest picking up ?uestlove’s mix CD Babies Making Babies 2 - Misety Strikes Back, to get a sense of what he’s all about.

Murder of One

Continuing my current fixation with the mid-90s, has anyone read the recent interview in Rolling Stone with Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz? I love stories that make you rethink your opinion of a band or musician. Kind of like everytime the Counting Crows put out a new album – I’m always like “give it up dudes” but then they drop a track like shoulda-been-on Recovering the Satellites “Cowboys” It’s just damn frustrating cause you know they could put all the haters (like me) to rest if they really wanted to - all their albums have at least a handful of killer tunes – but they always pad stuff with trite filler. But God damn those puppy dog eyes and dreads…

On another note, does anybody remember the video for Mr. Jones? I remember being like 13 and just really, really wanting him to put his jacket on properly.

Q&A with Sloan’s Jay Ferguson

In 1992, Sloan became poster boys for a booming Halifax music scene. The band’s fuzzed-out guitars and melodic vocal hooks seemed poised to take on the world and made them one of the few bands whose “next Nirvana” tag actually seemed appropriate. But like so many groups from the period, things didn’t go entirely as planned. Now, 14 years later, Sloan is still standing due to the band mates’ ability and willingness to constantly reinvent themselves. Each of the group’s four members—Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, and Andrew Scott—left Halifax for Toronto throughout the ’90s. They return August 3 for a hometown gig at the Marquee in support of their eighth full-length original album, Never Hear the End of It. Ian Gormely spoke with Jay Ferguson about the new record, watching The Police bicker, and Sloan’s return to Halifax.

A lot of people here will always consider you a Halifax band but do you still consider Halifax home?

 

I guess so. We’ve lived here in Toronto for quite a while, but I don’t feel like I’m from here, or that our band is from here at all. I always think of us as a Halifax band, for sure.

 

Will you be spending any time here or are you just in town for the gig?

 

I don’t know, I haven’t sorted that out yet. We usually do. Some people in the band are going to be down there in July to visit relatives.

 

Is there anything you usually like to do in town other than visiting with friends and relatives?

 

Everything’s changed. I don’t even know what’s there any more. I guess I would go to…oh, where do I like to go? What’s the place that’s called? Is it the Wooden Monkey on Argyle Street? Yeah, that’s my favourite restaurant. I think it’s awesome.

 

When you play in town do you approach the gig differently than you normally would?

 

No, not really. We just sort of do what we’ve been doing. It doesn’t really make that big a difference. I don’t think we really change our set list or anything like that. We haven’t played a proper show for this latest album in Halifax. The only show that we’ve played was with the Stones. I think it’ll probably be a typical set from this tour.

 

Do you normally throw in any old favourite songs like “Stood Up?”

 

No, we barely ever play that, to be honest—although I love it. I wish we were doing that, I think it’s a really great track. We still play old songs throughout the set but the new album is sort of more predominant.

 

Never Hear the End of It was released last fall and was hailed as a return to form by many fans disappointed with the band’s last two records. Sloan is often thought of as a singles band but the new album eschews expectations of three-minute pop tunes, delivering 30 tracks, many under a minute long, that flow into one another creating mini suites throughout. Though it seems somewhat daunting upon first listen, listeners find subsequent plays rewarding as the individual songs reveal themselves.

 

 

What was the mood going into the studio? Was there a plan in place?

 

It was all done over the course of almost six months. Chris and I in particular had always fantasized about doing a really long record, like a White Album-style record mixed with the second side of Abbey Road, which is little songs connected to each other. We talked a lot about that before we went in. I had a couple of short songs, Chris had some that he was willing to not develop into full songs and just use them as little snippets, such as “You Know What It’s About,” or “Someone I Can Be True With.” Songs that he probably would’ve fleshed out further, but just left them as little snippets that we could use in a larger suite. A bunch of songs connected together. Then Andrew came in, and he had a bunch of regular-length songs. Then all of a sudden, within a week or so, he had all these really great little short songs that we went and knocked off the bed tracks to in one night. We did five of them in one night! That was really exiting and it made the idea of doing short songs and a little song cycle into a reality because he had so many of those little short ones as well.

 

I think Patrick was a bit taken aback by it because he wasn’t in on it as much. He was sort of working on his own songs, kind of at a different studio, to be honest. We were working away at our practice space on these short songs wanting to make a really long album. I think it’s a good eclectic album. It’s a bit of a reaction to the previous album, Action Pact, which was a bit more unidirectional. Sort of just a live, off-the-floor kind of rock record. But this one has a bit more variety.

 

This record seems to have a lot more self-confidence and seems more purposeful than the last one.

 

There was a purpose behind Action Pact for sure, but it was almost like someone else’s purpose. We recorded it in Los Angeles with a guy named Tom Rothrock. It was kind of an experiment in working with a producer. We just sort of said, “Hey, here’s 25 songs. What do you think are the best 12 that go together?” He wanted to make a really streamlined rock record so we said, OK let’s just go with it and see what happens, letting someone else call the shots. I think some people really like the record and some people didn’t think it really represented our band that well because it has no Andrew songs. To be honest, Andrew didn’t have a lot going into the sessions, anyhow. It’s definitely a different kind of Sloan record. I think this new one definitely had a purpose as well. Chris and I definitely had a bit of an idea of how we imagined the record. Luckily Patrick came in with some really different sounding songs and Andrew came in with all those crazy short songs. Chris and I maybe had the idea but everybody helped realize it.

 

A lot of critics have said that “this is Sloan’s best album since…” and then insert their favourite Sloan record. Does it ever bother you that people dismiss certain albums of yours?

 

Sometimes, yeah. I can see some people’s reasons and sometimes I agree with them. Sometimes I really strongly disagree. There are some people that don’t like Pretty Together and I think it’s a bit of a slicker-sounding record, but I think it has some of our best songs. I love “A Long Goodbye.” It’s one of my favourites by Chris. It does kind of bother you when all people say, “It’s no Twice Removed.” I liked Twice Removed a lot, but I also think we’ve made other really good records.

 

I think a lot of fans, but also critics too, when they get into something specifically at one time, a record can mean more to them than the actual music contained on it. It’s almost nostalgic in a way. I think a lot of people get hung up on that—I definitely do. The other day I was listening to Evol and Sister, two records by Sonic Youth, and I hadn’t listened to them in a long time. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing I would get into now. But I really enjoyed listening to them. I still get off on [Sonic Youth guitarist] Thurston Moore, I think he’s an awesome rock star, and I really enjoy the records. But I think it was also very nostalgic for me because it totally made me think of Grade 12. I think that’s a big thing with records. With our records, some people do judge them fairly but I think some people really do hold One Chord to Another dear to their hearts because of when it came out. I think it’s a strong record, I think it had lots of good songs. But I think there’s probably a lot of people who probably won’t listen to our new record because they think, “It’s their eighth album, I don’t really follow them any more.” But to me, it’s equal to One Chord to Another.

 

Sometimes I think it’s almost easier to get into a band that had a really limited career. I think if The Smiths were still going today, even if they were making albums as good as The Queen is Dead or Meat is Murder, people would still think The Queen is Dead was their best record of all time. The same with the Velvet Underground—if they kept going and made shitty records, then they wouldn’t be as revered as they are. With a limited life span I think you can sit and judge their records more evenly as well, without the taint of what they might have become.

 

How much collaboration goes on in the studio?

 

It really depends. Andrew plays every instrument on some of his songs on this record. We would hear the song when it was done—we didn’t even hear it beforehand. Other songs are more collaborative. On some songs Chris will play drums, on others Andrew will. It depends on the songs. Sometimes there are ones where someone will have a verse but not really a good chorus, and someone else will have a chorus and you’ll strengthen the song by melding the two parts together. For this record it was sort of all over the place. Some songs were set in stone before anybody heard them and some were a bit more flexible.

 

Have the four of you ever sat down and written a song together?

 

We tried that with Tom Rothrock for Action Pact. He came here and rehearsed with us for a week or so. He had a drum machine hooked up and he would play a tempo and get Andrew to play along with that. He was trying to get us to write songs live off the floor. The song we made up was a piece of crap, as far as I was concerned. I just thought it was lame and boring and Rothrock was really excited by it. I was like, “Jesus, every other song we’ve written is 10 times better than this.” The act of it was fun, but it’s kind of hard for us. We don’t often get together and write like that—everybody tends to write on their own.

 

Do you ultimately all get held to account for the lyrics that one person in the band writes? For example, the song “Fading Into Obscurity” has a lot of parallels with the band, but Chris wrote it.

 

I guess we all end up held to account for everybody’s songs. Maybe not everybody in the band is concerned about what other people are writing, but I think it’s nice when they show interest. I would sort of agree with the sentiment in that song. I think if someone ever came to us and said, “What did you mean by this lyric?” I’d say, “Chris wrote it.” Or sometimes we may know—“Oh yeah, I know what he means by that”—and we can explain it. “Fading Into Obscurity” definitely has some parallels. There are parts about our career, for sure. The song of mine on the record called “Right or Wrong,” the first verse is basically about our band. We tend to write about our band or our lives. That’s obviously going to creep in.

 

Do you ever get sick of the “cult band” tag that you get in the ”U.S. and in other parts of the world? Every review you read from the States calls Sloan, “the best band you’ve never heard.

 

I’d be happy if more people had our records, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m happy making good records. We’re lucky, we’ve been doing this for 16 years and we can still make a living at it and it’s fun. Sometimes it can be frustrating but we’re aware of the mechanics of the music business. It’s not like, “How come this album’s not number one?” It’s not like we’re unaware of how things work. A lot of it is about money, and also we’re an older band now. I’m fine with the way everything is. It’s good being a cult band. It’s nice having a following whether it’s underground or not. And I feel like we’re still making good records. I still feel confident.

 

The new record came out on the Yep Roc Label in the U.S. Is that relationship working out well?

 

It’s been good. They have a lot of good artists on the label but also they’ve been really proactive about promoting it in the States. A lot of radio airplay where we wouldn’t have gotten it before, like on NPR, National Public Radio, and WFMU which is a huge independent station out of New Jersey. They’ve been really helpful with stuff like that, getting us into places we hadn’t really tapped into before.

 

How was the opening gig for The Police in Edmonton?

 

It was fine. When you’re opening for a huge band like that, there are people there who know us and some people who are there to just see The Police. Anytime you’re opening for somebody that big, the show itself is whatever. The event is more fun. I thought we went over well—it was fun. But watching The Police, it was a drag because they were playing to a click track, so [drummer] Stewart Copeland seemed really reigned in, especially on the more energetic songs from the first album. But I thought that Sting sounded great. I thought it was a good show. I enjoyed seeing them, it was pretty thrilling. But the most fun was watching their three-hour sound check rehearsal and watching them argue. Sort of debating tempos and chords like, [does his best Sting impression] “Yeah Andy, I don’t know if that’s C9 there. I think you should just play a C major, I think it’ll be fine. I don’t think we can play that tempo. It’s basically fucked if we play it at that tempo.” It was all this stuff. Or like Sting telling Stewart to get a teleprompter so he knows where he is in the songs and Stewart’s like, “I think I know where I am in the song.” I had goose bumps watching them argue.

 

What’s it like playing gigs with your heroes?

 

When I found out we were playing with the Stones, I freaked out. That was pretty exciting. That was more exciting to me than The Police. I loved The Police growing up, but the Rolling Stones were a bit more dear to my heart. That was pretty thrilling. We got to meet the Stones, I had my picture taken and everything like that. It’s an odd feeling, it’s a bit surreal. But once you’re there and doing it, it’s fine. Meeting them was the most outrageous—they’re almost caricatures of themselves because you’ve already built up this image of them and they’re even more exaggerated than what you’ve built up. Like Keith Richards is ambling down the hall with blood-shot eyes, and Mick Jagger is very business-like, and Charlie Watts is sort of the proper English gentleman. All the clichés you built up in your mind about them were true in a way. But they were lovely gentlemen. I really want to play with The Who now, for the collection.

 

Have you ever had the star-struck thing happen to you from the opening bands you play with?

 

It sounds obnoxious to say, “Yeah, of course.” But there are bands that we have met or played with. Sometimes they don’t show it but they’ll say it at the end after they’ve had a couple drinks. We just got back from Australia and there was a kid who played in the band that opened for us [The Hovercrafts] and there was a band called The Wellingtons that he was in and I think they were huge Sloan fans. I think they were pretty psyched to play with us. They knew all about our music. One of the girls in his band got up and sang “I Can Feel It,” from Twice Removed with us and she did the harmonies perfectly without any direction. That was kind of nice. There are bands who are doing well now who grew up with our records and have been very complimentary. People like Kevin [Drew] and Justin [Peroff] in Broken Social Scene and members of Arcade Fire. I was talking to Sebastien [Grainger] who was in Death From Above 1979 and he was like, “I don’t know if you know this but I went to your video shoot for “Lines You Amend” in 1996 and I was in the audience.” I don’t think you can really hear Sloan necessarily in Death From Above, but I think a lot of people in those bands were in high school or maybe junior high when Smeared came out. They’ve all been very flattering and very nice to say good things about our band. It’s nice to hear and it’s nice to know that you’ve left some sort of impression on people.

 

I’ve been reading a lot over the past year or so about the “death of the album” or the concept of the album no longer existing with the Internet. As a fairly serious record collector, what are your impressions?

 

I think our album is basically the antithesis of the death of the album. I like singles culture. I like the idea of almost disposable pop songs. I like the idea of a single being good. But I’m also very slanted towards albums. Now with iTunes you can just go and download your favourite four songs from an album and then the album doesn’t really exist. I’m interested in still making full albums, so I’m happy to do it. It would be interesting to see if you could get by without making albums, just making singles. Putting three singles out a year, but still being able to tour on that. I think you still need an album technically to be able to substantiate a tour or else you’re just going to be doing the same songs over and over. That’s probably motive enough for us to keep making records, but I think it would be fun to try to just be a singles band. But I’m still pretty die hard into albums and I like albums now, especially with someone like Joel Plaskett who just put out Ashtray Rock which is technically sort of a concept record. I’m glad that he stepped up and did something like that. It makes you want to hear the whole album and I think that’s kind of what we tried to do with our album—a lot of songs are kind of linked together. I like having a purpose behind an album, giving a context. I think it would be cool if more bands did that. Not necessarily concept records, but really pushing the boundaries of what an album can be to make it more of an album instead of just a collection of 12 songs. Otherwise just make singles—we don’t need any more boring albums.

 

 

Jay Ferguson’s 5 Best Records You’ve Never Heard

Squirrel Bait Skag Heaven

“It was kind of in the era of Husker Dü or Dinosaur Jr. but some of the members went on to be in a band called Slint.”

 The Organ Grab That Gun

 “I think people do know about them, a lot of people probably heard it, but I think they only sold about 1,000 copies in Canada.”

 The Hudson Brothers Ba-Fa

 “They’re a band from the ’70s. They had a kids’ TV show, but they sounded like Paul McCartney, like Wings. They’re fantastic, a completely underrated sort of pop-rock band from the early ’70s.”

 Wings Back to the Egg

 “I was reading an interview with Paul McCartney the other day and he said that this album kind of bombed when it came out and I was surprised. I think it was one of their least-selling albums. I’m going to stick up for that even though Wings and McCartney are huge. Nobody really bought it but it’s fantastic, it’s really great.”

 Any Trouble Wheels in Motion

 “They’re from the early ’80s. They were on Stiff Records in England, part of that Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello kind of thing.”

 

This interview originally appeared on Halifax Magazine’s website in August of 2007.

Q&A with Metric’s Josh Winstead

Four years ago, Metric burst onto the indie music scene along with a slew of young Canadian bands no longer content to be another Can-Rock clone (big in Canada, unheard of anywhere else). Like the Arcade Fire, Death From Above 1979, and anyone remotely associated with Broken Social Scene, Metric took the indie world by storm. This past year has been one for Metric side projects like lead singer Emily Haines’ beautifully morose record, Knives Don’t Have Your Back, and the hard-rocking, Best Friends In Love, by bassist Josh Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key under their Bang Lime guise. Metric recently reconvened to begin writing their hotly anticipated new record and are going back on tour to road test the new tracks. They return to Halifax September 14 for a show at The Cunard Centre. Ian Gormely spoke with Josh Winstead in late August.

 

 

IG:Are you in Toronto right now?

JW: No, we’re in New York City.

 

IG: What are you doing down there?

JW: Joules and I are playing in Bang Lime and we had a Brooklyn show last night. We have a Manhattan show today.

 

IG: How are the Bang Lime shows going?

JW: They’re going really well. Last night was so much fun, I can’t even believe it. It was mind-blowingly fun.

 

IG: Is Bang Lime headlining its own tour?

JW: Sometimes. Some places nobody knows who the hell we are. But last night was our show. Tonight’s…we’re not headlining tonight.

 

IG: What made the Brooklyn show so great?

JW: The vibe was just really great. The place was beautiful and the people that came out were really fun. We’re living here and there were a lot of people I haven’t seen in a long time. There were some people that didn’t even know we were playing that just showed up and didn’t know it was us. All the guys from TV on the Radio were in the other room and they were listening through the walls. And they were like, “Let’s go check out this band, they’re really good.” And then they were like, “Hey, wait a minute. I know those guys!” It was really fun and it was a nice surprise because we’ve known them for a long time. It’s been good to watch each other grow with different projects. It was just one of those nights that I’ve been waiting for, for a long time. You write music and you’re excited to play for your friends and strangers. Brooklyn’s such a musical town that the people who didn’t know us were really great and the people that did know us were great also.

 

IG: How did the Bang Lime project come about?

JW: Joules and I have played together for a huge number of years, so we’ve played in every band together. There was a need to let out some ’60s rock-driven stuff. When there’s down time I’m always writing music. I was like, “Look, I’ve got all these songs. Let’s make this happen.”

 

IG: Will that ’60s rock vibe come out on the new Metric album?

JW: I don’t think so. We were doing this thing for a while and we were just taking influences from places. Maybe it will a little bit, but not the heavier side of it, more the songwriter’s side. The new Metric stuff is really exciting. The four of us have been writing a lot together. We each pull in different directions. We actually verbally do it: “Think about this time in music. Let’s mix it with another one and push it towards the future.” The writing’s been really fun.

 

IG: Is the album going to be self-produced again? [Guitarist James Shaw recorded and produced Metric’s last album Live It Out in his own studio]

JW: I don’t think so. We were demoing tracks and giving people options if they want to hear it. I don’t really know yet. We haven’t reached that stage of finalizing that idea.

 

IG: How far into the recording process are you?

JW: Nothing’s recorded. We demoed it so we’d remember what the hell we were doing. There’s so much stuff going on in everyone’s lives that it’s really good to remember it and you can sit back and listen to it. But nothing’s recorded in the sense of finalized tracks. We try to record demos in the highest quality we can so if we do want to use it we can, but nothing’s finalized in that way either. There are a lot of songs written, let’s put it that way.

 

IG: In the collaboration process, you’re actually writing face to face in the studio?

JW: Yeah.

 

IG: Do you find it intimidating?

JW: Oh no. We’ve played together so many times, and been in so many weird situations. We’ve seen each other so high and so low. If we’re going to try and bust each other now and try to hurt each other’s feelings, we should know that now so this thing can end. But it’s not like that at all. Everyone’s really supportive of each other.

 

IG: Is Metric hitting the road again to try out some of the new songs in a live setting?

JW: Absolutely. That’s exactly why we’re doing it. We want to let the kids tell us what they think. We’ve never had this opportunity before, of being able to do this in between the recording and the touring. Before it was always like, record and we’re playing the last album and we’re not playing the new stuff and nothing’s finished. Now we’ve got this large amount of time that we’ve been given and we’re using it to see what they think.

 

IG: Do you gauge it on audience reaction or do you get the opportunity to get out and talk to fans?

JW: Both, absolutely. Everyone’s always recording things on cell phones—there’s a few things that ended up on YouTube already. So you get to see the reaction from stuff like that. You get to watch them react and see if it becomes introspective or if they start dancing and stuff like that. And then afterwards, we’re always hanging out. We’re not the hardest band to find. You wait around 20 minutes and then all of a sudden, there we are. It’s a little hard for Emily because people tend to mob her a little bit. It’s kind of a bummer because she really likes hanging out with people, but there’s just getting to be too many of them. She has to hide away a little bit until it cools down. But for me, Joules, and Jimmy, it’s really easy to go out. Everyone’s always like, “Where’s Emily?” It’s like, “Oh yeah, she has to hide.” It’s a sad thing actually.

 

IG: Do you enjoy the level of recognition you’re at? People who recognize you are most likely fans of the band whereas Emily is more recognizable outside of Metric.

JW: Right, you can see her in magazines. She’s really beautiful as well so everyone’s always photographing her. I’ve never had any other type of recognition, so I don’t know. I don’t know if I’d like to be stared at all the time if I was a super-famous person, that doesn’t sound like a good deal. But it’s fun.

 

IG: As the new tracks are right now, is there a unifying theme or vibe to the record?

JW: Yeah. Like a futuristic space. We’re trying to add a space element to the past. But that’s only in a few dancey songs we’ve got going on. Again it’s got a wide range of places that it’s going.

 

IG: In the past Metric has said that it really wants to grow as a band. Is this album a step forward for the group?

JW: Absolutely. But everyone’s doing that all the time. That’s another reason Emily did the Soft Skeleton [Haine’s backing band on her solo record Knives Don’t Have Your Back] stuff and Joules and I are doing Bang Lime and Jimmy’s producing people now. We really do not want to be a one-trick pony. It’s not even about being successful, it’s about being happy, about being proud of the things you’ve done in your life because that’s what we’re doing—we’re living.

 

IG: Various members have said that they really want Metric to appeal to the masses. Where does this desire come from?

JW: I think that’s the things about being able to communicate, and understanding people and understanding yourself. If you’re having a conversation with somebody and they don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s a one-sided conversation. It might be because you know things that they don’t know, and you have to bring them up to speed. Or it might be because you’re talking gibberish and people don’t want to listen to what you’re saying. It’s not that not being understood is a bad thing. There’s something interesting in an ability to look at what you’re involved in, who you’re involved with, and try to figure out how to communicate with them. Music is called the beta language, verbal speaking is the alpha language. It’s about communication and being able to relate.

 

IG: Is there a band or musician that you look to as having the ideal career?

JW: No, not really. Not just one person. There are too many amazing musicians out there. It’s just musicians in general and artists in general. It could be anybody at all.

 

IG: Metric just re-released its first album, Grow Up and Blow Away, which was recorded before you and Joules joined the band. Will you be playing any of those songs live?

JW: We’ve been playing a couple tracks live already. After Bang Lime finishes, we’re going to go and have a couple days rehearsal and see what songs we all want to play. We had the idea of letting people vote on what they want to hear. We’ll give them a choice. Hopefully that’s still happening, because I really like the idea of getting people to vote on what they want to hear. We’ll see. We were trying to figure out how to do that on the Web.

 

IG: Is there any aspect of the band that gets overlooked when people talk about Metric?

JW: Not really. With the four members, everyone always gets their due. In fact, everyone always talks about how great Emily is, how great Jimmy is, how great Joules and I are, the rhythm section. That’s kind of lame saying how great we are. I’m just talking about in terms of praise; obviously people have issues with us as well—they don’t like certain things. But on the praise side of things, it seems like everyone gets their dues and musically, everything’s really represented. It seems really balanced.

 

IG: Last fall Metric played their first ever show in Halifax. How did it go?

JW: I’m really excited to come up there. I really enjoyed it last time. We had a really fun time.

 

IG: People here tend to really appreciate it when bands come through town.

JW: It’s something about living far away from a major city. It’s weird because most bands are like, “I don’t want to go there, the people are weird…” No. You go there, people are amazing and they’re really respectful. And they’re appreciative that you’re there and that you took the time to come out there.

This interview originally appeared on Halifax Magazine’s website in September of 2007.