Cathartic Dysfunction: An Interview with Andrew Whiteman of Broken Social Scene

You’ve talked about the last Apostle of Hustle album, Eats Darkness, having this overarching conceptual framework, which was that you have to consume darkness in order to expel light. Like, turn what's kinda shitty about the world into something positive. And I feel like Broken Social Scene kind of does that, too. To what extent do you guys work that into your music?

Social Scene doesn't have any philosophy, really. We never sit and talk about that kind of thing. When it comes to Social Scene, the way that our alchemy would work would either be in the form of a bar mitzvah or in the form of, like, a Doctor Phil session where Kevin is Doctor Phil for the disaffected twenty- and thirty-somethings. It's very hippie-ish; there’s an audience-band sort of a situation, do you know what I mean? A public-type catharsis thing going on. And with Apostle of Hustle, that music is created for and by people who I’ve called “back-up people.” It's a pretty singular, inward sort of enjoyment. A solo trip.

I've heard you describe Apostle of Hustle fans as kind of a strange group, and it seems to me that maybe they're reacting to different things in the music than Broken Social Scene fans, and the reactions are different in character, too, than your typical 20-something indie rock fan. Is Apostle of Hustle a way to get out a different side of you? A stranger side, maybe?

Well absolutely - I get a little bit more room to get my freak on, for sure. It wouldn't be fitting for me to go out on stage with Broken Social Scene wearing a mask. If I get a little too performative, it breaks the illusion of there being no illusion [laughs].

Does that side of yourself manifest in Broken Social Scene at all?

Oh, sure, when you're on stage, you're on stage for a reason. I, perhaps more than other people in the band, really feel like our job is to entertain. That's what we do. We're entertainers. Kevin will really get into the "This is us! This is you! We're here for you! You're here for us!" thing. You know, kinda like Tom Cruise in Magnolia. That's his version of it. That's him saying, "I'm just being here all honest for you.” Whereas I tend to think of it more as entertainment. But they’re pretty close. I’m splitting hairs here.

I’ve seen you guys play a couple of times before, and you seem to have this persona on stage where it seem like you're totally just in the zone all the time, to the extent that it doesn't seem performative.

Yeah, yeah, that’s good. That makes sense; that is my persona with Social Scene - I should be in the zone all the time [laughs]. That works for me! Where as with Apostle of Hustle there are other things I do that get a lot more knowingly performative. I play a role, but I enjoy that just as much.

So I watched an interview with you from a couple of years ago where you bashed that book about Broken Social Scene, This Book Is Broken, and you said something like, "we as humans should be nostalgic for a hundred years ago, or our childhoods," and it was interesting to me because you seemed not at all interested in the kind of in-the-moment myth making that accompanies a lot of groups, whether it's a book or just the blog driven story that gets attached to a particular band. Do you still feel that way?

Sure, yeah, I absolutely feel that way. I bite my tongue a bit on the book because I had an experience in Houston, actually, where I had a conversation with a musician there that bought This Book is Broken, and reading the book inspired him. You know, I guess Houston is a place where they are struggling to build their scene and feel like they have something going on, and, you know, he was excited. It made him feel like having a scene was possible. We were actually playing outside at a little indie festival [note: the Free Press Summer Fest] that they organized in Houston, and it was a really great time. When we were driving into town that day, we were listening to the college radio station, which was amazing.

So the whole experience made me kinda go, “well, you know, I guess if someone can get something good out of this book, that’s good.” But, ultimately I stand by my thing, you know. I mean, what are we: musicians, or are we celebrities? That's just part of my world view, though. I don't Facebook, I don't do any of that stuff. It's like all means to attract and distract, and just fuck it man, I don't need that. We need things that help us be more connected in a direct and profound way.

Yeah. I guess that was interesting to me, because for a lot of my friends and a lot of people my age [note: mid-twenties], Broken Social Scene has always been like this ideal of a band. A lot of people I know got attached to You Forgot It In People in high school, and there's always been this kind of larger-than-life quality attached to it in the heads of many people. Maybe because BSS is a collective, too, which seems vaguely utopian. To hear you say that about the book was like the flip side of that ideal.

Well, we are vaguely utopian, but, you know, that's the thing with utopias, they're vague and, it's more of an idea than it is the reality. In reality we're a giant, dysfunctional family. And I’m happy to be part of that family, but when people ask us about organizing things or what plans we have, no one knows. We're the most disorganized people I know. We don't have any clues about what we're doing.

Ok, switching gears a little bit. I saw that you organized a Black Mountain College tribute at the Hopscotch Music Festival in North Carolina last September, and I know that you are yourself a poet. How does poetry help define your world view?

Well, I guess I'd say what Shelly said, which is that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the visible world." Poetry is my core belief, it's where I get my metaphors, it's where I can actually have a conversation that makes sense to me, with other poets. I just find that poetry is a way of revealing the invisible world. Not everyone wants to be in the invisible world, but I do.

In a lot of ways it's like a mirror, too.

Sure, yeah. When you read a poem and you feel yourself reflected in that poem, it reveals something to you, or it shows something to you. Just like you said: it's like a mirror. That's an unbeatable feeling.

Cool. Is there anything else you would like to add to the interview?

Well, let's see...you're calling me from Austin, and of all the amazing things to say about Austin, I'm just going to say: respect Austin because the great American poet Louis Zukofsky's papers are at the University of Texas. And hopefully this time I'll have enough spare time that I can go there. So to any poetry student at the University that wants to take me on a tour to see Louis Zukofsky's papers - I would be more than excited!