Since Mass Romantic came out in late 2000, The New Pornographers have established themselves as not only a truly great band, but also one of the most consistent bands of the past fifteen years.
Since Mass Romantic came out in late 2000, The New Pornographers have established themselves as not only a truly great band, but also one of the most consistent bands of the past fifteen years. Sure, it may be easy for a band to keep up such a high quality of music when their band includes artists such as Neko Case, Dan Beja, AC Newman, and more, but The New Pornographers have also maintained a comfortable stride, whereas other collectives have stumbled here and there along the way. With their sixth album last year, entitled Brill Bruisers, the Pornographers have shown that their still is a lot of gas left in the tank, even as their members enjoy their own solo success more and more.
While Valentine’s Day will try and take over Richmond this Saturday, The New Pornographers will be returning to The National for what should be an incredible show on the same night. Before that, A.C. Newman, the band’s de facto leader, chatted with me about wrangling together the members of the band, plans for the future, thoughts on other Canadian collectives, and on the thought of knowing celebrities.
I think the last time you came to Richmond was late 2010 or early 2011 when you were touring behind Together. Any fond memories of that night?
It’s funny because it was one of those night where you’re in a town and you just get to see a few blocks around the venue. I remember leaving The National and walking for about ten blocks and then just giving up because there was too much to see. I came back to The National and watched Bad News Bears, so that’s my Richmond memory. Well, it was a really fun show that night too.
Now, for Brill Bruisers, did you find it hard wrangling everyone together considering where everyone is in their careers right now?
It was no more difficult than usual. I built a little studio on my property. It was a shed that we had put up a while ago that we just converted for recording, so that’s where we did a lot of the work. That made it a lot easier for me and for others. People could come and stay with me so we could work in a comfortable way and I could be at home. It was really nice that way. It was also spring and summer when we did a lot of of it, so it was easy to tempt people to come down. “Hey, come out to Woodstock for a bit with me and record. It will be fun.”
I don’t know how long it took though. It was a lot of on and off. It was all done with our bass player John Collins producing, so I didn’t want to make him spend six months at my house. He would come for two or three weeks and we would work for two or three weeks. Then he’d go home for two or three weeks, and we went like that for a while. Occasionally we’d have a tour in there or we’d do other things, or I’d go to Vancouver to do the drums. All told, it took about ten or eleven months, but it wasn’t solid work – it was work for a while and then take some time off. I did a soundtrack score in that time too, which took up a lot of that time.
Did you find that working on that soundtrack influenced how you wrote songs for the new record?
The main cross-pollination came from just trying to create something randomly. Doing the soundtrack was really interesting. I would have a scene presented to me and they would say they needed a piece of music that was a minute and a half long to sit in this scene. From there, you just have to start from scratch and just write. That was a good zone to get into and that helped a lot, so there were a few songs on the album that were written just in the studio because I was in the zone. It was the mindset of, “let’s just make things up as we go along.”
I was surprised to see you guys touring as much as you are. Was it even harder to wrangle everyone for that?
Well, Neko isn’t on this leg, unfortunately. She tries to tour with us as much as possible, but it’s just the way the band has always been, so I don’t know if it’s hard or easy. I’m just used to at this point. We’re a strange and unique band in that sense. The only band that I think that has a comparable existence is Broken Social Scene. I think there are a lot of shared experiences between us, not just limited to being a large band from Canada.
With Broken Social Scene on an indefinite hiatus, is it kind of a feather in your cap that you’ve been able to outlast a similar collective of musicians?
I don’t know if they’re done, though. Who knows what indefinite hiatus means, and while it’s been a while, the members themselves are still doing stuff, like Kevin Drew’s album last year. I don’t know – I wouldn’t say we succeeded in staying together while they failed. They made a different choice. I said they’re comparable to us, but it’s not a close comparison to make. We’re not really looking to them a lot of the time too because everything we’ve done has been kind of concurrent. Their first record came out at the same time our second did. Their second record came out at the same time our third record. There are similarities between us, but most of them are accidental, as opposed to one looking to the other for influence.
So who do you think of as influences?
Whatever strikes me in the moment really. I don’t really understand influence. I feel like I’m influenced by whatever I think is good, whether it’s a song or just a piece of a song. Sometimes it’s not an influence where you say “I want to sound like them.” Sometimes it’s an influence where you say “that is great and I want to try and be as good as that.” There’s a lot of modern music that I love, but I wouldn’t say we’re taking anything from them. It does fuel my drive though.
Is it weird then when people tell you that the band sounds like this or that?
I try not to think about what people say about us. I remember years ago, somebody at the label combined all of our press into this booklet of around a hundred pages of photocopies. I remember sitting down and just reading it all. When you take it all at once, it’s so schizophrenic. There’s no general consensus – everyone has their own ideas. All I can do is let people have their ideas of what they think we are. Even if it’s strange, I’d rather hear people’s ideas of what they think we sound like than just regurgitate what they read in a press release.
You guys all keep really busy between albums, so should we expect another solo album from you soon or maybe some more soundtrack work?
I don’t think so. I don’t see myself making another solo album in the near future. I’d like to do soundtracks if I can get the work. I was lucky to get hired for The F Word. Right now, we’ve been demoing some new songs for the Pornographers, so I’m into that. I don’t know when a record would come out, but I’m really enjoying getting into it. I enjoy working on music, ultimately. That’s what I do. There’s no timetable right now though, but we’ve started so I’m hoping there will be a snowball effect that happens to push some momentum.
Are you going to keep the 80s style going or try something completely different?
I love all the synths and arpeggiator, so I think there will be some of that. We’ll see. An album’s personality comes together as you make it so I won’t know until we’ve got about half the songs we’re confident are going to make it onto the final product.
I wanted to ask you about Neko because I know you had said that it was strange for you to see her perceived as this idol for people to worship.
It’s just that people are real. I think anyone in the public eye, people will have this image of who they are. It’s strange when somebody who you know, who is a very real person and a friend, is thought of in a very unreal way. It’s cool that she’s doing so well, but it’s all perplexing to me. I think of all of us in the context of when I met them all in the mid to late 90s. We were just a bunch of unknown Vancouver people and I’m still shocked to find out that that’s not us anymore. We’re still the same people, but obviously we’re not unknown and that’s just a little strange.
To wrap up, what’s a song from your catalogue you wish got some more attention?
Oof, that is a tough one. I really don’t know, but I really like “Hi-Rise” from the new record. I’ll go with that though, since it’s a little overlooked and tucked away at the end of the record. I find the new songs work incredibly well with the new songs for concerts. I’m actually shocked at how well they all gel in a live setting. It seems very seamless, and it’s nice because sometimes, it’s hard to work in the new songs. Here, it’s great because it feels so natural so I think the live show will really benefit from it.
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The New Pornographers will perform live at The National on Saturday, February 14 (aka Valentine’s Day, aka tomorrow night), with special guests Jaill. Doors open at 7 PM. Tickets are $22.50 in advance, $25 at the door–order HERE.
