Austinist Interviews Broken Social Scene

With so many people in the band at any given time, do you find that it’s hard to remain … cohesive?

Yah, it’s hard to remain cohesive in general.  It’s hard to keep a very healthy, spiritual outlook on life.  Like when you’re constantly talking about yourself.  We’ve been playing to much bigger audiences now, which is a lot of fun, but there’s something … it’s hard to connect.

It’s good, I mean, we’re very happy.  It just takes a lot to get on the road.  It’s different from before.  I think the main thing is trying to figure out a balance, and –

But how do you do that?

[Shrugs] I don’t know. I’m married.

Is your wife accompanying you guys on the tour?

She’s coming to see me on the West Coast.  She hasn’t been around for a while.  It’s going to be good to see her again.

It’s very strange, but it’s different from what it was.  Like there was a window of about a year when we were a band, and then the kids came.  You’ve got children that you have to think of, and you have all these other bands.  I don’t have any kids, but Charles has another kid on the way in January, Jason Collett’s not with us now because he just had another one, Ohad has a baby at home, Charlie’s expecting another. 

You know, the fathers that work nine-to-fives, they leave the house at eight, they get home at six and play with their kids for an hour and a half.  And then put them to bed.  Like [being in a band] you get to see this kid way more, but it just happens that you leave for four months and you come back and they’re talking.

Doesn’t that get frustrating after a while?

The mothers get frustrated sometimes, but at the same time, this is how make our living.  It’s one of the greatest jobs in the world, and everyone’s into it.  And you want those kids to … grow up, eat healthy, and you’ve gotta make a living!

I mean, I have a lot of friends who are out there and they’re just doing it. They’re like, “We’re gonna play two hundred fucking shows a year!” And that’s … no way to live.  It’s no way to live.

When you get home, do you find yourself wanting to immediately go back on the road?

The ones that don’t have homes, or gave their homes up, or decided to live in the moment – they do.  But you need a home.  You need a solid foundation, or you just become a stereotype like all the rest.  If you look at so many of these rock-n-rollers: there are many who are doing it right, and there are plenty others who are doing it wrong.

[Suggestively] So, who’s doing it wrong?

Ohhhhh, I dunno.  [Laughs]

But you believe your own shit.  I have a saying that I say every encore could be a few hundred [bucks] of therapy if you let it be.  It’s just about your frame of mind and how you want to approach it. 

We made some mistakes - our latest thing is we got Murray from The Dears to come on our record, but we didn’t use him to the ability that he should’ve been used.  Like we do a duet with him in this one part, that didn’t end up on the record, but then we had him on this other song where he’s just screaming and giving it all crazy.  And that was on the first track. 

But in retrospect, you know, the man deserves to have his own tune and everything. And then people get on board, and they say “oh, this person’s in this band, and that person’s in that band” I find it interesting how we’re at the level now where all these other bands are starting to do well, so I don’t know how much longer this idea of this collective can last when other people are gonna feel like they’re starting to take responsibility for the success of their [own] bands.

We don’t want names, we just want friends to play in our band, screw around, have some fun.

But you guys have always been known as a collective.  How intend to keep everyone together?

I don’t intend to keep everyone together at all.  Anybody can come and go as they please.  They have to be, or it won’t work.  I mean, I wish that I could say to Evan [Cranley] and Amy, “Quit Stars! You don’t need them, you need us, let’s do this!”  But then what about the others, you know?  What about Stars?  People need Stars! I mean, I can’t tell them to stop the band. [Shifty eyes] Even though I’d love to… [Laughs]

No, no, they need that outlet.  Because if they don’t have that outlet, they wouldn’t have that with us. 

But see, the only way you could get around that is for all of you guys to always tour together, and simply share members!

And you know what? That sucks too, because everyone’s doing well in their own right.  And actually, we have a lot of different audiences.  A lot of people think the audience is the same, that the music is the same, but it’s not.  We’re not the same as Metric, Metric isn’t the same as Stars, Stars isn’t the same as Do Make Say Think, and Do Make Say Think isn’t the same as kc Accidental, and kc Accidental isn’t the same as Feist, and … [you get the picture]

Are you happy with the compromise that you’ve established, then, with trading off members of various bands?

It’s a beautiful compromise.

So, what does Canada make of our political antics nowadays?

Canada has basically based its whole culture around the fact that it’s not America.  We’re not Americans! We’re not Americans! Anybody in the world who sits on the left can see that what’s happening right now is a disgusting, historical … [searches for the right word]

It’s a farce.

It was gonna say farce!  But I second guessed myself now, because every time I say something it’s like I’m gonna have to read about it [Laughs]

But, it’s going to go down as a dark time, historically. 

And what can we do but watch?  I mean, we tried our best last year.

No, I know. You lost!

[Laughs, but we’re secretly crying inside]

You lost! It’s a defeatist world that you live in over here, and it’s a defeatist world where we live in. 

We should move to Canada.

Don’t move to Canada! I propose that … you have personal peace within yourselves.  And try to not let the idea of how you want to live ever go away.  You can’t move to Canada … or we’re fucked.  America runs the world right now. 

I encourage people, if you want to become an assassin, become an assassin! I’m all for it – you’re ready to make a change? Go and kill them all! That’ll make a change.  Can ya do it? Probably not.  I couldn’t. But … the same idea, this world … there has to be some sort of harmony, which there isn’t right now.  And if everybody split and moved to Canada –

We’d just be bringing the plague over there.

Don’t bring the plague over here!  We’ve got our own personal issues to deal with.  And you know what?  There’s a fog that happened, and everyone’s feeling – from the soldiers in Iraq, to people in their kitchens. 

So what about this song, “7/4 (Shoreline)” - what’s that song about?  First of all, I can’t understand most of the lyrics.

I know.

I try to sing along, but I can’t, because they’re all mumbled, and I end up having to make up a strange Nordic dialect –

I know, that’s good, because that means you’re a songwriter!

[Laughs] You ever going to get around to writing some lyrics up?

Oh, I know, I’m going to end that.  It’s torturous. I will get around someday to writing up some lyrics and put ‘em on the site.

Well, it sure seems awfully convenient that it happens to be our Independence Day, and –

[Screams] Of course! [Shakes his finger] You’re the first one to notice that! [Laughs] Well, it’s 7-4 time, but I like that very much and I appreciate that one.  It’s very good. But, “7/4” – I can’t remember the lyrics.

There are no lyrics.

Yeah, there are.

See what I mean though?

Yeah, I feel you.

How long did it take to create Broken Social Scene?

A couple of years.  It was all over the place.  A lot of them [recorded] live.  “It’s All Gonna Break” was written six years ago, “7/4” was written three years ago, we just ended up recording them all.  People wanted something cohesive, but this was more of an experimental album than we thought we’d ever make.

Is there any reason why you chose to make this your self-titled album, and not You Forgot It In People?

Yeah, this is more of a personal record than any other we will probably ever make, or have made.  It happened at a time when we were going around the country and clapping our hands and screaming “hope!hope!hope!”, and lot of us got very, very, very, very tired.  And a lot of us lost some shit, and a lot of us got some things back and moved forward, and, well, that’s become the idea – that this was some big adventure.  It was us running out into the world and getting beat up and getting kissed and –

This was the result.

This was the result, and that’s why it’s just this … big, beautiful mess. Because that’s what it’s like, when you’re in the Broken Social Scene.  And it’s great for our times. I think we kind of fell into an abyss together, and [laughs] it took us a while to get out of it. The next record that we’re putting out, it’s nothing like this record.  Nothing.

What about [producer] Dave Newfeld? Still working with him for the next record?

The next one he’ll work on but he won’t produce it.  He’s working on a solo record right now, which we’re all happy about and we’re all gonna work on with him.  He’s never done his own work – I mean, he has, quietly, in his own world.  But we’re all fucking excited that he’s making his own album, and wants us all to come and play on it.  So we’re all really excited to do that.  I think after this record, we all need to just do something of our own.  I mean, I’m dying to do something where I can take full responsibility. 

So what’s next for you guys?

I think we’ve gone as far as we want to go.  We were never going for more than having some people know us, and love us. And we’ve gone well beyond that now, and now we’ve got all these people working for us now, and all these people saying, “You’ve gotta do this, and you’ve gotta do that, and if you want to break this market you’ve gotta do this”

And we’re just [at] the point where … you’ve gotta follow your heart. You’ve gotta be honest, and you’ve gotta just do what you want to do. [Completely loses track of the conversation to sing along to a Led Zeppelin cover being played onstage]

I really don’t need much more.  Except when your friends are doing better than you, because you’re like, “Well, if you’re doing that, then we’ve at least gotta do that.” [laughs]

But all my friends are … doing really well lately.  The thing about it is, everyone’s doing really well in their own things.  And we’ve been doing really well, too -because of them, and vice versa. We’re really all helping each other.  There are tons of bands out there, and everyone seems to be holding their own.  It’s a great time for independent music.  It’s a great time to be a band again.