Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Emily Haines of The Vectric. Emily,
Speaker 1: good to have you on the podcast, so I can
Speaker 1: see you in a studio. But where are you? New York, Toronto, wherever?
Speaker 1: I'm in a rural hamlet, Okay, rural himle if there's
Speaker 1: a lot of them, rural hamlet, Canada, United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's in Canada. It's just outside Toronto. And is that
Speaker 1: where you spend most of your time these days? Um,
Speaker 1: Now that the world has come back to a certain degree,
Speaker 1: I'm back in it, um, but certainly for the making
Speaker 1: of music and the living of life. I do love
Speaker 1: a rural hamlet. So what is inspirational about a rural hamlet.
Speaker 1: I just the lack of a town, which means less
Speaker 1: of the usual things that humans bring to everything, which
Speaker 1: is politics. Like I love how we separate out politics
Speaker 1: as though it's something separate. It's all of life. So
Speaker 1: because there's no town, there's none of that, and it's
Speaker 1: rolling hills and rivers and I always see like little foxes,
Speaker 1: and I see turtles and frogs and deer and you know,
Speaker 1: rabbits and every day, certainly at this time of year.
Speaker 1: What it's a completely different landscape in terms of blooming.
Speaker 1: I have all these wild flowers that just do their thing.
Speaker 1: Even the weeds, you know, milkweed. I'm down with it.
Speaker 1: You know, the butterflies need it. Uh So that's why
Speaker 1: I like a rural hamlet. So what inspires you in
Speaker 1: terms of your creative work you're writing, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you added something to that sentence. Is that was big? Um?
Speaker 1: In terms of the work, uh, I feel that it's
Speaker 1: over the years become quite clear that it almost I
Speaker 1: would feel it's a balanced combination of these things. Which
Speaker 1: is at this point a deep loyalty and commitment to
Speaker 1: my band, and which is they're my family. UM. So
Speaker 1: I'm inspired by the idea, just the idea of us
Speaker 1: UM following through on our ideas and visions. UM is
Speaker 1: now like deeply motivating and inspiring. UM. The people who
Speaker 1: listen to it, I'm inspired by them because I still
Speaker 1: can't believe even though there's so much cynicism, I just
Speaker 1: still feel incredibly fortunate too exist in someone's mind. I
Speaker 1: know it's hot real estate these days, UM, and I
Speaker 1: feel pretty pretty toughed and lucky that my music makes
Speaker 1: it into people's lives and soundtracks. So I'm inspired to
Speaker 1: like continue providing that service to people. Um. And then
Speaker 1: there's just the craft itself which keeps me busy. As
Speaker 1: every songwriter will tell you who's obsessed. Um, it's just
Speaker 1: a fascinating craft. Um. The fact that you have eight keys,
Speaker 1: and the incredible amount of things that can come out
Speaker 1: of just these keys, you know. And I only write
Speaker 1: in one language, and I even still feel like there's
Speaker 1: so much to be done. Um. And definitely like driven
Speaker 1: by a sense of my legacy to my father, who
Speaker 1: it's just like such a great strange poet, um, with
Speaker 1: such a love of language and the idea of the
Speaker 1: feeling when you get an insight sort of encapsulated in
Speaker 1: to something so concise and beautiful as he would do.
Speaker 1: So those are the things that keep me going. Well,
Speaker 1: let maybe very specific. Some people they walk down the street,
Speaker 1: they look at the people it inspires them for ideas.
Speaker 1: Other people watch TV, other people read books or magazines.
Speaker 1: Other people just live their regular life and inspiration hits
Speaker 1: them whenever, like in the shower or driving a car.
Speaker 1: In terms of writing music itself, how do you begin
Speaker 1: the process. Uh, I feel like I'm kind of always
Speaker 1: in it. Um. You don't want to get too far,
Speaker 1: but uh, and I know what you mean, like that
Speaker 1: distinction between sort of like principles that you live your
Speaker 1: life by, which is sort of more what I just
Speaker 1: gave you. Um. But in terms of like when things strike,
Speaker 1: it's kind of an odd sensation, like I'll kind of
Speaker 1: be doing something, it doesn't really matter what or where,
Speaker 1: and I'll i'll sense that you know, um, something might
Speaker 1: be getting clear. And that's why I have pianos. I
Speaker 1: never really have a piano like too far away from me.
Speaker 1: I have one on each floor of my house, um,
Speaker 1: just in case. And I just I'm always amazed by
Speaker 1: the feeling because you can't. It's a humble thing, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, so much is on the cutting
Speaker 1: room floor, but um, it would be like this weird
Speaker 1: sensation and I'll go to the piano and usually it's
Speaker 1: just like, you know, it's just gibberish, and it's those
Speaker 1: same mean, there's only so many chords, right. But the
Speaker 1: strangest thing when things coalesce in this odd order, um,
Speaker 1: which I do find mostly inspired by the natural world.
Speaker 1: The way you see it play out where things have
Speaker 1: such symmetry, but there's no way that you could stage
Speaker 1: that m or force that. But so I usually record immediately.
Speaker 1: As soon as I kind of have that sense, I
Speaker 1: just sit down. I just start recording, and you know,
Speaker 1: lots of it's nothing and some of it um, I'll listen.
Speaker 1: I'll listen back quite immediately, and it's almost like this
Speaker 1: is a super old school thing. But like you need
Speaker 1: to take a pencil and rub like a piece of
Speaker 1: paper over in nickel and it would like show the
Speaker 1: form of the nickel. It feels like that, like I
Speaker 1: like what was gibberish, I can hear the whole thing
Speaker 1: and then and then I'm like, okay, well now I
Speaker 1: have something. And then that's just the beginning. And then
Speaker 1: it has to go through this like tough love, uh
Speaker 1: process to make it on a metric record. But that's
Speaker 1: sort of how begins. Okay, let's go back to something
Speaker 1: you said earlier. Your father, your father was a poet.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that. Uh. Paul Haynes vast Or Michigan
Speaker 1: UM football star and secret poet. UH served in the
Speaker 1: Korean War. Didn't see battle, but he because he could
Speaker 1: type had the job of typing up the leaves of
Speaker 1: absences for soldiers, which is I think such a great
Speaker 1: job to have. So of course he did everything you
Speaker 1: could fabricate as many as possible, I'm sure, Um. And
Speaker 1: then as a result of the g I bill uh,
Speaker 1: which maybe you're familiar with, absolutely incredible for those who
Speaker 1: may not be that you know, if you serve in
Speaker 1: the army pace for your college. Yeah, but in which
Speaker 1: is for sure the correct, succinct version of it. But
Speaker 1: in the case of someone like my father, Um from
Speaker 1: a small town in Michigan, he it was a passport
Speaker 1: to the world for him. So he in his travels,
Speaker 1: UM got to build upon some of his early discoveries
Speaker 1: of jazz. Um in Flint, Michigan and driving to Detroit
Speaker 1: he was he would go and record um musicians playing jazz. Well, well,
Speaker 1: let's go a little bit slower. So your father was
Speaker 1: in the military, and before that he went to college
Speaker 1: and he was a football player. Do I have the
Speaker 1: order right? You do? The football player was deeply high
Speaker 1: school and I'm the photo of in Miami. Yeah, Just
Speaker 1: so I understand. Did he go to uh Korea before
Speaker 1: or after he went to college? After he went to
Speaker 1: Miami University of Miami. Okay, so we already graduated from
Speaker 1: Miami when he went into the service. I think that's right.
Speaker 1: And then while he was there he was able to
Speaker 1: build upon his love of jazz, which is where he
Speaker 1: met Mitchell Konta, whose end up was a writer about Sartre.
Speaker 1: My father had all these interactions with this world. Wait
Speaker 1: wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, these things
Speaker 1: just don't happen. Howes he get from Korean uh to
Speaker 1: interact with all these people and they aren't necessarily you know,
Speaker 1: around the corner in Michigan. I don't. This is and
Speaker 1: this is uh. You know, it's funny with speaking with you, Bob,
Speaker 1: because I know that you love a detailed conversation, and
Speaker 1: it's hard with a question about my father because we
Speaker 1: really could have a whole separate I feel like there
Speaker 1: should be an episodic series on the life of Paul Haynes.
Speaker 1: So I'm more than happy to sort of direct my
Speaker 1: my tail, but as much as I can, because we
Speaker 1: could there's a lot um. Well then let me let
Speaker 1: me be let me let's go back to the way
Speaker 1: you were saying it. So he's out of the army,
Speaker 1: and he's traveling around getting these influences. Just give us
Speaker 1: a little bit of the story, you know, as it's
Speaker 1: been told to you. Yeah, that the mythology and the family. Um.
Speaker 1: So then you know, he comes back to the United
Speaker 1: States having had these experiences. He meets my mother in
Speaker 1: New York City, um, introduced by a friend, and there
Speaker 1: they get aloft in soho and or I guess that
Speaker 1: would have been the late fifties, early their sixties. We
Speaker 1: can check all my timelines. Um. He shared a lot
Speaker 1: with Michael Snow, the Canadian artist uh times where they
Speaker 1: would share like going back and forth between each other's
Speaker 1: cold water lofts as they called them, I guess because
Speaker 1: they had no hot water. And then in that time,
Speaker 1: as I understand it, he met Carla blaz the composer,
Speaker 1: and they started up an incredible creative relationship where he
Speaker 1: would write these librettos, these lyrics for her work, the
Speaker 1: most UH known of which UH was the culmination of
Speaker 1: work he did when my mother and father were in India.
Speaker 1: Their travels took them to New Mexico and to India,
Speaker 1: so they had me and New Delhi, and in that
Speaker 1: time my father was writing what became the libretto for
Speaker 1: Carla Blaze Escalator Over the Hill Um. And then so
Speaker 1: my childhood was imbued with not only the story as
Speaker 1: I've tried to tell it up till now, ah, but
Speaker 1: this actual music and the incredible life force that is
Speaker 1: Carla Blay Um. And there were all of these other
Speaker 1: tentacles that my father had through mixed tapes that he
Speaker 1: made that he sent. You know, one of my favorites
Speaker 1: is Evan Parker, the incredible saxophonist who performed at my
Speaker 1: father's memorial, connecting him with Robert wyatt Um from Soft Machine,
Speaker 1: who my father would make tapes for. And then when
Speaker 1: I was a young woman coming up writing songs, I
Speaker 1: would send my songs to Robert and he would send
Speaker 1: me back postcards and give me guidance. And yeah, but
Speaker 1: all of this in this like non celebrity. You know,
Speaker 1: my parents are teachers, right. My father is a French teacher. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: just when you're when you when your father is in
Speaker 1: New York and when he's in India, is he teaching?
Speaker 1: Is that how he's paying the bill? Yeah? I kept
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was teaching in New York. Um,
Speaker 1: I know that in India he worked for the International
Speaker 1: School UM and I have his He got an award
Speaker 1: for endurance, which I look at a lot in softball
Speaker 1: UM from the embassy in New Delhi. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the story is there, but I just I love
Speaker 1: his like I'm obsessed with this idea of the athlete
Speaker 1: poet like this is my calling is to hopefully master
Speaker 1: the hybrid more than he did, because in the end,
Speaker 1: his body succumbed to his mind, if you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. He was so such an intellectual that I
Speaker 1: just feel like if he was able to stay with
Speaker 1: a part of him that was an athlete, we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have lost him so young. Um, How old was How
Speaker 1: old was he when he passed? Yeah? He was seventy okay?
Speaker 1: And are you athletic yourself? I am? I am even
Speaker 1: more so now as a result, my brother and sister
Speaker 1: and I all of us are pretty fired up. But
Speaker 1: he passed away on my thirty, just before my thirtieth birthday,
Speaker 1: on the day that we finished World World Underground, our
Speaker 1: first album, So is a The torch was handed very dramatically,
Speaker 1: died very suddenly. So um, But what a cool life.
Speaker 1: I mean, endlessly inspiring and his I feel like you'd
Speaker 1: appreciate his writing. Actually, can I tell you? Can I
Speaker 1: tell you one? Let me just give you one. You'll
Speaker 1: you'll love this so um, I think so. An example
Speaker 1: of Paul Haynes's poem is this um poem is called
Speaker 1: Practicing Safe Emotion. Practicing Safe Emotion. It was the back
Speaker 1: of his chair, she rubbed. That's all. But those things
Speaker 1: you know, you'll be walking around doing your thing, you're vacuuming,
Speaker 1: think about that stuff, you know. He's like these observations
Speaker 1: so beautiful or something, but also like the least commercial
Speaker 1: thing that's ever been thought of. Probably, um, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm interesting. I'm interested in your own pursuit of
Speaker 1: athleticism as half of your life, the creative intellectual part
Speaker 1: being the other half. Well, I think it's funny when
Speaker 1: you think, you know and your kid, how we get
Speaker 1: we get? You know, it gets decided right in in
Speaker 1: school at some point. Um, if you're a jock, or
Speaker 1: you're theater kid, or your whatever else, all the categories right,
Speaker 1: but it's usually you know, it's either the life of
Speaker 1: the mind or the life of the body. And I
Speaker 1: think that It's took me a long time to realize
Speaker 1: that I really am both. And the only way I'm
Speaker 1: going to be able to do what I want to
Speaker 1: do is to have my my body be part of
Speaker 1: my mind and both. You know, I can't just live
Speaker 1: in your mind. You gotta the music is like it's
Speaker 1: it's through you. Um, so you know, And there's also
Speaker 1: like a practical reality of metrics shows. I mean, it's great,
Speaker 1: it's a self fulfilling thing, but a metric show demands Cardio.
Speaker 1: And because the metric show demands Cardio, that I have
Speaker 1: to do it, and it kind of all it's part
Speaker 1: of my plan. Okay, So Cardio would imply that you
Speaker 1: work out, but also are you a runner, a hike
Speaker 1: or a skier or any of that? Or is your
Speaker 1: physicality mostly about working in the gym. I don't work
Speaker 1: in the gym. I run, And so how often do
Speaker 1: you run? As much as I want to have this
Speaker 1: joy based approach. Um, My sister in law and and
Speaker 1: my brother are both marathon runners, but they're so chill
Speaker 1: about it and it's really inspiring. I'm not remotely on
Speaker 1: their level. Um, but you know, some people get so
Speaker 1: addicted and it becomes like everything else in life that
Speaker 1: you've just basically ruined it for yourself. So for me, UM,
Speaker 1: I I feel like the formula is like I have
Speaker 1: to come to it with joy. I have to come
Speaker 1: to it genuinely wanting to do it, um. And then
Speaker 1: once I'm in UM, then it's every day because you
Speaker 1: just want to. It's like a body scan of really
Speaker 1: amazement when I, you know, think of myself jumping off
Speaker 1: speaker stacks into crowds, or doesn't even living in a
Speaker 1: on a tour bus, or like, you know, the occupational
Speaker 1: hazards of being a musician, just running and being like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, everything works, nothing hurts. How is this possible?
Speaker 1: You know? And I know that as time progresses there
Speaker 1: will be obstacles, But at this point in my life, incredibly,
Speaker 1: I'm out on the trail and the rivers running by
Speaker 1: me and nothing hurts. So I do it as much
Speaker 1: for that reason, you know. Okay, let's go back. You're
Speaker 1: born in New Delhi. Do you have any memories of
Speaker 1: New Delhi? And how does the family end up in Canada?
Speaker 1: They left when I was three? Um, I don't I
Speaker 1: feel like it's that thing where you have pictures in
Speaker 1: your head. That are the photographs you saw. But um,
Speaker 1: they got work in Canada as teachers. Um. I think
Speaker 1: it was again through Michael Snow and Joyce Wheland, who
Speaker 1: my mother is a visual artist. And Joyce Leland was
Speaker 1: a tragically overlooked in my opinion artist. She's the wife
Speaker 1: of Michael Snow who's very famous in Canada. But she
Speaker 1: did like almost like Tracy Emmon style, like fabric work,
Speaker 1: really cool stuff ahead of her time. But I believe
Speaker 1: they helped um along with UM. That's right, Zalman from
Speaker 1: The Loving Spoonful. I mean, honestly, you might know as
Speaker 1: well as I do. I don't have to ask my mom.
Speaker 1: I can't remember how, but it was just you know,
Speaker 1: you're growing up, you're like, oh, yeah, of course your
Speaker 1: pals with him, UM and I and I have seen
Speaker 1: the letters where my dad wrote and said, hey guys,
Speaker 1: UM any word of work, you know. And obviously at
Speaker 1: that time it was um not related to anything to
Speaker 1: do with military service. But the previous Trudeau, obviously Pierre
Speaker 1: Trudeau is really opening the borders to people. A lot
Speaker 1: of people were coming in the seventies, so this was
Speaker 1: seventies six. Um, so wait, so I was two or
Speaker 1: three whatever, seventy six something like that. Um and Zal
Speaker 1: I think I think maybe he was the one who
Speaker 1: found sent my dad like a clipping that some remote
Speaker 1: school in the north, um you know, deep snow. Uh
Speaker 1: I was looking for teachers, and they applied, they got
Speaker 1: my dad got a job immediately, I guess. So my
Speaker 1: poor brother and sister went from you know, being in
Speaker 1: India two being in you know, snow up to your neck.
Speaker 1: And the quintessential Haynes family photograph is I'm a baby
Speaker 1: and they're we're all standing in front of the sign
Speaker 1: that says like no food or fuel north. At this point,
Speaker 1: it's just like snow up to your ears. And you
Speaker 1: know they were adventurers. I think that was their love story. Okay,
Speaker 1: so how long were you in that area or did
Speaker 1: you move to the city? Uh? Well, the families sort
Speaker 1: of stayed there, um north in and around. Uh, but
Speaker 1: I when I was fifteen moved to Toronto. Just you know,
Speaker 1: because they've got a lot of Americans listening, We're not
Speaker 1: Canadians savvy. Where exactly is this in Canada? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I do value my privacy, Bob, So it's North I'm
Speaker 1: just talking. No, No, I'm talking about where you grew
Speaker 1: up with your parents. Yeah, we're all that snow. Oh
Speaker 1: so it's it's it's within close driving distance of Toronto
Speaker 1: that you grew up. The first place that they that
Speaker 1: they landed was smooth Rock Falls, which I don't remember.
Speaker 1: And just where is that? Is that? North five fars? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I should also full disclosure and really bad with like
Speaker 1: and believe me, I get mocked for this of having
Speaker 1: a band called Metric and being like I can't measure anything,
Speaker 1: Like I'm not trying to, you know, I'm like, how
Speaker 1: far is it? I'm like, I don't know. I'm measuring
Speaker 1: it in time, you know. My brother's like how big?
Speaker 1: How big is it? I'm like, I don't know. He's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you hold two albums up? Is it two albums?
Speaker 1: Is it one? So just so you know, that's why
Speaker 1: I'm extra sketchy on those U okay the files kilometers
Speaker 1: you're living far from civilization. You come to Toronto with fifteen,
Speaker 1: but prior to being fifteen, are you out in the boonies? No?
Speaker 1: They moved to this other town that was more like
Speaker 1: weird and the kind of place that you want to
Speaker 1: probably get out of quickly. And if you wanted to
Speaker 1: get in your car and drive to Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto,
Speaker 1: how long does that take. It's a couple of hours
Speaker 1: to Toronto. Okay. So you're growing up, do you have
Speaker 1: a perception that your parents are outsiders bohemians? Are they
Speaker 1: just teachers and you're a regular kid in the in
Speaker 1: the town? Um? Yeah, I think I yeah, I felt
Speaker 1: the weirdness. Um, but it took a while because I
Speaker 1: just was having such a good time. Like we had
Speaker 1: this huge backyard and you know, it's that thing where
Speaker 1: you're a kid and you don't realize that you don't
Speaker 1: have any money, and then it's like later, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: weird they you know, we were taking the washing to
Speaker 1: the dryer in the laundromat because it broke and they
Speaker 1: couldn't fix it. You know, it's like, right, this is
Speaker 1: a bohemian situation. But I was just the house was
Speaker 1: full of all these like crazy beautiful pieces from India
Speaker 1: and their travels and books and music, and we were
Speaker 1: having a good time and um, but yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: there being a story about one of the neighbors saying
Speaker 1: because my parents had friends over probably um uh, Michael
Speaker 1: snow Enjoyce Weeland came up from the city and they
Speaker 1: had quite a few garbage bags out, I guess. And
Speaker 1: then the rumor was that my parents were having orgies.
Speaker 1: So it was. And I remember also my mom Blesser
Speaker 1: had to do some supply teaching at some point, which
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's still the case for kids
Speaker 1: now of how this works in schools where you'd have
Speaker 1: to wheel a cart through or did you have that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so in this school, and I believe it was because
Speaker 1: she was supply teaching French. And again, I'd love to
Speaker 1: do a whole other conversation with you about French and
Speaker 1: English in Canada. Fascinating amount of um sort of dissonance
Speaker 1: between the two languages. Sadly, you know where no one
Speaker 1: wants to go to French class. And my father's the
Speaker 1: French teacher who's like, but I've been in Paris, you
Speaker 1: would love it, you know, takes all these kids to
Speaker 1: Paris and they're like, oh, it is school to teach French.
Speaker 1: She and so she's being a supply teacher in French
Speaker 1: and no one wants to take French. They make you
Speaker 1: were a heart, and I'm an American. Are we referring
Speaker 1: to home economics? I don't know what supply teacher is,
Speaker 1: so it's no, A supply teacher is like a substitute teacher.
Speaker 1: The word the world doesn't really make sense. It's true,
Speaker 1: substitute teacher. Um so, yes, this is all just in
Speaker 1: relation to did I know my parents were weird? Was
Speaker 1: I remember? My mom wore like really bright stockings and
Speaker 1: everyone just lost it, like they were like, with this
Speaker 1: cannot be like you know, they're probably read or something.
Speaker 1: And I was in maybe the fifth grade or something
Speaker 1: like that. Um, so later I I and obviously now
Speaker 1: with time, I'm like, oh my god, these people live.
Speaker 1: These guys are legends. They did such cool stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're in the house living with very artistic people
Speaker 1: they is it totally free form, run free, do whatever
Speaker 1: you want? Is it? No? You have to take piano lessons. No,
Speaker 1: you have to watch public television. What's it like growing
Speaker 1: up in the house. Well, you know, it's and it's
Speaker 1: funny how much things have changed, because I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: only forty eight. But the you know, we had two channels,
Speaker 1: so there wasn't a lot of having to control what
Speaker 1: you watched because and then there was like a really
Speaker 1: big deal when we got the box that you could
Speaker 1: press the buttons to watch TV. But even then, you
Speaker 1: know that was not something that could even be restricted. Um,
Speaker 1: I did from discover early in terms of chores and
Speaker 1: stuff that if I said that I had an idea
Speaker 1: that I wanted to play on the piano because I
Speaker 1: picked it up really young, if I said that, I
Speaker 1: could get out of doing the dishes, and I think
Speaker 1: that may have sort of defined my choices made a
Speaker 1: big That was a big revelation of like, I see
Speaker 1: how this works. If I'm at the piano, maybe I
Speaker 1: can get away from the mundane and would be the
Speaker 1: type of thing where everybody's doing their own thing, where
Speaker 1: you sit for dinner with the whole family and you
Speaker 1: have discussions and they pull things out of you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we would always set for dinner. That was that was
Speaker 1: definitely a thing. And in the morning because we're every
Speaker 1: you know, everyone's getting up at the same time. Um
Speaker 1: My mom when she was working was the teacher as well.
Speaker 1: My dad would play the craziest music like Dai Gelo
Speaker 1: Abortions was a favorite um in the morning, which she
Speaker 1: would also do in his classes, but it could other
Speaker 1: times be like Albert Eisler or like, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the craziest jazz you've ever heard in your life,
Speaker 1: and he'd just be like, you know, handle it. Um,
Speaker 1: So the mornings were fun for that? And what kind
Speaker 1: of kid were you? Popular? Unpopular, good student, bad student?
Speaker 1: I was a good student. I really loved school, um.
Speaker 1: And I had a lot of friends. I feel like,
Speaker 1: I like there was a lot of I feel like
Speaker 1: I was betrayed a lot um, which is probably more
Speaker 1: of a conversation for a shrink, although I'd like free therapy.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm gonna give anything back. But
Speaker 1: what did that betrayal look like? Like? You know my
Speaker 1: best friends? Um? You know it's like you had Madonna
Speaker 1: and you had Cyndi Lauper, And I was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I really you know, click with Cyndi Lauper and I
Speaker 1: actually got to play her benefit. We sand give me
Speaker 1: sympathy together. It was amazing later in life. But um,
Speaker 1: you know the idea of girls just want to have
Speaker 1: fun key line in there after the working day is done,
Speaker 1: girls just want to have fun. I was like, I
Speaker 1: love how she buried. The lead, which is you have
Speaker 1: a life, you have your own money. You're like a
Speaker 1: self possessed person who can be whatever you are. Really
Speaker 1: great message for like an eleven year old, and you
Speaker 1: do know that it was written by a man, Robert Hazard,
Speaker 1: out of Philadelphia. Boys boys just want to have fun. Well, however,
Speaker 1: whatever does not mean I hear what you're saying. It's
Speaker 1: just fascinating. The guy had one quasi hit, uh, the
Speaker 1: Escalator of Life, which was great, but his other claim
Speaker 1: to fame was he wrote girls Just want boy was
Speaker 1: really boy just want to have fun. That does not
Speaker 1: undercut your It doesn't mean whatsoever. But okay, so you
Speaker 1: were into Cydey Law for everybody else and my best friend, yeah,
Speaker 1: well my best friend was into Madonna, which was obviously
Speaker 1: very sexualized. I think it's around the time and she's
Speaker 1: like on that boat in Venice, which was just like
Speaker 1: what's happening? Um? And my boyfriend and my best friend
Speaker 1: which was her, they walked me around the field and
Speaker 1: said we have to talk to you. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: like you're my best friend and you're my boyfriend, and
Speaker 1: they were like we're together now. Um, that's betrayal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because and it's because like I you know, I wasn't sexual, right,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not, I wasn't so and she was.
Speaker 1: I was Cindy Lawfer, she was Madonna. And then it
Speaker 1: was less so sad, and then I like, still after school,
Speaker 1: I still went to her house because she's my best friend.
Speaker 1: And then he's just calling her at her house instead
Speaker 1: of me. So I feel like, you know, you can
Speaker 1: make a case for anything in your life, but I
Speaker 1: feel like when I if you know, one of the
Speaker 1: takeaways of my life from a child my childhood was betrayal.
Speaker 1: So I'm very loyal and really admire that in other
Speaker 1: people too. It was there another instance of betrayal or
Speaker 1: that just you know, was so big that it overshadows
Speaker 1: everything else. There's been a lot, but that's you know.
Speaker 1: My favorite. One of my favorite lines that I quote
Speaker 1: all the time is from Michael Andrews, who produced Old
Speaker 1: World Underground. We were at the very beginning of everything
Speaker 1: twenty years ago ish and he said, um, if you
Speaker 1: sell your personal life, you can never buy it back, which,
Speaker 1: of course at that time I was like, what are
Speaker 1: you been talking about? Nobody even were at playing the
Speaker 1: silver Lake lound like there's no danger of that, and
Speaker 1: there have been so many instances where I've been, you know, tempted,
Speaker 1: and I just my life is my own. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Michael Andrew's Okay, just so I know if you did
Speaker 1: sell your personal life, what would that look like? There
Speaker 1: are some some crazy stories, so I think that it
Speaker 1: would look like, Um, it would be it would explain
Speaker 1: a lot of things. But I have made the decision
Speaker 1: that I'd rather be a writer, protect my privacy and
Speaker 1: not let let things go. Okay, you're a very dynamic
Speaker 1: person who knows where she's going. Were you a leader
Speaker 1: or ringleader? Growing up? Uh? Yeah, yeah, I think I'm
Speaker 1: having a memory of like something in kindergarten where they
Speaker 1: I think they said, like she always wants to like
Speaker 1: be the mom and the thing or whatever. They just
Speaker 1: judge you, right, So funny reading those things. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I was. I was revved up. I was
Speaker 1: ready to do some stuff. And did you have a
Speaker 1: dream at a very young age or you ultimately just
Speaker 1: went down the road and ended up where you did it? Was?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so it's painfully earnest and genuine five
Speaker 1: year old going to the piano, writing a song, being
Speaker 1: like this is all I want to do, and being
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to be in this environment, um, where I
Speaker 1: was just so supported to do that. Even though pop
Speaker 1: music and the style of music that I write is
Speaker 1: like it's it might as well be you know, the biggest,
Speaker 1: the biggest rebellion of all time is to make music
Speaker 1: that is as accessible as the music that I make. Um,
Speaker 1: But that was all every It's just wild now to
Speaker 1: be me as a grown up. It's exactly what I wanted. Okay,
Speaker 1: did your parents you know, you said you played the
Speaker 1: piano to get out of washing the dishes, But did
Speaker 1: they encourage artistic endeavors? Did they give you piano lessons?
Speaker 1: Are you totally self talk? Um? They did. My Uh.
Speaker 1: I had a piano teacher who was not very supportive, um,
Speaker 1: which I think is also cool. She was like not
Speaker 1: impressed by the song I wrote when I was five,
Speaker 1: which I still remember that song, but which I think
Speaker 1: is good, Like whatever, get used to it. And you know,
Speaker 1: the conservatory stuff was really hell for me. That you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like my mom really did the right thing
Speaker 1: of being like if you show an interest, if you
Speaker 1: can afford it to try to support that. But when
Speaker 1: she saw you know what that did to me. Those
Speaker 1: terrible for me. The conservatory stuff was just like that
Speaker 1: is not my world. Um, the judgment. So then they
Speaker 1: just just yeah, I guess believed to me and helped me. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, made it possible for me to go to
Speaker 1: that school when I was fifteen, and the you know,
Speaker 1: the principle of the school that I was at was
Speaker 1: like you got to get out of here and help
Speaker 1: me get an audition and get in. Okay, just going
Speaker 1: sideways for a second. So your siblings, you have two
Speaker 1: siblings and they're older than you, so you like the
Speaker 1: baby of the family or was there very cohesive with
Speaker 1: you and your siblings. Well, it was kind of like
Speaker 1: we were two families because and I felt bad for
Speaker 1: my brother and sister because I would find it annoying
Speaker 1: because you know, Tim was born in New York City,
Speaker 1: Beth Israel, whatever was sixty five or something, and then
Speaker 1: they went to New Mexico and had my sister, and
Speaker 1: then they just did that for like that was like
Speaker 1: nine years. And then they're in India and it's like
Speaker 1: they planned nine years later baby, which was me. So
Speaker 1: and then that's when they stopped all the travel. You know,
Speaker 1: all the photos up till then are like beautiful black
Speaker 1: and white photos and like Rome and Morocco and you know,
Speaker 1: and then now it's just like you're in a generic
Speaker 1: Canadian northern town getting beat up by hockey players and
Speaker 1: going into puberty. That was what my brother and sister's
Speaker 1: experience was so um. But I had a very My
Speaker 1: life was all in one place, but they were always traveling.
Speaker 1: So your sister is a news reporter, Your brother does one.
Speaker 1: He has a record store um called Blue Streak Records,
Speaker 1: which has been amazing to watch. It's like having a
Speaker 1: line on just the amount of intel that I get
Speaker 1: vintage record store. He sells new as well, but he's
Speaker 1: sold vinyl for over twenty years. It's almost like thirty
Speaker 1: now something. Uh, And so many times when people were like,
Speaker 1: you gotta go out of business, You've got to close down.
Speaker 1: It's over c DS, this, that the other thing. And
Speaker 1: now he's like, it's just amazing to see as vinyl
Speaker 1: is king. And he's like I was standing here all along,
Speaker 1: and where is this store that's in town called Peterborough,
Speaker 1: just outside of Toronto, right hyd sister end up in
Speaker 1: the news business. She was very talented. She was as
Speaker 1: a young woman. She got on the radio. UM I remember,
Speaker 1: like I think she was just still in high school,
Speaker 1: even like she had a summer job or something like that. Um.
Speaker 1: And then she got into Ryerson, which is the college
Speaker 1: in uh Toronto for communications. And then she got hired
Speaker 1: really early at CFRB, which is the main news radio station.
Speaker 1: And it was still at that time where you know,
Speaker 1: nobody would blink when you said, like, men do news,
Speaker 1: girls do traffic. It was that, you know, it's all
Speaker 1: very anchorman her whole career. But uh, and then she
Speaker 1: got into television, had all kinds of wild adventures um
Speaker 1: in the public eye. And now is the head of
Speaker 1: what's called W five and Canada. It's a very respected,
Speaker 1: um investigative journalism team that she heads up and it's
Speaker 1: like prime time and she's she's cool. Well, one has
Speaker 1: to ask, even though we've damced around it, what was
Speaker 1: in the water that these two women were uh so
Speaker 1: intelligent and pushing forward in their careers. Was it something
Speaker 1: you know, you know, since there are two of you,
Speaker 1: when you're so successful, I wouldn't think it just happened.
Speaker 1: There must have been something your parents said or some
Speaker 1: sort of environment or something. I mean, I feel like
Speaker 1: my mom and dad were really cool people who really
Speaker 1: set us straight. Of like again, for depending what you
Speaker 1: want to do right, Like you know, success obviously is
Speaker 1: only measured by what you actually want to achieve the
Speaker 1: most obvious thing. But people forget right, Like I think
Speaker 1: they just distilled in us this idea, like instilled and
Speaker 1: distilled over the years. Were like, you know, you're what
Speaker 1: you what do you? What's your point? You know, like
Speaker 1: do something? Um and I then I think all three
Speaker 1: of us do in our own way contribute something as
Speaker 1: a result. So tell me about going to the conservatory
Speaker 1: and what that experience was, Like, oh man, just you know,
Speaker 1: it's like a bad like uh flashback footage from a
Speaker 1: TV show or something. It's just you know, you're walking
Speaker 1: down the dark hall and like the sterile environment and
Speaker 1: the clackity clack of the heels and going into this
Speaker 1: room where there's a panel of judges. It's cold and
Speaker 1: air conditioned and unpleasant, unhappy looking women usually judging you.
Speaker 1: Just like sitting down at the piano and trying to
Speaker 1: play something that someone else wrote, and I was just
Speaker 1: like this I was so like whatever magic or talent
Speaker 1: or however small it might be that I had, it
Speaker 1: was instantly extinguished in that environment. Um. And so luckily
Speaker 1: my mom was like, Okay, that's not happening. So how
Speaker 1: did you end up going to school in Toronto? Him?
Speaker 1: What was that like? Um? That was the you know
Speaker 1: against funny most people can remember, like the great teachers
Speaker 1: and the terrible teachers. And so the great teachers that
Speaker 1: helped me that the one the principal, Dr pap ky
Speaker 1: Um because I was being terrorized by my grade seven teacher.
Speaker 1: I skipped a grade and he just I don't know.
Speaker 1: He was one of those people who was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna bring her down. And it was so out of hand,
Speaker 1: and I was getting sent to the principal's office every
Speaker 1: day and Dr Pappy was like, we gotta get you,
Speaker 1: we gotta get you. Daddy here, and he he told
Speaker 1: me about the school. He and the music teacher helped
Speaker 1: me prepare an audition and I actually got in to
Speaker 1: go for the ninth grade. Um. But my parents thought
Speaker 1: I was I was so young because I was only
Speaker 1: like because I had skipped a grade, I was like
Speaker 1: thirteen or something. So then we waited till eleventh grade. UM,
Speaker 1: and that was just the most amazing thing. My sister
Speaker 1: let me live with her in the city, and that
Speaker 1: school was just everything. They I auditioned with one of
Speaker 1: my own songs that I wrote. They let me UM
Speaker 1: developed my own curriculum around my writing. And and they're
Speaker 1: actually every all the sort of types of people that
Speaker 1: you fall into those boring traps in high school. We're
Speaker 1: just totally blurred because so many different people were into
Speaker 1: different things. And I met my best friends. It was
Speaker 1: I feel so lucky to go to that school. And
Speaker 1: so you go to that school for two years and
Speaker 1: you graduate and then what at that time in Canada
Speaker 1: it was three because we had grade thirteen UM. And
Speaker 1: then I was at a real crossroads because I loved school,
Speaker 1: as I said, UM, and I got this award, like
Speaker 1: this big award that was like most likely to achieve
Speaker 1: in the arts. UM. But I felt really weird about
Speaker 1: like studying music. I just may be because of that
Speaker 1: conservatory stuff or I just it felt like I don't
Speaker 1: want to, like I'm not trying to get a PhD
Speaker 1: in like you know, talk like what are we what
Speaker 1: are we talking about? I want to I need to
Speaker 1: go have an amazing life and write about it, like
Speaker 1: that's what you do. I probably need to go meet
Speaker 1: Lou Reed, which I ended up doing. But uh, after that,
Speaker 1: the program that I decided to go into is this
Speaker 1: program called Arts one at the University of British Columbia UM,
Speaker 1: which was pretty crazy and exclusive to get into. The
Speaker 1: small program that was UM where you get all your
Speaker 1: credits around one theme. It's a very small group of kids,
Speaker 1: and the theme was First Nations land claims, the legal side,
Speaker 1: the ethical side, the history, the geography of the you know,
Speaker 1: the land that we were talking about, just just for
Speaker 1: those outside Canada First Nations or Native Americans in the
Speaker 1: United States, people who were here before the Caucasians came. Correct.
Speaker 1: So I had a teacher, Leslie Pinder, who was a lawyer. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's become a very big topic of
Speaker 1: reckoning in Canada in recent years. UM. At that time
Speaker 1: it didn't. It felt quite fringe e UM. But so uh,
Speaker 1: such a so perfect program for me where I like,
Speaker 1: here's our theme, but we're actually talking about everything else.
Speaker 1: You can learn everything under that theme, but the oral
Speaker 1: history of these traditions and UM. But I wasn't suited
Speaker 1: to the like despite my claims of wanting to be
Speaker 1: this poet athlete, the gortex lifestyle and the you know
Speaker 1: the latter is it just wasn't for me. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't ski. I I was wearing tivas. I just remember
Speaker 1: being like, I'm not myself. I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 1: Why am I wearing a patigony jacket, like I, I
Speaker 1: think I gotta go. As I had my piano in
Speaker 1: a closet, I was like always sneaking into the music
Speaker 1: building to go, like spend all my time in the
Speaker 1: dark at a piano in a practice room is like,
Speaker 1: this isn't right. So I uh, I decided to pivot
Speaker 1: and go to Montreal where I studied electro acoustics, which
Speaker 1: was really cool. Where I did like splicing tape and
Speaker 1: getting into analog synthesis and uh finished out my degree.
Speaker 1: There was that more of the engineering or the performing,
Speaker 1: so it was more the inside like I wasn't I
Speaker 1: wasn't studying again like I was always felt weird, like
Speaker 1: studying the thing that I wanted to do. I felt
Speaker 1: like I should study all the sort of adjacent UH
Speaker 1: areas and then and then just right from whatever the
Speaker 1: hell was happening. Um so this was in keeping with that.
Speaker 1: It was like electro acoustics of of was learning was
Speaker 1: learning about Like ye as I said, Analog said, this
Speaker 1: is with the huge you know where you're doing patch bays,
Speaker 1: You're you're cutting and splicing quarter inch tape. Um studied
Speaker 1: a lot of music history and there was some theory
Speaker 1: in there that some of it I got kind of into,
Speaker 1: but mostly was over my head. Um. But it was
Speaker 1: a great environment to be in and you graduate and
Speaker 1: then and then I came back to uh to Toronto
Speaker 1: and uh met by chance, uh James Shaw who had
Speaker 1: just graduated from Juilliard studying trumpet, and he came back
Speaker 1: and we met and then started It's the Key to
Speaker 1: the metric. Literally, Uh so I was. It was this
Speaker 1: place called I mean, it's this it's so funny as
Speaker 1: time goes on, the story is just so ridiculous and
Speaker 1: scripted sounding. So there's this venue called the horse Shoe
Speaker 1: and anyone who knows it in Toronto will be like
Speaker 1: full body eye roll. The Horseshoe was like the classic venue,
Speaker 1: the classic tavern, the place that you started all, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like the Mercury Lounge in New York, and
Speaker 1: we had mutual friends that were playing, and we were
Speaker 1: introduced by this guy, Joe Phillips, who's a really great musician.
Speaker 1: And I was leaning on the pool table and Jimmy
Speaker 1: Cami leaned on the pool table, and we both sort
Speaker 1: of proceeded to, uh make a concise list of all
Speaker 1: the things that we thought weren't working about the Canadian
Speaker 1: music industry, um, the band that had just played the
Speaker 1: future of Music, all the things, and you know, sort
Speaker 1: of committed to this life together, um right then and
Speaker 1: there and said we got to move to New York,
Speaker 1: which we did. Okay, So this was also a romance, correct?
Speaker 1: And how long or to this day did the romance last? Um?
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to ask him again. This
Speaker 1: also counts as a measurement, by the way, which we've
Speaker 1: established full disclosure. I'm terrible at so we what was that? Um? Right?
Speaker 1: So it's like until my father passed away, we were
Speaker 1: together and then which was two thousand three. Was that
Speaker 1: a triggering event your father? Yes? What was going on there?
Speaker 1: Everything just fell apart. I mean it was like the
Speaker 1: end of my youth, the end of the whole point
Speaker 1: of everything, which was his mind and the story that
Speaker 1: you know is being created um as a result of
Speaker 1: the work that he had done and the peep the
Speaker 1: world that he showed me, UM, and the way that
Speaker 1: I that I found out, UM, which was just you know,
Speaker 1: we just finished our record. I'm at a at the
Speaker 1: Kinkos at Beverly and whatever in l A and um,
Speaker 1: photocopying flyers for our next show. And I was actually
Speaker 1: there with a friend. And at the time it's hard
Speaker 1: to believe, like Jimmy and I shared a phone, a
Speaker 1: flip phone, UM, but I would use the landline at
Speaker 1: the kink Goes all the time because they had those
Speaker 1: phones there and you could just use it. UM. And
Speaker 1: I called Jimmy about something like else, just being like,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, what time are we all getting together
Speaker 1: to celebrate the end recording the record of the finishing
Speaker 1: the album. And he's telling me stuff and he said,
Speaker 1: by the way, your sister called and left a message.
Speaker 1: He said, it's really important. That's all really important. And
Speaker 1: so I'm like okay, and I'm with my friend and
Speaker 1: photo copying stuff and he suddenly, um apropos of nothing
Speaker 1: gets this really weird look on his face and says,
Speaker 1: something really bad is about to happen and I have
Speaker 1: to get out of here. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you're I mean, you've always been kind of a weirdo,
Speaker 1: but that's pretty weird. But okay, catch you later. And
Speaker 1: he's got this like terrible look on his face and
Speaker 1: he leaves. UM, keep photo copying whatever. And then I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, I should call my sister back. So I've
Speaker 1: used the landline, and as I do, and I call
Speaker 1: her and she just tells me that he's dead, and
Speaker 1: like you know, I went into complete shock. I couldn't
Speaker 1: remember my address, I couldn't remember any phone numbers. I
Speaker 1: was on the ground in the Kinkos and people, sadly
Speaker 1: humanity people just fully walking by like nobody. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this person seems like they could use some assistance, um
Speaker 1: and I and I was like completely incapacitated. And I
Speaker 1: saw the back of this this guy, and I, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, was felt like that I could connect with that.
Speaker 1: And I stood up and I just said can you
Speaker 1: help me? And he said yes, UM, And I said, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know where I live and I don't know
Speaker 1: like who I am or what. I don't know what,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's happening. And he was Canadian, believe
Speaker 1: it or not, and he and his girlfriend, uh, walked
Speaker 1: outside with me, and I have a lot of this.
Speaker 1: I only remember because we later like had them come
Speaker 1: to shows and we were eternally grateful to them. But they,
Speaker 1: I guess, got me to remember Jimmy's phone number, so
Speaker 1: then they call him and then he gets to have
Speaker 1: the same complete world destroying experience of being like, you know,
Speaker 1: what just happened? And then he came to get me.
Speaker 1: We went back to this place we're renting. We walked
Speaker 1: in and the whole place smelled like my father's cologne.
Speaker 1: The whole place was just like cologne. Um. And then
Speaker 1: and then it was like I was on a plane
Speaker 1: and that was just like the end of my youth,
Speaker 1: the end I could, you know. Jimmy and I tried,
Speaker 1: but for whatever reason we just couldn't get back to
Speaker 1: whatever innocent sort of thing we'd had. It just it
Speaker 1: just broke. And then all the shows were happening constantly
Speaker 1: on tour like very unhealthy um, and I was just
Speaker 1: basically throwing myself off the top of like speakers or
Speaker 1: whatever else. I just I was so self destructive. It
Speaker 1: was insane to me that I'm here able to like
Speaker 1: go for a run and have nothing broken. Um, but
Speaker 1: yeah that was how that? How did your father die? Um?
Speaker 1: Just a very sudden heart failure, so definitely sudden. So
Speaker 1: you go to New York? Now, needless to say, to
Speaker 1: stay in New York. There's issues of a green card, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So how do you end up going to New York
Speaker 1: and staying in New York? And what do you doing
Speaker 1: to New York? Well, I've always had an American passport
Speaker 1: and Jimmy had a green card. So how did you
Speaker 1: have an American passport? My parents were both American? Okay,
Speaker 1: so the fact you're born a New Delhi and you
Speaker 1: never lived in America, it doesn't matter. You have an
Speaker 1: American passport. Vassar Michigan and uh you know Brewer remain
Speaker 1: my parents. Okay, great, So you're in New York. What's
Speaker 1: the plan. What do you do? The plan is to survive? Um?
Speaker 1: Not easy. We had that. We were lucky to have
Speaker 1: a place to stay. Um that a friend had lent
Speaker 1: us on Seventh Street between A and B. That was
Speaker 1: pretty great, and it was like, Okay, it's gonna be hard.
Speaker 1: Hit the pavement. Got to get a job, you know.
Speaker 1: Going out there, I'm like, okay, I got all my resumes,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna wait tables. I walk around the corner,
Speaker 1: I walk into Cafe or Lynn on Eighth Street. I
Speaker 1: hand my resume and they're like great. I leave. By
Speaker 1: the time I get back to the place, they've called,
Speaker 1: get home. At the end of the day, they've called,
Speaker 1: and I'm hired. So it wasn't at all like you know,
Speaker 1: and Cafe ere Lynn is a legendary spot that I
Speaker 1: feel so lucky to have worked out and actually stayed
Speaker 1: in touch with the owners um a vig door uh
Speaker 1: for for years. So it was that was it. That
Speaker 1: was the hustle, and then the hustle was where the
Speaker 1: hell are you going to live? Um And sadly, at
Speaker 1: that time it became clear that we were going to
Speaker 1: have to go to Brooklyn, or even worse, it looked
Speaker 1: like it was going to be Williamsburg, which the taxis
Speaker 1: wouldn't even take you across the bridge. When I'd finished work,
Speaker 1: I'd have to lie and then change my destination because
Speaker 1: otherwise they wouldn't start the meter. UM. So we're trying
Speaker 1: to find something. We're trying to find something, and Jimmy saw,
Speaker 1: you know, at that time it would be like a
Speaker 1: poster with the numbers on the bottom that you break
Speaker 1: one off and call the number. So, uh, Jimmy find
Speaker 1: something like that. And for this like ridiculously huge not
Speaker 1: for human habitation UM warehouse kind of space strangely is
Speaker 1: on the L train. First off on the L train
Speaker 1: in the shape of an l over a trucking company
Speaker 1: sharedal trucking UM. And he reaches out to Stanley, and
Speaker 1: Stanley is like, sure, maybe I'll let you get the
Speaker 1: get the lease on this place, but can you take
Speaker 1: my dad to the dentists? Can you take my dad?
Speaker 1: He's got he's got an eye appointment. Can you take him? Like,
Speaker 1: Jimmy drove around Stanley Green's dad, um until I guess
Speaker 1: Stanley got a good enough vibe. And then Jimmy was
Speaker 1: in the position of having to pull together all these
Speaker 1: tenants because it's not like we could handle the rent.
Speaker 1: But it's got all these spaces. It's like rooms supposedly
Speaker 1: for human habitation, two bathrooms and just like raw space
Speaker 1: of rooms um Metropolitan between Bedford and Tricks. So one
Speaker 1: of the first people that shows up to move in
Speaker 1: is Niaxine zinner Um with eurygene Chun, which is uh.
Speaker 1: She was an amazing visual artists. I'm sure she still
Speaker 1: is um. And then a hilarious cast of characters ensued UM,
Speaker 1: including Friends of Ours, members from Stars, Chris Seligman, Um
Speaker 1: moved in, future members of TV on the radio, members
Speaker 1: of Liars, Um, and you know, whatever people said about
Speaker 1: the sixties, this was the opposite. Was like everyone was
Speaker 1: just like, we gotta get We're so motivated because we
Speaker 1: want to get out of here. Um. You know, heated
Speaker 1: by oil. This huge truck would come up, but you
Speaker 1: could there's no way to like see when it was
Speaker 1: running out. So we would just all be living in
Speaker 1: terror through the winter of like any minute now it's
Speaker 1: going to run out, and we'll have no idea how
Speaker 1: much it's gonna cost or when it's going to be
Speaker 1: And then it would just be like and sure enough,
Speaker 1: you're out, and Jimmy would have to go knock on
Speaker 1: everyone's door and be like I need three hundred bucks
Speaker 1: uh from each of you know, to like fill the
Speaker 1: tank and uh, the sound of trucks revving underneath. But
Speaker 1: amazing time, an amazing start. And uh we met Josh
Speaker 1: and Jules and that in that window too. Okay, So
Speaker 1: tell us about the music end of it. Well, we
Speaker 1: were doing uh are sort of like bedroom electronic stuff,
Speaker 1: a lot of which is represented on the album Grew
Speaker 1: Up and Blow Away. Um. We had no live existence whatsoever.
Speaker 1: We were just into recording recorded music UM and kind
Speaker 1: of this like, ah, there's an innocence to it that
Speaker 1: I love when I listen back. UM. And we got
Speaker 1: a lot of interest out of the UK UM. And
Speaker 1: this manager invited us to come and like just like
Speaker 1: he was like, move here, I'm going to get you
Speaker 1: a publishing deal. I'm going to get you a record deal.
Speaker 1: You don't even need to play a show. People have
Speaker 1: heard these demos, which is a word I'm now allergic
Speaker 1: to to um demos and uh, come on over him
Speaker 1: and make you a star. And we were like great,
Speaker 1: and we both quit our jobs. Jimmy was working at
Speaker 1: a dinner which is like the really cool restaurant in Williamsburg.
Speaker 1: Again it hadn't been there before, but it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like that time Williamsburg Win Like the
Speaker 1: White Stripes was just blaring out of someone's window as
Speaker 1: they drove by, and like, you know, the Strokes were
Speaker 1: just like playing such great music and cool stuff was happening. Um.
Speaker 1: So but we were like, okay, we're going um And
Speaker 1: it was amazingly fulfilling in the fact that we did
Speaker 1: get this publishing deal that that was a good deal,
Speaker 1: I believe it or not, and did support us through
Speaker 1: what would would what would come, you know. But the
Speaker 1: whole process of the demos for the record labels thing
Speaker 1: was was pretty onerous and I was pretty allergic to
Speaker 1: that and we ended up having to come back. And
Speaker 1: even though I quit my job at Cafe or Lynn,
Speaker 1: Luckily I wasn't a bridge burner because when I humbly
Speaker 1: was like because they were all like, good for you,
Speaker 1: you're going Like when I came back, they just said,
Speaker 1: no problem, I'm you gotta shift on Thursday, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's when we were like we got to start
Speaker 1: a band. A couple of a couple of questions, how
Speaker 1: long were you in the UK? Uh? So we went
Speaker 1: into that. It was like it was like a year
Speaker 1: and a half and did that publishing deal intop haunting
Speaker 1: you in the future. No, it actually was a good deal.
Speaker 1: I mean as much as a publishing deal can be
Speaker 1: a good deal, UM. But no, I mean we're well
Speaker 1: out of it UM. And it gave us at least
Speaker 1: some infrastructure UM and an office that I could mail
Speaker 1: my cdr s out of in uh Los Angeles. So okay,
Speaker 1: so you come back to New York. Do you stay
Speaker 1: in the same place in the yell we did, which
Speaker 1: also hurt because we had all our we had to
Speaker 1: We were waiting for all our furniture to be shipped
Speaker 1: from London because we'd like we went there. We got
Speaker 1: a publishing deal, and we got this beautiful place on
Speaker 1: Charlotte Road again kind of like Williamsburg before shortage completely
Speaker 1: took off. We found this cool place UM and bought
Speaker 1: a bunch of furniture and we were like, this is
Speaker 1: where it's all going to happen, and then had to
Speaker 1: face the fact that it wasn't. UM but happily. Years later,
Speaker 1: on um our album Art of Doubt, we did a
Speaker 1: mural campaign called is this Dystopia? That was just the
Speaker 1: question that we put to the world. We did it
Speaker 1: in London, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and unbelievably we
Speaker 1: get we're on the promo trip. This is like and
Speaker 1: the mural. If you're looking at the mural, you can
Speaker 1: see the window of the apartment of the loft that
Speaker 1: Jimmy and I had on Charlotte Road. It was like
Speaker 1: the most unbelievable place and and connection to the past
Speaker 1: I have really ever experienced. So I I have no
Speaker 1: no qualms about that time in London, but it hurts.
Speaker 1: It was It was a big fall. So you're back
Speaker 1: in New York, you work in your day gig, and
Speaker 1: you say you gotta put together a band flesh that out.
Speaker 1: So we played a show at oh Man. It used
Speaker 1: to be the place under the Fez Cafe, under the
Speaker 1: Time Cafe, which has now been a million other things.
Speaker 1: I think it's the Lafayette now. UM and we it
Speaker 1: was just me and Jimmy. UM. We had been, as
Speaker 1: I think from our previous conversation I mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: doing our own kind of like CDR mix UH distribution campaign.
Speaker 1: So some people in New York knew our songs, UM
Speaker 1: and we luckily knew Sam who worked at Beacon's Closet. Um,
Speaker 1: Sam who would go on to be and I believe,
Speaker 1: of course was at that time the drummer in Interpool.
Speaker 1: His wife owned Beacon's closet. He worked there. They had
Speaker 1: records section Jewels, who became a big part of our lives,
Speaker 1: was friends with those guys. So Sam with Sam would
Speaker 1: stock stock our CDRs in there. So Jewels got ahold
Speaker 1: of it. Um allegedly this is this is as the
Speaker 1: story has been told to me. So then we play
Speaker 1: this show Fez Cafe Terrible. There's no one there except
Speaker 1: for really Jewels and I think a couple other people
Speaker 1: from the loft we're there. I can't remember. No, Nick
Speaker 1: wasn't there because we played it just me and Jimmy.
Speaker 1: Jimmy was on the drums, and we were not happy
Speaker 1: with with how that went. And we went back, you know,
Speaker 1: after the gig, to this place called Black Betty where
Speaker 1: Unitar were playing, which is Nick and Karen from Yeah Yeah's.
Speaker 1: That was their um acoustic thing. So they're playing. We're
Speaker 1: just like hanging out and this guy comes up to us,
Speaker 1: who's Jewels, Um, great looking guy. And he comes up
Speaker 1: and he's like, man, I'm I love I love that show.
Speaker 1: I love you guys. I know all your songs. I
Speaker 1: love it, and Jimmy's you know, so dark, so discouraged
Speaker 1: as we are both and he's just like great. While
Speaker 1: joined the band because we need a band. Jules was
Speaker 1: like great, Jimmy's like amazing, what are you playing? He said, drums?
Speaker 1: Um and sort of like fine, cool done. And then
Speaker 1: later we find out like through this sort of like
Speaker 1: grapevine of like Williamsburg and New York music people, they're like,
Speaker 1: you don't realize you have no idea who that drummer is.
Speaker 1: He's insane, He's like the best drummer in New York.
Speaker 1: You just landed this guy, sure enough. To this day,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, who is This guy? Trained himself in
Speaker 1: a bomb shelter he built in Texas, um and he
Speaker 1: and and Joshua Winstead, the bass player, had moved to
Speaker 1: New York, similarly as Jimmy and I had like sort
Speaker 1: of as a duo looking for their other half and
Speaker 1: they found us. So you can see why I'm so
Speaker 1: committed to my band. Good people. Absolutely, So you now
Speaker 1: have a drummer, what continues to happen? And how do
Speaker 1: you end up in l A H. So we are
Speaker 1: we have the drummer. We're we're practicing, we're trying to
Speaker 1: get stuff started in New York. And then September eleven,
Speaker 1: ah happened and it seemed like we should go to
Speaker 1: Canada and um, so we did, and Jules came with
Speaker 1: He actually uh got together with his still wife, um,
Speaker 1: who worked at the same place as Jimmy. Like right
Speaker 1: before we left, we're like, what did you just do?
Speaker 1: Because like I'm gonna go, like I'm going to join
Speaker 1: the circus, but also I just found the love of
Speaker 1: my life. And bless them, they've stayed together, they have
Speaker 1: their daughter, they have their whole life, they've they did it.
Speaker 1: I'm so amazed. But so we came here and then
Speaker 1: from here we realized we had to go back to
Speaker 1: the US and that l A was the spot for us.
Speaker 1: And you go to l A. What transpires, Um, well,
Speaker 1: we had some good and bad luck, but more than that,
Speaker 1: I feel just adventures that make me so happy and
Speaker 1: moments of you know, I still have feel incredulous about
Speaker 1: things that went down, like Alex Luke, for example. So
Speaker 1: we get you know, we're just we're burning c drs. Um,
Speaker 1: no one's got any money, We're just playing and trying
Speaker 1: not to spend money and like eating expired power bars
Speaker 1: from the store and just committed right and trying to
Speaker 1: get a gig, trying to get something off the ground,
Speaker 1: and somehow Alex Luke I think it was somehow with
Speaker 1: this like CDR campaign. I swear he got his hands
Speaker 1: on one of these CDRs with the song combat Baby
Speaker 1: on it and reached out to us by email and
Speaker 1: we became friends, and he hired us at what was
Speaker 1: then the new legal napster Um. He hired the four
Speaker 1: of us to do q R, which at the time
Speaker 1: we had no understanding of what was going on. It
Speaker 1: was all the companies on a daily basis, we're selling
Speaker 1: their catalogs to be digitized, right, and we were doing
Speaker 1: quality control just to confirm that the track names were
Speaker 1: the same as what they were supposed to be. And
Speaker 1: every day there'd be a no whole new wacky be
Speaker 1: like oh cool, basically just like listening to all this music,
Speaker 1: but zero you know, uh altitude of understanding of what
Speaker 1: how significant this moment was. Um. Alex Luke went on
Speaker 1: to head iTunes, which made sense UM, but around that
Speaker 1: same time he I believe it was him who sent
Speaker 1: combat Baby to k c r W. But I might
Speaker 1: be getting it backwards. It might be that Casey r
Speaker 1: W played it and he heard it on kc RW.
Speaker 1: He had a radio background. But at any rate, in
Speaker 1: that period of time, you know, we got these legitimate
Speaker 1: you know, no one's, no one's doing anything for us,
Speaker 1: just our own lives playing out. Our song is on
Speaker 1: the radio, and we're all making ten bucks an hour,
Speaker 1: the four of us in this room uploading basically ruining
Speaker 1: the world via digitizing everything that's ever been recorded by anyone. UM.
Speaker 1: And then around that time we were we were playing
Speaker 1: you know, terrible shows in like Santa Monica for people
Speaker 1: in beige shorts. It wasn't our scene, UM And somehow,
Speaker 1: by good fortune, managed revel was that one of those
Speaker 1: shows and connected us as I recall, with this guy
Speaker 1: who did UM shows at the Silver Lake Lounge. And
Speaker 1: that was the beginning, as we did a residency at
Speaker 1: the Silver Lake Lounge. Then Michael Andrews came and heard
Speaker 1: us play. Then he and Andy Factor pulled together and
Speaker 1: amazingly made it possible for us to make Old World
Speaker 1: Underground UM in two three and then and then we
Speaker 1: had we had a real foundation because the band was solid.
Speaker 1: We had our fans. It was small, but it was real.
Speaker 1: We had our identity and you know, Michael Andry's like
Speaker 1: the kind of producer and Andy being people who were
Speaker 1: so in supportive us creating whatever we wanted to make.
Speaker 1: It was so weird what we made and they they
Speaker 1: loved it, so you you know it hindsight, it looks
Speaker 1: like traction out of the box with that record. What
Speaker 1: was it like on your side of the record, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, back to the reality of losing Paul Haynes
Speaker 1: on the day that we finished the album, I'll never know.
Speaker 1: And you're right, it's interesting when you look back and
Speaker 1: you see, you know, when you try to make a
Speaker 1: cohesive story come together, it does sound pretty like it
Speaker 1: was playing out pretty well. Um, it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's fine that it was hard work. It's supposed to
Speaker 1: be hard work. But that moment, I just it's just
Speaker 1: hard for me to have any way of evaluating because
Speaker 1: I feel like I just I don't know, I just
Speaker 1: checked out or something. Um, I could not. I did
Speaker 1: not cope well with that. And in retrospect in my
Speaker 1: own education now a bit more in you know, the
Speaker 1: way that trauma affects the body and all those considerations.
Speaker 1: I realized it was the way that I found out
Speaker 1: more than the fact of what happened. And I think
Speaker 1: that feeling of like at any second everything could just
Speaker 1: be lost, is it? It's causes hyper vigilance and anxiety,
Speaker 1: and you know all these unpleasant sort of chemical reactions,
Speaker 1: like even talking about I feel like it's like surging
Speaker 1: through my body, this like fight or flight or like
Speaker 1: just you know, you want to run screaming because you
Speaker 1: have no control. UM. So that's that really colors my
Speaker 1: ability to to remember what that time felt like. Are
Speaker 1: you still hyper vigilant and anxious today? It's a lot better.
Speaker 1: I have. I have techniques um and philosophies that i've
Speaker 1: I hope are useful, since that's my point, um useful
Speaker 1: to other people. And I think they're in the music.
Speaker 1: The the idea of the music as a sort of
Speaker 1: salve um acknowledgement of legitimate anxieties, but also a recognition
Speaker 1: that if you can't function, you know, no amount of
Speaker 1: concern and for the well being of yourself or others
Speaker 1: or you know, spiraling thoughts. You're not You're not you
Speaker 1: can't you can't. If you can't function, you can't function. So, um,
Speaker 1: I do feel like I'm on the other side of that,
Speaker 1: I hope. What exactly is the technique? Uh, well, it's
Speaker 1: as much as anything, it's like a shift in my
Speaker 1: approach to my life, which is expressed very much on
Speaker 1: this new album. But so it's the sense that the
Speaker 1: scope of your control is actually incredibly small, and that
Speaker 1: reckoning with that is the first step to a really
Speaker 1: fulfilled and beautiful life. At whereas you know, feeling this
Speaker 1: sense of the vast realm of all you can control,
Speaker 1: it's everything. What you can control is so minute that
Speaker 1: that's the place to be in the seat, with your
Speaker 1: hands on the wheel, prepared to make decisions as you
Speaker 1: need to make them, but with very limited powers. Um.
Speaker 1: And there was actually a book that I've found incredibly helpful,
Speaker 1: even though it's sort of coming at it from another angle,
Speaker 1: but Oliver Berkman four thousand Weeks Time Management for Mortals,
Speaker 1: because his you know, his whole thing is that's how
Speaker 1: long a life is. It's four thousand weeks. And some
Speaker 1: people might find that depressing or like, don't tell me that,
Speaker 1: I don't want to, you know, to me. That's totally
Speaker 1: consistent with this philosophy I've adopted of what can I
Speaker 1: actually do? It's so much and it is so little.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of a the gist of it. So
Speaker 1: the first record comes out, there's some action to what
Speaker 1: degree do you play live at that time and how
Speaker 1: does that turn into the second record? We constantly toured
Speaker 1: from that point on. UM. We had an early break
Speaker 1: which was somehow actually I think it was a friend
Speaker 1: in Toronto who's an actor, played a song for someone.
Speaker 1: But olivier Is says the French director had a film
Speaker 1: called Clean starring Maggie chung Um and he needed a
Speaker 1: band to play a scene at the beginning of the film,
Speaker 1: have and have the song in the movie and play
Speaker 1: a scene. And he'd worked with Sonic Youth previously, who
Speaker 1: we absolutely admired and continue to admire Um, and they
Speaker 1: loved Dead Disco and cast us in this movie like
Speaker 1: we have lines. It's very entertaining to watch, At least
Speaker 1: to me, the movie starts with us, you know, talking,
Speaker 1: We played the song Dead Disco and then as a result,
Speaker 1: very early we had this like beautiful moment of feeling
Speaker 1: very famous in Paris around that time and that was great.
Speaker 1: Like we went, we were it was such interesting people. Uh. Um.
Speaker 1: We were at the very beginning, we didn't have any clothes,
Speaker 1: like you know, Agnes b gave us closed. It was
Speaker 1: people gave us stuff because it was like Jesus, you know,
Speaker 1: what are you wearing? We were like, I have no
Speaker 1: idea even what to wear. Um. I think around that
Speaker 1: time I had one stage outfit that I just washed
Speaker 1: in a sink and bore every night. Um. So that
Speaker 1: was a really amazing moment. And we just continued to
Speaker 1: develop the live show, which I think was getting better. Um.
Speaker 1: And we did uh you know some interesting stuff in
Speaker 1: l A where it was like a little more stylized,
Speaker 1: a little more styl ish, a little more fashion, you know,
Speaker 1: Nylons paying attention, stuff like that. Um. And we the
Speaker 1: pivot point I think that brought a heavier sound into
Speaker 1: our consciousness. Sort of out of necessity was um, we
Speaker 1: were playing this John Kerry benefit in Miami, which will
Speaker 1: tell you the rough time line. Um. And it was
Speaker 1: super swish and we're staying at the standard and everyone's
Speaker 1: stylish and you know bart bar, table service, all that
Speaker 1: stuff that we was new to us at that time,
Speaker 1: and we had that show and then we were starting
Speaker 1: this Canadian tour with this band called Billy Talent UM
Speaker 1: and the first band we were we were the main band.
Speaker 1: The first band was UM, this band called Death from
Speaker 1: Above and we were like, great, We're just continuing touring.
Speaker 1: It's going to be great. We fly from Miami to
Speaker 1: like of as I recall, like a smallish town in
Speaker 1: quebec Um and the province of quebec Is has its
Speaker 1: own you know, identity as a result of the French language. Obviously,
Speaker 1: UM so feeling really out there and very high contrast
Speaker 1: to the kind of shoulders we were rubbing with, like
Speaker 1: hard rock, cold tough people. Not the band Billy Talent
Speaker 1: and not the band Death from Above nine, but the
Speaker 1: human beings who were assembled. We're very tough. And we
Speaker 1: then proceeded to get bottled and heckled two almost to death.
Speaker 1: UM to the point that Ben Um on that whole
Speaker 1: tour event as a singer and Billy Talent, he would
Speaker 1: come out and say, you guys, you gotta you gotta
Speaker 1: go easy, you gotta go easy on Metric, Like you know,
Speaker 1: Metric fans are getting beat up in the audience, but
Speaker 1: I remember I had this like so indie, you know,
Speaker 1: like masking tape. I need masking tape to write like
Speaker 1: love on my sweater, you know, like that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff like you're cut off, socks are your wrist, things
Speaker 1: like it's so indie and so like not in the
Speaker 1: real world, you know, so like art star And I
Speaker 1: remember being on stage and one of those shows and
Speaker 1: just seeing the like masking tape peeling off of me,
Speaker 1: like there, this is terrible. The women were the worst,
Speaker 1: which was heartbreaking. I was like bawling on stage and
Speaker 1: they're calling me every worst word, and we just powered
Speaker 1: through and it was the best experience you could ever
Speaker 1: have as a band, at least for us. We were
Speaker 1: like nuh and they were right. We were not good enough,
Speaker 1: and even though they were just being loyal to Billy Talent,
Speaker 1: but we learned at that point they're the energy from
Speaker 1: the stage will always be more than the energy from
Speaker 1: the crowd. It doesn't matter how big the crowd. That
Speaker 1: we reversed it um and then we made we came
Speaker 1: off that tour and then we made the album Live
Speaker 1: It Out, which is just blistering like rock rous, you know,
Speaker 1: because we needed the armor and that was the other
Speaker 1: kind of concept that came out of that was like
Speaker 1: songs as Armor UM, which I still use because it's
Speaker 1: like I'm going to need that, you know, to cope now.
Speaker 1: That record, you know, end up having a lot of success,
Speaker 1: certainly in Canada. So you know, one of the parallel
Speaker 1: stories in metrics careers. It's always been independent, but at
Speaker 1: that time, were you independent by choice or independent because
Speaker 1: none of the big people wanted to invest in you? Well,
Speaker 1: we it's and in fact, that was when we were
Speaker 1: with um Last Gang, so you know, and we in
Speaker 1: those early days is like the license with UM Ever Loving,
Speaker 1: which was you know, uh, Mike Andrews and Anti Factor
Speaker 1: and the um Last Gang. I mean Chris Taylor, that
Speaker 1: was amazing. He started this label basically to put out
Speaker 1: metric Um because yeah, we you know, the combination of
Speaker 1: shared disdain I think of for me, I just these
Speaker 1: guys in the music industry. I was like no, and
Speaker 1: I think it's better now. But you know, they being
Speaker 1: told like, yeah, you could be the next Macy Gray
Speaker 1: or whatever. I'm just like, this is this is never
Speaker 1: gonna work, um, but what but if we do it ourselves,
Speaker 1: it's going to work and we had that confidence, but
Speaker 1: we definitely had help. I mean Chris Taylor put out
Speaker 1: that record, he helped us get I think he played
Speaker 1: us for ben Um of Billy Talent and Death from
Speaker 1: Above was also on his label. That was the first
Speaker 1: time we were in a tour bus was with those guys,
Speaker 1: So you know, it was it was a short lived
Speaker 1: connection and we also always contractually protected our independence. But um,
Speaker 1: at that time, I didn't feel any sense of like,
Speaker 1: oh I wish I was on a major label or anything.
Speaker 1: I think I think we really let that go after
Speaker 1: England and to this date have major labels sniffed around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like we had you know, it's a now it's actually
Speaker 1: kind of a mutual respect vibe. I feel like we've
Speaker 1: had great chats with Jimmy Ivan and Tom Wally and
Speaker 1: all those guys are like, you know, it's always a
Speaker 1: funny thing where I like, I think Jimmy Ivan I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, well, if you ever want to
Speaker 1: work in her scope, I was like totally. You know, um,
Speaker 1: like around Fantasies, which was our most mainstream success, I suppose. Um,
Speaker 1: we went in and he wanted to meet with us,
Speaker 1: and you know, he's like thrown around like the Farrell
Speaker 1: remix idea, like you know, the stuff that you should do.
Speaker 1: But it's like, you know, I like no doubt as
Speaker 1: much as the next guy. We're not no doubt. We're
Speaker 1: not a package heble entity like that. Um. And contractually
Speaker 1: it's like there is no amount of money the guy
Speaker 1: was going to give me, Like literally there is there was.
Speaker 1: There is no amount of money that would make it
Speaker 1: make sense. Um, which I know sounds extreme, but again
Speaker 1: like kind of you know, the idea of a life philosophy.
Speaker 1: If your life is like you're trying to you're trying
Speaker 1: to retire, Like if you're trying to like do it
Speaker 1: and then stop doing it, then you might want to
Speaker 1: just sell off anything you can sell off. But if
Speaker 1: your goal is to own it and live it and
Speaker 1: have your own life, it just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: And they could see it and we could see it.
Speaker 1: So later in my career, I actually enjoyed those conversations
Speaker 1: because I can tell, I mean, they're trying their best, right,
Speaker 1: they're doing their thing, and um, I feel like they
Speaker 1: respect that I've done it my way, you know, but
Speaker 1: are you frustrated it all as much successes if you've
Speaker 1: had and the in roads you've made is part of
Speaker 1: you say hey, I want to be bigger and I
Speaker 1: wish I had help well again like philosophy, right, um,
Speaker 1: we right now it's a it's an interesting time to
Speaker 1: be chatting with you about this because right now we
Speaker 1: feel really happy with thirty Tigers, Like David Mass is
Speaker 1: obviously a mutual friend, like that's your new distributor label
Speaker 1: services company. That's right, and what he's doing and the
Speaker 1: way that they're doing it is kind of the thing
Speaker 1: I feel like we've always been looking for because we're
Speaker 1: team players, like we love you know, we've always put
Speaker 1: together our own ad hoc teams um and it's just
Speaker 1: always with the music industry the terms of these contracts
Speaker 1: where it's just so unpalatable to us and are the
Speaker 1: way that we run our business and make our work.
Speaker 1: So we'll have to see I'd love to like do
Speaker 1: a check in on this how it plays out with
Speaker 1: thirty Tigers, because for this album so far, the setup
Speaker 1: and we just all comes crashing. Just got to number
Speaker 1: two in Canada, hopefully next week before the release we'll
Speaker 1: get to number one. The it feels like we got
Speaker 1: we got people, but they're not telling us what to do.
Speaker 1: They're telling their they're facilitating what we want to do,
Speaker 1: So you know, I the question of being bigger is like,
Speaker 1: it's it's funny to be right now, because I feel
Speaker 1: like with the data obsession that we're all, it seems
Speaker 1: like it's a global addiction now in all in all ways,
Speaker 1: everyone's just like tallying up everything, right, Like there's a
Speaker 1: talker mom who's tallying up how many likes she got
Speaker 1: on like her cupcake photo. And you know, every artist
Speaker 1: is tallying up how many streams they have on Spotify
Speaker 1: and the other platforms. And it's like it's fun and
Speaker 1: it's addictive and it's all these things. But it's like,
Speaker 1: I really think we're in need of a reckoning of
Speaker 1: like what are we actually tallying here? And it's cool, like,
Speaker 1: but recognizing on Spotify, you're you're tallying how many times
Speaker 1: your song has been listened to on Spotify. This is
Speaker 1: from someone who's added We've added a million and a
Speaker 1: half listeners in I think less than a year. So
Speaker 1: I'm super happy it's going great, But I'm not under
Speaker 1: the illusion that that data is the tally of all
Speaker 1: things of value in my existence. You know, TikTok. We're
Speaker 1: into it. It's cool, We're like coming up with stuff
Speaker 1: to do. We're enjoying it. You know. I'd rather do
Speaker 1: that than go sit in some guy's office or try
Speaker 1: to please the head of a record company school. If
Speaker 1: I don't want to do it anymore, I won't do it. Um.
Speaker 1: But again, it's like this like sort of frothing at
Speaker 1: the mouth, sorry, of like casino atmosphere around you know,
Speaker 1: success in these measurements that I guess I have chosen
Speaker 1: a different way of looking at success. How do you
Speaker 1: look at it? Well? Mental health, physical health, love, health
Speaker 1: of the band, quality of the work. So from from
Speaker 1: our perspective again, how can you evaluate quality in the world?
Speaker 1: As we know, lots of things are huge, lots of
Speaker 1: things sucked, you know, chicken McNuggets, they're everywhere. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone's under any illusion of a Michelin star. Right.
Speaker 1: So for me, for our values and what we want
Speaker 1: to accomplish every day of my life is one step
Speaker 1: closer to the artists that I want to be. The
Speaker 1: work on form and terra the band is playing better
Speaker 1: than we've ever played. We're doing what you know, to
Speaker 1: the extent that anybody cares. I hope they do. Uh
Speaker 1: And from all you know measures that we're seeing, it
Speaker 1: seems like they do. But that's that means things are
Speaker 1: working out, you know, um, and there's like love in
Speaker 1: my life with my band and my and my family,
Speaker 1: and like it's not all being destroyed by this obsession,
Speaker 1: you know, this idea of like, you know, fame at
Speaker 1: all costs. I feel like the last standing like lover
Speaker 1: of privacy or something. When people just rattle off all
Speaker 1: these things about TikTok, it's like you want to be this,
Speaker 1: you want to be that. It's like I don't know, maybe,
Speaker 1: like I get that somebody wants to be that, but
Speaker 1: not if you're someone who loves like being in the
Speaker 1: woods and going on a hike. Like, yeah, maybe you
Speaker 1: want to do some cool shot on tip talking, that's
Speaker 1: not your whole purpose, right, Like, not everyone wants to
Speaker 1: be the most famous person ever. Okay, although I've yet
Speaker 1: to meet in artist who didn't want more people to
Speaker 1: listen to their music or be exposed to their work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that would be completely disingenuous to say like,
Speaker 1: of course you want people to hear it, but you know,
Speaker 1: I guess I just it's not about being nostalgic, But
Speaker 1: it's more about like reminding people that that feeling before
Speaker 1: we were all in this kind of colosseum of like
Speaker 1: data and living online where everyone's looking at everyone's everything.
Speaker 1: Like you could be a really cool band and you
Speaker 1: don't have to be like constantly reminded that someone's playing
Speaker 1: an arena. It doesn't matter. Sometimes you want to go
Speaker 1: to an arena it's really fun. Go see a huge band,
Speaker 1: it's great. Sometimes you want to see an art rock
Speaker 1: band like Metric do something really cool in a theater
Speaker 1: like that. That's that's more the spirit of it. It's like,
Speaker 1: imagine if your favorite restaurant. You know, when you go
Speaker 1: to your favorite restaurant that you love and the chef
Speaker 1: is so good, and it's like hard to get a
Speaker 1: reso because it's so awesome. You don't go and have
Speaker 1: that meal and think this is amazing. But I wish
Speaker 1: that they had like seventy five franchises. It just doesn't
Speaker 1: work like that, you know. So I think it's more
Speaker 1: my state of mind is like if it can grow
Speaker 1: and be what it is. Those are the terms. You know,
Speaker 1: if it can if it can be that the mainstream
Speaker 1: comes to us, which has been the case to a
Speaker 1: large degree, then I'm down. We're We're totally cool to
Speaker 1: you know, everyone's welcome. But the singular quest of just
Speaker 1: more and more people and more and more numbers, that
Speaker 1: just doesn't sound like a good life or even a
Speaker 1: good party. Like I don't know, there's you want to
Speaker 1: be in an audience that knows why they're there. Um,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure like my whole team has a different
Speaker 1: agenda in terms of, yeah, let's just get as many
Speaker 1: people as possible, But it's not really what drives me. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a business where you really can't predict the future. Um,
Speaker 1: being like yours has a certain number of fans. But
Speaker 1: in the back of your mind you're saying, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if we don't interact, to be, if we don't interact
Speaker 1: with our fans or they don't like our record, they
Speaker 1: may not buy our tickets and the whole thing could
Speaker 1: fall apart. Yeah, is that in the back of your mind,
Speaker 1: Or you say I'm gonna do what I want to do,
Speaker 1: the chips will fall where they may. I mean I
Speaker 1: gotta say it's the latter, Like we're you know, we're
Speaker 1: so hard working, we're so driven, we're down, we're like
Speaker 1: doing all this stuff. But if if there, if the
Speaker 1: arc is the arc, and it changes so far it's
Speaker 1: only grown consistently and beautifully blossomed throughout my life. And
Speaker 1: if at some point it's like we fall off a cliff,
Speaker 1: then I guess we'll be like, well, that happened. But
Speaker 1: you know, I guess this is sort of speaking to
Speaker 1: the anxiety piece too. I mean, it's just like if
Speaker 1: it all falls away, then I guess I'll do I'll
Speaker 1: deal with that at the time. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: it's like focusing on all the beautiful artwork, but obviously
Speaker 1: the music first, but then all you know, all the
Speaker 1: beautiful artwork, getting all these things, going, getting the stage
Speaker 1: and going taking care of all like being out there
Speaker 1: on all the platforms do and all this stuff. It's
Speaker 1: like a dance, right and like whatever is gonna happen
Speaker 1: is gonna happen. And knowing me and Jimmy, we will
Speaker 1: one keep going. We own a beautiful studio, the band
Speaker 1: is great, and I just I feel like my role
Speaker 1: right now is to put a little bit of like
Speaker 1: like mellow confidence. And some people are just like guys,
Speaker 1: what you have might be pretty good, you know, including
Speaker 1: in our audience. Like I feel like people feel so inadequate.
Speaker 1: It's like hellish. Everything you look at is somebody just
Speaker 1: having more of whatever you're supposed to have than you.
Speaker 1: It's like how how are people supposed to function? There's
Speaker 1: got to be a place of like, damn, this is
Speaker 1: actually pretty good, you know, like let's enjoy this. I
Speaker 1: feel like that's going to be my vibe on this cycle.
Speaker 1: I hope I can keep it up. Okay. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up in the era where the Vietnam War
Speaker 1: and people went to Canada to avoid the draft, having
Speaker 1: me into Canada's zillion times. Now, I would go to
Speaker 1: Canada in a minute. Canada's got a lot of advantages
Speaker 1: over the US, like a social safety net. But certainly
Speaker 1: when I grew up, you know, you could have a
Speaker 1: minimum wage job and pay all your bills. That is
Speaker 1: not the case now. So to what degree are you
Speaker 1: looking forward monetarially? Are you consciously saving money? Do you
Speaker 1: think about money at all? Do you think about money
Speaker 1: when you spend? How does that factor in. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think about money all the time. Like everyone else.
Speaker 1: We deal, you have to deal. Um, I run a company,
Speaker 1: so a lot of my consideration is recognizing that I
Speaker 1: need to keep everybody on salary and I need to
Speaker 1: keep you know, this studio running, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I try not to focus too much on the fact
Speaker 1: like when I'm writing where you're like, you know it
Speaker 1: really is. It is such an amazing and ridiculous craft
Speaker 1: and thing to dedicate your life to, like, you know, help,
Speaker 1: I'm alive, tremble, you know, those couple of chords and
Speaker 1: that thing. I mean, that's that's of you know, of
Speaker 1: a lot of equipment and various things. That's like the
Speaker 1: songs have paid for the life. The songs I write
Speaker 1: have paid for my life. So you know, we're pragmatic
Speaker 1: in terms of our business. We have a whole team.
Speaker 1: We're like keeping this thing afloat um. But on a
Speaker 1: personal level, like you know, I just feel like, you don't,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever the stupid kill the Golden goose, whatever,
Speaker 1: I don't. I just want to be capable of writing.
Speaker 1: And you know, I have a place in the woods
Speaker 1: which had already happened with covid where it was. I
Speaker 1: got it in case everything went to hell. It did,
Speaker 1: I went there. It was great. If if I have
Speaker 1: to shrink my life down, it will still be so
Speaker 1: such a rich life with you know, my own water
Speaker 1: and a piano on each floor. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I gauge the financial side. I'm I'm more into, like,
Speaker 1: you know, pouring money into making the metric shows great,
Speaker 1: you know, continuing to sort of defy gravity in our
Speaker 1: weird way, then then being too worried. But um, professionally
Speaker 1: we're yeah, we're very We're practical. We're practical. How many
Speaker 1: people are on the payroll? Uh, well, the band's bent
Speaker 1: on salary for I mean over a decade um. And
Speaker 1: then we have all our services, Um, so you know,
Speaker 1: business manager, a couple of lawyers, accountant obviously, our manager, obviously,
Speaker 1: our agents. UM. I have a person that is essential
Speaker 1: to my health and happiness who I do all the
Speaker 1: social media stuff with. We have a great time together. Um,
Speaker 1: she's on side Lary. Um. We have a day to
Speaker 1: day person that we're like, nowhere will we go without him.
Speaker 1: We just switched a new management and we're like, this
Speaker 1: guy is coming with us. So he's on as well. Um,
Speaker 1: then we have a day to day guy in in
Speaker 1: Toronto as well, so you know, ten or fifth something
Speaker 1: like that. I can't. I can't do math, you know that, Bob.
Speaker 1: But some people, how did you hook up with Matt
Speaker 1: Drulin and how did that end up helping your career? Um?
Speaker 1: That was just I have a big grin when you
Speaker 1: say his name, because foot a legend and you know
Speaker 1: so great. Um, he that I can't. I don't remember
Speaker 1: how we met exactly, but the visual I have is
Speaker 1: when we when we had left New York in two
Speaker 1: thousand one. Um, God, these timelines are so crazy, but
Speaker 1: I guess it must have been that we still had
Speaker 1: Jimmy still got to rent that place later, but all
Speaker 1: the way into like two thousand four. So around two
Speaker 1: thousand four, Um, we met him and we was this
Speaker 1: place was on above a bank, and so there was
Speaker 1: this huge safe and Matt just came in and sat
Speaker 1: cross legged on the safe and you know, proceeded to
Speaker 1: make us so much money over the next decade. It
Speaker 1: was always just such a classic image. But he is
Speaker 1: a He ran DKD for a while. His whole resume
Speaker 1: is pretty impressive. But he was always really interested in tech.
Speaker 1: He was always interested in being disruptive too. And you know,
Speaker 1: not everyone loved this about his work in the music industry.
Speaker 1: He's now left the music industry, so he claims, um,
Speaker 1: but he was really you know, like me, just felt
Speaker 1: that there were inherent systemic flaws and just the boiler
Speaker 1: plate contract that is presented as a premise for a
Speaker 1: career in music. He was just right there with me
Speaker 1: of like this is a bad business model and no
Speaker 1: one should ever sign this. And he was like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go over every single thing with a fine tooth, Coe,
Speaker 1: and we're going to figure out a way to do
Speaker 1: things differently. And thanks to him for Fantasies, which was
Speaker 1: the album after Live It Out. Uh, we owned everything,
Speaker 1: put it out ourselves and that album performed the best.
Speaker 1: We did really well at radio in UM in the
Speaker 1: U s. Which is like unheard of. He's got all
Speaker 1: the stats of like no one's ever done without a
Speaker 1: label or whatever. He loves like the sizzle, real vibe,
Speaker 1: um and we just we ended up having such incredible
Speaker 1: uh uh success in that period of time. And simultaneously
Speaker 1: the world was changing towards tech. He's was close friends
Speaker 1: and still is with Shawn Parker. So we got to
Speaker 1: have like, you know, an inside view, which is not
Speaker 1: for the faint of heart. UM into tech bro existence
Speaker 1: and some friendships there, you know. He hilariously to me.
Speaker 1: We were playing UM probably around two as in eleven
Speaker 1: something like that. Uh, We're playing this thing in New
Speaker 1: York where inexplicably Patti Smith was opening for us. It
Speaker 1: was this thing at Milk Studios, and uh so it's
Speaker 1: just like already kind of a funny memory standing side
Speaker 1: stage with Patty is about to go out and she's
Speaker 1: just like, God, it sounds like hell out there, and
Speaker 1: like it's gonna be okay. UM. And then and then
Speaker 1: Matt Brook brought Daniel Eck obviously he started Spotify backstage,
Speaker 1: and he was like, guys, this Daniel Alex Spotify. You know,
Speaker 1: she really meet him. We're like, what's that man? Nice
Speaker 1: to meet you, you know, and we're not the We're
Speaker 1: Matt didn't like lead us. He wasn't like you gotta
Speaker 1: like kiss this guy's ass, or this is your future
Speaker 1: or anything like that. He just was in. He was
Speaker 1: aware that the world was going where it was going,
Speaker 1: and UM did his best to help us by making
Speaker 1: sure that we owned everything. And then well, you know,
Speaker 1: we parted ways totally amicably. UM right before the pandemic.
Speaker 1: UM we got new management, and you know, it was
Speaker 1: a lot to take apart because he had the energy
Speaker 1: to be someone who would put together individual record deals
Speaker 1: in every territory, you know, so there's never a cohesive thing.
Speaker 1: He would just you know, out of Montreal like a lunatic.
Speaker 1: He'd like run this thing. So you know, now that
Speaker 1: we have more uh sane management, they're like, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna streamline this a bit. We're going to
Speaker 1: and luckily that's why thirty Tigers is now in the picture.
Speaker 1: But other than having to kind of get it straight,
Speaker 1: he was just like being handed our own the keys
Speaker 1: to our own existence because we own our material and
Speaker 1: now we can do all this cool stuff. And fascinatingly,
Speaker 1: Jimmy said, that didn't ultimately that was your one big
Speaker 1: break that really ultimately didn't pay any dividend. UM. That
Speaker 1: was we were approached by Howard Shore, who I stayed
Speaker 1: friends with. UM. We then did the Cronenberg film together
Speaker 1: after that, but yeah, they needed UM someone to do
Speaker 1: the theme song. He was obviously doing the score, so
Speaker 1: we clicked. We went out to his place in Tuxedo Park, Um,
Speaker 1: which was really cool. Is like see like where he
Speaker 1: wrote all the Lord of the Ring stuff and the
Speaker 1: Hobbit hole and all this stuff. Um, and you know,
Speaker 1: fascinatingly to me, he took I didn't know it's going
Speaker 1: to work like this, but he took my melodies and
Speaker 1: then wrote the The themes of the score were actually
Speaker 1: derived from that song, which was really cool. Um, Jimmy
Speaker 1: struck up a friendship with Pattinson and it was it
Speaker 1: was a great moment, you know, some hilarious red carpet moments.
Speaker 1: But yeah, to Jimmy's point, I mean, like so many things,
Speaker 1: and I think it's it's actually to our benefit, but
Speaker 1: I guess we'll never know. It feels like it just
Speaker 1: added to the body of work, you know, and we
Speaker 1: would play, we know, did lots of Late Night with
Speaker 1: the piano and the string section doing that song. You know,
Speaker 1: but we were doing Late Night already, Like it kind
Speaker 1: of just was another thing that we did that kept
Speaker 1: it groovy and we kept on going. Um, but it
Speaker 1: it did seem in retrospect, It's true, it's like that
Speaker 1: seems like that should shoot you out of a cannon.
Speaker 1: But you know, the song is playing at the credits,
Speaker 1: everyone's walking out. What are you gonna do? Is there
Speaker 1: anything that's happened in your career that really did push
Speaker 1: everything forward sort of a changing moment, or has just
Speaker 1: been a slow evolution? I mean, I think it's unless
Speaker 1: it's I suppose we'd have to ask ourselves what how
Speaker 1: we're measuring that, because I'm sure if we look at
Speaker 1: the data there's bumps, you know, we can see like
Speaker 1: that the video for Risk, you know, did so well
Speaker 1: on YouTube. I'm sure there's something similar like that that
Speaker 1: we could look at objectively. Um. But to me, the
Speaker 1: things that have meant the most have a negligible effect,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously like working with Lou, my friendship with Wilner,
Speaker 1: all all that stuff that is like the basis of
Speaker 1: my craft and you know, identity and sense of like,
Speaker 1: you know, now it's getting good. I have no idea
Speaker 1: if that's served us in any sort of verifiable way.
Speaker 1: So how did you meet Lou reed Um? That was
Speaker 1: through Haw Wilner, who, as as I recall, Kevin Drew
Speaker 1: and Brendan Canning from Broken social scene. My pals from
Speaker 1: here in Toronto. They were going to meet how about
Speaker 1: doing this Neil Young benefit in Vancouver, and they were
Speaker 1: in New York and they went to Howe's studio, which
Speaker 1: is like a hilarious room full of his Like, sadly,
Speaker 1: How's not with us anymore. I just got to put
Speaker 1: that out there ahead of the how did the gate
Speaker 1: because I feel like he's still like one of the
Speaker 1: casualties of co bit unfortunate life. That's right, Um, I
Speaker 1: did really just feel like he was still alive. That
Speaker 1: was a very weird feeling. Okay, So Kevin Brendan, they
Speaker 1: go to meet will Nor to talk about this thing.
Speaker 1: And the first thing he does, you know, in this
Speaker 1: cramped room with his speakers and all his like puppets
Speaker 1: and all this crazy like collectibles, Will there's like, you
Speaker 1: gotta watch this film, and you know, they think they're
Speaker 1: just gonna have a chat with this guy, and he
Speaker 1: sits them down and makes them watch the Escalator over
Speaker 1: the Hill documentary, which is of course the making of
Speaker 1: Carla Blaze album that is my father's lyrics that he
Speaker 1: was writing in New Delhi when they had me and
Speaker 1: Kevin is just like Okay, what's going on? Like that's
Speaker 1: my best friend from high school? Like she how is that?
Speaker 1: What's happening right now? How do you have this? Also,
Speaker 1: it's very rare, hard to find and will and there's like,
Speaker 1: oh no way, um, that's great. Well, you know Lou
Speaker 1: and I we we love Emily solo record. We play
Speaker 1: it on our radio show. They had the show on
Speaker 1: Serious um and they were best friends obviously, and so
Speaker 1: Kevin was just like, this is too much. I gotta
Speaker 1: I gotta get him on this Vancouver show. Um. And
Speaker 1: it was a really busy time and he actually makes
Speaker 1: fun of me because it was not easy, like I
Speaker 1: wasn't like, oh my gosh, I'm so lucky. Like I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, like Vancouver, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe not like there's a lot going on. I'm living
Speaker 1: in New York. I'm like, I don't feel like getting
Speaker 1: on a plane. So he persuaded me, and thankfully because
Speaker 1: then you know, I meet Lou and the first thing
Speaker 1: he says to me is Emily, ay, and it would
Speaker 1: you rather be the Beatles or the Rolling Stoves? Isn't
Speaker 1: that the best? Which maybe your listeners don't know, is
Speaker 1: a line from our song Gimme Sympathy. But and you know,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm talking about when I say like
Speaker 1: we got get away from this data. There's no data
Speaker 1: collection for that. I can't. There's no spike in, you know,
Speaker 1: in the algorithm. It's like, that's the best thing ever period.
Speaker 1: Um struck up a friendship Lori's there as well as
Speaker 1: she's amazing Um of course, and he then both of
Speaker 1: them invited me to perform at this amazing thing they
Speaker 1: did at UM Sydney Opera House. Uh they did a
Speaker 1: whole curated festival of music and oh, man, Bob, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm gonna cry. He uh Blue and I
Speaker 1: did Perfect Day together and uh yeah, and then we
Speaker 1: just stayed friends. Like I did a hilarious um Shell
Speaker 1: Silverstein thing with him in Central Park. It's like another
Speaker 1: Willner production, you know, always like total Muppet show bringing
Speaker 1: together all these people. And Um, I was lose straight man,
Speaker 1: like I'm playing piano and he's just like ripping into Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: It's the best. It's the best. And after he passed Um,
Speaker 1: you know, of course we did the song together as well,
Speaker 1: you know, Electric Lady. He came in and sang on Wanderlust,
Speaker 1: which is on UM Synthetica. But uh, but after he passed,
Speaker 1: like you know, Wilner and I then stayed in touch too,
Speaker 1: and um, I came and did a tribute to lou
Speaker 1: in the City and then Will nor would would keep me,
Speaker 1: keep me in the loop on things like you know
Speaker 1: the amazing t Rex covers album, uh that I did
Speaker 1: with them Ballrooms Ballrooms of Mars was my song, this
Speaker 1: crazy line up like Bono in the Edge and all
Speaker 1: these guys are on that record. And then, um, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm us now telling the story of the
Speaker 1: death of these two best friends and it's making me
Speaker 1: really sad. But then you know, Sheila managed to you know,
Speaker 1: a year after we lost I guess two years after
Speaker 1: we lost well there did the memorial in New York
Speaker 1: and Kevin and I played, um, only Love Will Break
Speaker 1: Your Heart and got to meet Bono in the Edge
Speaker 1: and how I have a really ridiculous picture of as
Speaker 1: you know, we're walking in for sound check and there's
Speaker 1: everybody's names with their COVID tests and it's like Kevin Drew,
Speaker 1: Emily Haynes, like the Edge, Tom Waits, Bono, It's like
Speaker 1: again immeasurable absurdest photography. Um that is I don't even
Speaker 1: know if you can call that a high point, but
Speaker 1: it's a something of the wildness of life, but legendary
Speaker 1: humans that I got to cross paths with. So now
Speaker 1: what am I going to do? Now am I going
Speaker 1: to meet? Oh? There's always something. It's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: remember being in the Rose Bowl seeing the stones, and
Speaker 1: I have at all access past the rolling stones, so well,
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't get any better than that walking on
Speaker 1: the stage. But you're a woman in a man's world.
Speaker 1: So what's that been like? Uh? Well, I think I
Speaker 1: learned from Carla Blay by example, which again was a
Speaker 1: little bit like finding out later that we didn't have
Speaker 1: any money because I didn't understand that. Um, as I
Speaker 1: grew up thinking like that's just what you do. Is
Speaker 1: what she did, which was you know, start j C
Speaker 1: o A records, right, all of this insane music, um,
Speaker 1: all these arrangements which I can still recognize her arrangements
Speaker 1: and in fact that Wilner's memorial they played ah an
Speaker 1: arrangement of hers, which was stunning. Um, you know, wrote
Speaker 1: our own arrangements, um, saying this stuff and pulled together,
Speaker 1: you know, Jack Bruce from Cream, you know, with Paul
Speaker 1: Haynes from Paul Haynes Um, and I just, you know,
Speaker 1: always felt like everything she did was unrelated her. She was,
Speaker 1: of course she's a woman cool, but she always resisted
Speaker 1: being on the like women in jazz collections, and you
Speaker 1: know that's sort of pink ghetto thing that can happen
Speaker 1: of Like, you know, I just always saw like I
Speaker 1: want to play on the regulation field, right, So I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a woman in a male dominated industry, so I'll
Speaker 1: be a woman on that regulation field doing what I
Speaker 1: can do. I haven't done well with the idea I
Speaker 1: was supposed to go to this other category and have
Speaker 1: everything be like a disclaimer or a caveat of like
Speaker 1: female friends at or like you know, And I think
Speaker 1: some people lean into that because they there is a
Speaker 1: way I guess that you can maybe garner attention in
Speaker 1: a way that serves you and works for you, which
Speaker 1: I totally respect and get. But for me, I've just
Speaker 1: always been like, what now, can we just can you
Speaker 1: just talk to me about like my phrasing on you know,
Speaker 1: the third line of the second first of track eight
Speaker 1: of my sixth album, You know, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: really have like an agenda as a woman other than
Speaker 1: I hope that girls who come to my shows go like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do whatever the hell I want. That's
Speaker 1: basically my message. But okay, that's on your side. You're
Speaker 1: an attractive woman. Fronts of band has a certain amount
Speaker 1: of fame. The truth is many men are attracted to that,
Speaker 1: both people in the audience and people who were famous
Speaker 1: amongst the entire population. So to what degree when someone
Speaker 1: comes up to talk to you I'm talking about in
Speaker 1: an insider setting as opposed to just being out with
Speaker 1: the public, you say, in your back of mind, are
Speaker 1: they really want to talk to me for what I think?
Speaker 1: Or are they thinking about me sexually? I mean, that's
Speaker 1: just a human question that has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: what I do for a living. I think that's just
Speaker 1: like and I'm sure there's a male equivalent. So I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm sure there's a male equivalent in
Speaker 1: maybe in the fashion makeup world it could be. But
Speaker 1: if you are there, you're one of the few women
Speaker 1: amongst many men. So it's a little bit different from
Speaker 1: society at large, where it's kind of fifty fifty. Well,
Speaker 1: to be fair, Jimmy did say to me what she's like,
Speaker 1: you know, the problem with you is, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't realize that when you stay at the bar after
Speaker 1: closing till three am, you're the only one who's there
Speaker 1: to collaborate. I was like, oh, oh, okay, right, So
Speaker 1: I think I am a bit like out of it
Speaker 1: when it comes to that, But which also works. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I like the approach of just ignoring big tree
Speaker 1: and you know, adulation in equal measure, you know, just
Speaker 1: ignore it all. Be like, I have no idea you're
Speaker 1: talking about. So anyway, this is this new guitar. Okay.
Speaker 1: You know the reality is, and I have personal experience
Speaker 1: with this. When a woman is extremely attractive, certainly there
Speaker 1: are men who uh observe boundaries. But there are men
Speaker 1: that might say at three in the morning, oh that's good, okay,
Speaker 1: cleavercia tomorrow morning. And there are other men who might say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, let's go up to my room now. And
Speaker 1: you know, I wish him well because I'm going to
Speaker 1: be like, sorry, what now, let me rephrase the question.
Speaker 1: Have you been in any bad experiences as a result
Speaker 1: of being a man a woman in a man's world, yes,
Speaker 1: and how do you eat? How do you handle them?
Speaker 1: So sadly, And I've spoken a lot of my friends
Speaker 1: about this, and I think this is a generational shift
Speaker 1: that is happening. Um. But I have been of the
Speaker 1: school kind of the logical next progression from my attitude
Speaker 1: of like, I'm going to pretend that I didn't see
Speaker 1: you looking at me that way, or treating me that way,
Speaker 1: treating me lesser or um as a result of some
Speaker 1: perception that you have about my gender. I've similarly been
Speaker 1: very quick to dismiss and minimize and move on from
Speaker 1: all the things that have happened. And it's a choice.
Speaker 1: I didn't really think of it as a choice. And
Speaker 1: I think probably other women that you've spoken to, um
Speaker 1: my age are older, we'll we'll tell you the same thing.
Speaker 1: There's no mechanism for really anything else. It felt at
Speaker 1: the time, and certainly at this point in my life,
Speaker 1: I feel resilience and I've overcome everything. So having said that,
Speaker 1: I'm very supportive of this next generation of girls who
Speaker 1: they I mean, things that we don't think would even
Speaker 1: register with me. They're flagging, and good on them because
Speaker 1: if they have, they have the energy, they have, the
Speaker 1: they have, the social language, and you know a sense
Speaker 1: of understanding. UM that they can address those things. So
Speaker 1: I think I think if they they should. UM. But
Speaker 1: for me, I've just been like, can we please talk
Speaker 1: about my music now instead? Oh, I just want to
Speaker 1: clarify when I talk about being on the having experienced
Speaker 1: with this is with a woman I was involved with,
Speaker 1: not that I was bad behavior, just men approaching her.
Speaker 1: But in any event, you know, this is also a
Speaker 1: dicey area. But the reality of biologically women have a
Speaker 1: limited amount of time to have children all certainly they
Speaker 1: can adopt, they can freeze their legs. Do you feel
Speaker 1: you sacrifice to my knowledge, you don't have any children,
Speaker 1: you're not married. Is the music more important or did
Speaker 1: you say I want that but I can't have it.
Speaker 1: Where do you sit on that? Um? That probably is
Speaker 1: the only question so far that sits on my Michael
Speaker 1: Andrew's scale of selling my personal life. UM, which is
Speaker 1: me saying in a hopefully charming way that I'm probably
Speaker 1: not really going to answer that. UM. I would just
Speaker 1: say I was married, and I did try to have
Speaker 1: a family, and I am not married and I do
Speaker 1: not have a family. And leave it probably at that. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's move on to today. The album is called Forming Terra.
Speaker 1: For those who've been to Abisa know that form and
Speaker 1: Terra is across the water. And uh so why is
Speaker 1: this album called Formintara? So it's funny even though we're
Speaker 1: so early in this album campaign, I already have that
Speaker 1: little cringe, which you gotta do it right, Like I'm
Speaker 1: we're promoting the album, but where you hear yourself about
Speaker 1: to say something you've said before. But it's cool. I
Speaker 1: just I feel the need to preface that, like it's funny.
Speaker 1: I'm just looking at it right now, this book in
Speaker 1: the studio. Okay, So here it is, Uh, we're deep pandemic.
Speaker 1: And not only are we deep pandemic, we are in
Speaker 1: a frozen tundra in a rural hamlet and the doom
Speaker 1: scrolling is completely out of hand and what is on
Speaker 1: the other side of that phone is really dire and disturbing.
Speaker 1: Friends are dying, um our industry is completely gutted, and
Speaker 1: predictions for worse are coming in daily. Uh. We're in
Speaker 1: the studio and we were like, we need We're gonna
Speaker 1: need something here because everyone's we're not well and we
Speaker 1: got the idea to open this book that it's one
Speaker 1: of those like a thousand Places to Go before you
Speaker 1: Die book, like dream destination books. They're like, okay, maybe
Speaker 1: we opened this to a page, well, like it'll transport
Speaker 1: us will get inspired, and we'll just that that's going
Speaker 1: to make give this day a sense of shape. And
Speaker 1: we opened the book and it's for me, arra. And
Speaker 1: originally we thought maybe we'd do a different page every
Speaker 1: day or something, and it just never left that page.
Speaker 1: And that day we wrote that song. And I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to be dramatic, I just I can't. I don't
Speaker 1: really remember the way that it happened. It really did
Speaker 1: feel like Jimmy played something, and I went to the
Speaker 1: piano and played something, and then there was something. And
Speaker 1: then for the weeks that followed, I just spent all
Speaker 1: this time like when I was walking, when I was
Speaker 1: in the bath, when I which was basically the two
Speaker 1: things that I was doing. Um, I I would just
Speaker 1: be kind of tweaking this melody and these words that
Speaker 1: were essentially what got me to what we were discussing earlier,
Speaker 1: of like coming to this conclusion of letting go of
Speaker 1: the being unsustainable the level of anxiety that I was
Speaker 1: trying to contain in my small frame. So the song is,
Speaker 1: you know, why not just let go? You can't take
Speaker 1: a sober stroll and free my childhood dream. I'm done.
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't carry all this UM. So then
Speaker 1: that was we're you know, we're very harsh on our work.
Speaker 1: I love it, We're harsh editors. We had other material,
Speaker 1: we're working away. That song was done and we're progressing,
Speaker 1: we're continuing, and there was it was not front of
Speaker 1: mine UM for quite some time. And then as we
Speaker 1: were coming to the kind of end of the process,
Speaker 1: we realized it was time to sort of reckon with
Speaker 1: all these different tunes. And sure enough it was so weird,
Speaker 1: but like independently, everyone had this like epiphany that not
Speaker 1: only was that the heart of the record, it was
Speaker 1: definitely the title. And Jimmy then being him, was like,
Speaker 1: I know what we need to do. We need an orchestra.
Speaker 1: We need to arrive via orchestra and have it carry
Speaker 1: us through into the next track, which is Enemies of
Speaker 1: the Ocean. And you know, he says stuff like this,
Speaker 1: I'm like okay, Like I don't know, calls up Tote
Speaker 1: or Kobakov, who have we worked with before, our Bulgarian
Speaker 1: composer friend. He writes this piece, it's perfect. Get the
Speaker 1: Bulgarian art Orchestra uh up and running, and we record
Speaker 1: it by live cast and it becomes the heart of
Speaker 1: the record. And then you know, going into artwork meetings
Speaker 1: and the artwork guy comes bursting in the door and
Speaker 1: it's like, I know what the album is called, and
Speaker 1: I know what the song. It's like, it's called formIn Tera,
Speaker 1: and this is the thing. And I'm just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is happening by consensus, um, but like psychic consensus.
Speaker 1: So have you been to formIn Tera? And do you
Speaker 1: want to go to form? I have? I have, and
Speaker 1: it's and I and I actually it's funny because now
Speaker 1: things are open, right, and it's taken on so much
Speaker 1: significance um and yeah, and we're still at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the campaign. So I'm like, oh, man, I think
Speaker 1: I can't go now. Like I think that's too it's
Speaker 1: too literal. I mean, I need to experience it as
Speaker 1: this figurative escape, you know. It's like a poor man's
Speaker 1: vacation was our whole idea, Like none of us can
Speaker 1: go anywhere, you know, and at the best of times,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of us are yachting to
Speaker 1: form in terra. But at one point in my life
Speaker 1: I was um, and so I was just really torn,
Speaker 1: like what do I do? Because I'm kind of like, man,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind going. We got this promo trip, so
Speaker 1: we're going to London and Paris Berlin for work. I'm like,
Speaker 1: maybe I should just go, but I think I've decided,
Speaker 1: you know, another lockdown. Notwithstanding that I at the end
Speaker 1: would be really nice to just go with the band.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe by that point the tourism board will
Speaker 1: really appreciate our work. Actually, I was going to ask
Speaker 1: you with this, did you ever see the Um Pink
Speaker 1: Floyd movie? More? No? So, so they made a film
Speaker 1: and and spend all this time obsessed with Pink Floyd
Speaker 1: best music. They made a film and spent all this
Speaker 1: time on for Mentara, and people mistook it to be
Speaker 1: a visa. And then I had like the craziest connection
Speaker 1: of things where I discovered that that the windmill on
Speaker 1: the cover of that it's like a concert movie. I
Speaker 1: suppose h is forming Tara. And then I found the
Speaker 1: club Club to Peak is there where they played this
Speaker 1: concert in the seventies. I was like, oh man, this
Speaker 1: is our move, like Metrics going to Farm and Tara,
Speaker 1: We're gonna play Club to Peak. Of course, no, it's
Speaker 1: shut down because of like fraudulent tax returns. There's something
Speaker 1: sketchy and it's it's all not happening. But um, I
Speaker 1: love that there is a connection to it other than
Speaker 1: just being a place in my mind that I can
Speaker 1: go Okay. The world is in turmoil, and certainly the
Speaker 1: United States we have this battle between right and left,
Speaker 1: and you also have it in Canada. Does music have
Speaker 1: a place in this, because certainly in the sixties it
Speaker 1: did relative to national international issues. Doesn't have a place,
Speaker 1: And do you believe you need to play or want
Speaker 1: to play a role in that? I think our position
Speaker 1: is like now, Um, it's more about anything that reminds
Speaker 1: people of the the shaded edges of the sides that
Speaker 1: they've chosen, of the left and right. So there's a
Speaker 1: song on the new album called false dichotomy um, which
Speaker 1: of course is where you're presented with two things as
Speaker 1: though they are mutually exclusive, but they are not. And
Speaker 1: you know we present you know the idea of there
Speaker 1: are two ideas in the song. They're presented of like
Speaker 1: examples of false dichotomy. You know, being who being you're
Speaker 1: being true to yourself and being successful. That you can't
Speaker 1: be both of those things. That I would say that's
Speaker 1: a false dichotomy. And then love and hate I would
Speaker 1: also say is a false dichotomy. Recognizing the complexities like
Speaker 1: the lack of nuance in our sort of public discourse,
Speaker 1: it seems um is part of the problem. And music
Speaker 1: is nothing but communication. So if you know, without being
Speaker 1: two on the nose either because like nothing can be preachy,
Speaker 1: Like I don't have any answers. I have questions, but
Speaker 1: I don't have any answers, you know, but let's all
Speaker 1: just hang out with the questions, like tolerate the lack
Speaker 1: of resolution if you can the fact of the complexities,
Speaker 1: try to find some commonality with other people. Um, but
Speaker 1: the entrenched sides is just uh, it's terrible, and it
Speaker 1: seems to be the inertia is moving everything in those directions,
Speaker 1: similar to the sense economically that the inertia of richer
Speaker 1: and richer and poorer and poorer as the middle kind
Speaker 1: of stretches and disappears as a really unnerving and um unpleasant,
Speaker 1: you know, way to live. We gotta we gotta find
Speaker 1: another way to communicate. So hopefully, if anything, it's that.
Speaker 1: But I don't see myself like endorsing a candidate anytime soon.
Speaker 1: And you have an American passport, you lived in New York,
Speaker 1: you lived in l A. That's where you had your breakthroughs.
Speaker 1: What is really the difference between Canada and the United States,
Speaker 1: and why do you choose to live in Canada? Um?
Speaker 1: I think that's it an exceedingly case by case and
Speaker 1: personal uh answer everyone would have. In my case, the UM,
Speaker 1: the really cool thing that happened is like I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's from being born in New Delhi and
Speaker 1: always feeling like I'm supposed to be somewhere else, right
Speaker 1: like my parents were on this amazing journey, their romance,
Speaker 1: their world travels, and that it wasn't so it wasn't
Speaker 1: supposed to be that like so that I would then
Speaker 1: stop here supposed to be that I'm supposed to do
Speaker 1: the same thing. And the really great shift that happened,
Speaker 1: as I realized, is like, you know, if I'm able,
Speaker 1: the world is there for me to be in and
Speaker 1: be a part of, but denying the anchor of my
Speaker 1: what I honestly feel it almost like a debt to
Speaker 1: this country. I mean, and it's funny because you don't
Speaker 1: think of me as an immigrant, but I am. You know,
Speaker 1: I kind of grown up in some crappy town in
Speaker 1: the United States. So I grew up in a crappy
Speaker 1: sound in Canada. But like, you know, the arts programs,
Speaker 1: the teachers, I had, the friends that I made this
Speaker 1: you know, this country made me. And then I had
Speaker 1: the extreme privilege of also always carrying an American passport
Speaker 1: so I could participate in culture uh in that country
Speaker 1: as well, And like I need those cities, those like
Speaker 1: particularly New York. New York is like a person in
Speaker 1: my life. Like I just go by myself with and
Speaker 1: hang out with my friend New York um all the time.
Speaker 1: But I you know, single, being being alone in the world,
Speaker 1: you know, single meaning not related to your relationship status,
Speaker 1: but you in the world is such a beautiful feeling.
Speaker 1: But I'm so happy I realized I'm no longer looking
Speaker 1: to make that anchor somewhere other than Canada. And for
Speaker 1: me to actually answer your question, it's because what Jimmy
Speaker 1: and I built here is so anchored with the Toronto
Speaker 1: community and our beautiful studio and our family, and um,
Speaker 1: that's just I'm so relieved that I have stopped trying
Speaker 1: to be like you know, the absurdity of the idea
Speaker 1: of putting down roots in l A is like I
Speaker 1: can go to l A anytime, get an apartment, stay
Speaker 1: there for years, but no longer with the illusion that
Speaker 1: you know, you can grow a you know, maple tree
Speaker 1: and sand. Okay, Emily, thanks for being so honest and open.
Speaker 1: This is very, very insightful and I want to thank
Speaker 1: you for taking the talk. Thank you, Bob. I appreciated
Speaker 1: the conversation. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex