There are few things more logistically difficult to sort out than the way that Broken Social Scene works. There’s no reason for that really, other than the fact that there are so many songwriters in the band—so many heads—that it makes bands like The Mekons or Husker Du (which each had three songwriters that produced enough material to be considered ‘chief songwriters’ in other bands) look simple to qualify, and there is a rotating cast of personnel through the door.
As a general rule of thumb, the appearance of solo project releases by musicians apart from their established band usually signals that the group in question is in a whole lot of either creative or interpersonal turmoil. After all, why would an individual in a creatively healthy band strive to operate outside of those confines? Usually, side projects appear because a musician finds his or her main act creatively dissatisfying and needs a second outlet.
Broken Social Scene, however, is the exception that proves the rule; most of the band’s members had careers before the band’s debut, Feel Good Lost, appeared in 2001 and Broken Social Scene is, in fact, the side project for most of the group’s nineteen members. That great number of personnel has yielded a tremendous amount of content; since 2001, Broken Social Scene has released six albums and two EPs along with a galaxy of singles (in formats ranging from digital to vinyl to compact disc). The last two albums have specifically named members in their titles; further adding to the confusion and giving the impression that these are splintered factions of the band. In conversation though, Broken Social Scene co-founder Brendan Canning carefully and patiently outlined exactly how Broken Social Scene operates, why the last two releases have specifically boasted his own and fellow co-founder Kevin Drew’s names, how those albums factor into the ‘Broken Social Scene dynasty,’ and who ultimately plays what. It seems like it should all be terribly complicated, but to hear Canning explain it, how this group functions is the height of simplicity itself; with so many writers brings the possibility of a number of different sounds and that keeps the band from getting boring, stale or formulaic. In conversation with the singer, one gets the impression that all of it is as rewarding for the group’s members as it has clearly been for those fans that have supported the group’s fantastic rise.
Bill Adams vs. Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene
BC: Hello?
BA: Hey Brendan, it’s Bill Adams calling. Is now okay to do the interview? I know I’m a little early….
BC: Yeah now’s fine. I was surprised that you wanted to do it early.
BA: Aw, this isn’t early. It used to be my step-daughters that got me up, but we recently got a nine-week-old puppy and now she’s doing it. I guess it was an even trade.
BC: Yeah, my dog gets me up before anyone [laughing]. Ours is more of a rescue mission dog that is eight years old and was left stranded somewhere, so we’ve since inherited the pooch. So he’s a different kind of problem; he’s not the puppy kind of problem, he’s a psychotic little guy.
BA: What breed is it?
BC: He’s a Chihuahua mix. We’re calling him a miniature Doberman [chuckling]. He’s built like a miniature brick shit-house. He rides in a knapsack and fills it so it works.
BA: Ours is pretty funny because it doesn’t matter who you are, she’s happy to see you. Always. Anyway, so how are things going? I heard you were recently in Europe on tour?
BC: Uhm, well, no. The last run we did through Europe was in May; we did a run from May 7th to May 28th starting in Istanbul and ending in Helsinki.
BA: Really? That sounds like a really fun trip.
BC: Yeah it was a really fun trip! We got to go to Moscow and did a bunch of neat stuff in the UK and Ireland, and the Netherlands….
BA: Is this your first time through all that?
BC: Oh no. We’ve been going to Europe since 2003, but it was our first trip going to Istanbul.
BA: I knew you’d been to Europe before, I was referring more to the particular portion of Europe that you were in.
BC: Oh yeah—Moscow, Helsinki and Turkey—that was all brand new.
BA: That’s cool, how were the shows received?
BC: Really good! It was a whole bunch of indie rock fans, just in a different part of the world.
BA: It has to be pretty gratifying to know that you’re reaching that far….
BC: Yeah, it was nice to get there and not be playing to an empty house, that’s for sure.
BA: I don’t doubt that, were you playing large rooms?
BC: Meh, in Istanbul we did a couple of nights at a 500-capacity place, in Moscow we played the four-fifty kind of thing, so not massive, but reasonable.
BA: And now you’re doing Hillside Festival this year right? Headlining?
BC: I guess we’re closing on Sunday night, yeah. I’m not sure if that means we’re headlining, but we’re definitely going to be there.
BA: Well, I’m pretty sure that Broken Social Scene is the biggest band on the bill this year….
BC: Yeah—I’m really not sure who else is on the bill this year actually.
BA: There are a few acts that I know and recognize but, there’s indie rock and then there’s the quadrant that I tend to occupy. Well, to put none too fine a point on it, I just finished a discography review for The Butthole Surfers.
BC: Oh really?
BA: Yeah, so that’s the annex that I tend to occupy.
BC: Yeah? That’s cool. I saw the Buttholes in ‘91 at Lollapalooza.
BA: It was wild wasn’t it? It’s funny because even the internet seems to be a little afraid of them still. I remember seeing Gibby Haynes light his hand on fire on David Letterman in ‘96. I’ve probably told different people about that one hundred times yet it’s nowhere on Youtube.
BC: Isn’t that funny?
BA: Yeah – but that’s all sort of beside the point. So what are the set lists looking like for this string of dates? I’m sure that Hillside isn’t a standalone….
BC: Well, it’s some of the newer tunes off of my record that’s about to come out, some tunes off of Kev’s record, some ‘Broken’ oldies and some ‘Broken’ newbies.
BA: Oh really? There may be some unreleased or yet-to-be recorded Broken Social Scene songs?
BC: Yeah – we try to keep it a little bit fresh for ourselves you know?
BA: Well, I’ve always been a little bit curious about that too, because Broken Social Scene is literally that, as far as everybody in the band having a career before they joined and continues to have one outside of the group. As you said, you just released the solo record….
BC: Yeah, but I don’t think things really got cooking for me until Kevin and I started Broken Social Scene. My main source of income before that was as a DJ.
BA: Well, that’s sort of in keeping with what I was going to ask too – with that many songwriters in the band, you must have a fairly constant influx of material. How does time and the material get divided? Is it a matter of bringing a song in and then the decision gets made, ‘Uh, well take that one and use it for your solo stuff’ or ‘Oh yeah! Let’s do that one!’ and so on and so forth in that regard….
BC: It’s mostly a matter of when we can all get together that we’ll start writing songs. Because the band is what it is and people are out doing other things, it’s not always as easy to just get everyone together to be writing together. When we are together, I think things flow fast and furious.
BA: That makes sense. As far as your solo record was concerned, was it a matter of, ‘Okay, these songs don’t really fit with what BSS is doing…’
BC: Actually, I didn’t have any songs before I went in to make a record; I just went in and started mucking about to see what sounds I liked and what inspired me. It’s not like a band that writes songs together in their jam space and then does pre-production, mine is an altogether more messy adventure.
BA: I don’t know, I rather enjoyed the record.
BC: Oh, well thank you.
BA: It’s funny because the first couple of tracks reminded me very much of Afghan Whigs.
BC: Oh yeah? That’s cool – I think I’ve had one other person say that.
BA: You did the vocals on those two songs right? Did you do them all?
BC: I pretty much did them all. Lisa Lobsinger does vocals on one, Kevin did some on “Churches Under The Stairs”—it’s more of a duet between the two of us—and Sam Goldberg takes a verse in the song “Been At It So Long” and Liz Powell from Land Of Talk takes a verse there as well. Generally though, I am the vocalist.
BA: Okay—I was trying to figure that out because as I was looking through the liners, I started counting singers.
BC: Yeah, I didn’t credit it to whichever song.
BA: They did send a bio with it as well and I’m trying to figure it all out. Was this honestly a matter of healthy competition? What was the impetus to do a solo record?
BC: It was more just a case of recording at a studio that my neighbor operates out of and he had been asking me for a couple of years to come in. It was January and I had just finished working on the soundtrack for Bruce MacDonald’s film, The Tracy Fragments, and there seemed to be a lull in the Broken Social Scene action. What else was I going to do? I’m not really trained for anything else, so I walked into a studio and made some music.
BA: So, to a certain degree, it was a matter of opportunity.
BC: Yeah, definitely. It was a chance to work with new people that I had never worked with before. I had worked a bit on another little thing with some—they were doing another little thing so I came into their studio and wrote a couple of things with them. Then one little riff I came up with I said, ‘Oh why don’t we save that for something else’ and that turned out to be the tune “Possible Grenade.” So I guess that was the only thing we had before going in to actually start the record. There are a couple of older songs from an earlier session that did filter in as well.
BA: Now, the record just came out today right?
BC: Actually, it’s not going to be released until July 22nd.
BA: Oh! I stand corrected.
BC: I think we were trying for July 8. At one point, I think we were trying for May sometime. I thought it might come out in April….
BA: How long has it been in the can?
BC: Not that long, that’s the thing; when I thought it was all finished—at the end of the Spirit If… last year, the only riff I had was the bass line for “Churches Under The Stairs” so that was the final song to be done.
BA: Now, because you’re going to be on the road when the record hits, will Hillside be almost like a preview/dry run to see how it goes? You were saying that the sets would include stuff off of this, stuff from Kevin’s record, old BSS stuff and new, unreleased stuff is going to get examination, is that going to be the flavor of the tour?
BC: I think that’s going to be the flavor of the rest of 2008. I don’t want to confuse matters anymore with solo projects. Broken Social Scene is the band I started and these are the people that are going to be onstage playing and the Broken Social Scene Presents Brendan Canning record are Broken Social Scene so it’s really just a matter of semantics.
BA: …And everybody’s always up for some antics.
BC: [chuckling] Yeah! Yeah, who doesn’t want some antics in their rock n’ roll?
BA: Uhm, now then, is touring for Broken Social Scene difficult to organize?
BC: We’re going out as a seven-piece and we’ll pick up people along the way when they happen to be around. The actual touring party will be myself, Kevin Drew, Justin Peroff, Andrew Whiteman, Charles Spearin, Sam Goldberg and Leon Kingstone.
BA: Oh, okay. See, I’ve always been curious because I’m not exactly sure how many people contribute to the record—what is it, like forty-two?
BC: Well, maybe about half that, but a lot.
BA: A fair number anyway, and I’ve always wondered how that translates to a live setting.
BC: It’s just a matter of listening to the tunes and trying to play them; there are going to be things that sounded great in the studio but will be unreasonable to try and recreate outside of that for whatever reason. Live, people just want to see a good show so nitpicking isn’t necessary.
BA: So, for the most part, it’s more a matter of interpretation over replication.
BC: Yeah—and the arrangements on the songs are fairly solid—they’re not abstract pieces of work….
BA: Yeah, you’re not playing Sonic Youth songs.
BC: Even with Sonic Youth songs, they’ve hit a certain format that goes from noise to melody and we sort of do that too, at different intervals. Visual cues are a must [laughing].
BA: I can understand that. So if I understand correctly, the rest of the year is going to be spent trying to round out and collect the solo records that have come in the last six months or so correct?
BC: Yeah—my record’s coming out in July so I have to put some face time toward the touring of it. I’ve got the support of my band…
BA: …And Kevin’s already done some touring behind his….
BC: Yeah—that was last year. And it was still Broken Social Scene, it was just a different line-up; Andrew Whiteman wasn’t there so we had Bill Priddle [formerly of Treble Charger, currently of The Bill Priddle Concern –ed] for some of it, and James Shaw of Metric for some of it, Andrew Kenny from American Analog Set came out for some….so we had a different line-up but we’d also pick up other people along the way….
BA: Yeah, I read a concert review from a show in California—or I guess it was a Kevin Drew show—and I guess a bunch of the satellite players came along. It has to be pretty fun and liberating to not worry about a consistent line-up; whoever’s got time and is inclined comes out.
BC: Yeah, I think it’s just being able to run with it or turn on a dime and adapting to the cards you’ve been dealt that makes it a challenge and makes it fun. It keeps life interesting, that’s for sure.
BA: Now, we talked a little about the studio time a little, how long were you in making the album?
BC: We were in from January 2007 until July maybe, and then it kind of resumed again from December until March of 2008. I took some time off, and some other ventures came up with the Spirit If… tour and we did a cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” for this movie The Time Traveller’s Wife; We’re actually in the film as the wedding band as well. That’s coming out on Christmas Day I think, and it’s starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. I don’t know what the movie’s going to be like, but it was fun for us.
BA: Cool—well, thanks for taking a couple of minutes to talk to me.
BC: Oh thank you Bill, I really appreciate the interview.
BA: The pleasure was absolutely mine. Have a good day.
BC: Alright, you too—good luck with the pooch.
Artist:
www.arts-crafts.ca/brendancanning
myspace.com/brendancanning
Album:
Broken Social Scene Presents Brendan Canning: Something For All of Us is available on July 22nd. Buy it on Amazon.
Download:
Broken Social Scene Presents Brendan Canning – "Hit the Wall" – [mp3]
