Some bands are easy to qualify. On the very first listen to their very first record, any listener can have the band in question figured out – where they’ve been, where they’re going, how they’re going to get there and, in some cases, each stop that they’re going to make along the way – and said group will simply live out the predestined act precisely to expectation. That isn’t a slight necessarily, such was the case with musical institutions including The Ramones, AC/DC, The Replacements and even U2, and in some ways it is gratifying for some listeners to know what to expect even as a band grows and “expands“.
Other bands, like Montreal‘s Stills, don’t work that way though. At their inception, The Stills presented themselves very simply as an aesthetically-aware but easy to digest rock band in the dawn of the Canadian indie rock insurrection (that would also yield such groups as The Constantines, The Dears and Broken Social Scene) and, because of that easy-to-palette delivery, were one of the first of the lot to enjoy heavy rotation on modern rock radio. Listeners almost instantly flocked to the band’s banner on the strength of songs like “Love And Death” and the runaway hit single “Still In Love Song” and when the band released its’ sophomore album, Without Feathers, in 2006, their course appeared to be cemented to those on the outside looking in. Those on the inside knew better though; as Stills singer Tim Fletcher admits, nothing in his band or the way they make music is ever set in stone and the proof lies in their newest album, Oceans Will Rise. “You never know what’s going to come out when you walk into a studio; you could walk into a wonderful experience or a situation that is very difficult and confusing, and it really has a lot to do with personalities and people’s willingness to be open-minded and make the most of it,” explains Fletcher as he begins to outline his band’s The Stills’ studio operating procedure. “We didn’t know what to expect when we started making Oceans Will Rise really, we had these songs but we didn’t know which aspects of them were going to take the front. Expectations are a hard thing to discuss, but we knew we had a bunch of really forceful songs and really confident songs so we just wanted to bring them to life in the most appropriate way. We went in with about fifteen or sixteen finished as we usually do; the lyrics and melodies were done, a lot of the rhythm section was worked out and then if we had little changes to make in the studio, we’d do that. It’s just a matter of sounds; you don’t know what sounds you’re going to use
“I do think it’s a logical progression for us – like a step in a further direction – but a lot of people have said that they feel like it bridges the gap between the first and second records,” continues the singer. “I guess that’s a good thing, but it’s still The Stills you know?”
In that assertion, Fletcher betrays a fact that seems like the height of simplicity itself; but will still come as a wonderful surprise to listeners. For their third album (first for Arts & Crafts), The Stills don’t so much jettison the aspects of their music that drew the comparisons to Interpol and Joy Division so much as place them in the background and overlay a tide of tranquil introspection that’s immediately disarming and enticing. The change is felt immediately in the opening strains of “Don’t Talk Down” as, with the Joy Division undercurrent driving the song, guitarist David Hamelin stirs up some exhilarating textures and Fletcher heaves a mighty sigh that will make listeners swoon. The effect is one of relief – like the aural equivalent of succumbing to the tranquility of a sensory deprivation tank – and, with that mood set, the band simply rides it into a unique place that’s incredibly comfortable, relaxing and a complete departure for a band whose fans had grown accustomed to – and come to expect – a fairly formulaic delivery from The Stills. Did the band intend it that way? Bravely, Fletcher says that even the band themselves didn’t see it coming because the writing process for the record began almost two years ago and, while some of the songs matured on stage, many of them continue to mutate. “We actually started writing for this record while we were on tour and, by the time we got back to Montreal, we did a lot of demoing at our own little studio and experimented with what we had to see what worked and what didn’t,” says Fletcher of the arduous process that the making of Oceans Will Rise eventually became. “Once we decided what we wanted to run with, we spent about three months in the studio and got it to where we liked it.
“By then, we were playing “Snakecharming The Masses,” “Snow In California,” “Being Here,” “Eastern Europe,” “Rooibos” and a version of “Panic” before we went into the studio. We weren’t touring much, but every time we’d do a show, we lean pretty heavily on the new songs which was good because we got a great perspective on what was working and what wasn’t before we went into the studio; some things that work great live don’t translate in the studio. For example, we had a version of “Snow In California” that was much more reminiscent of The Clash circa 1982 and it wasn’t working in the studio as well as it did live so we had to renovate it when we went to record it.”
According to the singer, that sort of involuntary growth and evolution in the structures of the new songs has continued even after the album’s release and, while in some cases the sounds on Oceans Will Rise sound as if they’d be nigh impossible to pull off in a live setting, while in some cases on a track-by-track basis what fans at the shows might get is a shockingly similar experience to the record, in other cases what listeners will experience at a live show now may be completely different from the record. “The songs aren’t that hard to pull off live,” reassures Fletcher of the transition between the record and the stage. “Like, there are some parts that are a little more intricate but, if you sit with it and work it, it becomes second nature with a little practice.
“The way we’ve always looked at it is that the live show and what you hear on a record are two separate entities; you simply cannot do some things live – like you can’t have a tape echo at the front of the house – that sound great on the record so we have to offer interpretations of that on stage. I’d say that we’ve been doing a pretty good job of interpreting the songs that is true to the versions on the album, but I’m sure that by the end of the tour, we’ll be doing butchered mutant versions with wooden percussion and things like that.
“We know what’s going to happen about as well as fans do,” laughs the singer. “That’s part of what makes it so much fun for us: we constantly try different things, come up with new ideas, and present them as best we can. For this band, songwriting is our way of relating to the world.”
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