Interview: Broken Social Scene

admin on May 23rd 2006

A densely layered album, Broken Social Scene’s self-titled third release arrived as one of the most well-formed projects of last year, so few should have been surprised at how quickly their show in TBMC in February sold out. It doesn’t take long to realise there are more than a few members of Broken Social Scene, so when the band rolled into Galway recently, I was more than delighted to grab lead guitarist Andrew “Whitey” Whiteman for a chance to pick his brain and dissect the bells and whistles of their ostentatious production values.

There seems to be a bit of an explosion going on with Canadian bands at the moment, what do you think’s going on?
“I guess for us that question’s kind of a few years old. For us, the rush you get from thinking: ‘wow, look at all these Canadian bands coming up’ – that happened a few years ago, so maybe it’s just that now it’s making ripples over here. I don’t know much to say about how it feels because we’re on the road all the time and that kind of deflects the feeling of it because it’s a whole different existence. But I mean there’s a lot of great music from Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver and it’s just a good time, I guess.”

You don’t think that, in the wake of Arcade Fire’s success, maybe a certain part of the music industry are looking to Canada now even more…in a cynical way, almost.
“I don’t know what we can serve up to them – do you know what I mean? I don’t know what they would really want. I remember seeing Arcade Fire four or five years ago and I would never have imagined that they would be played on the kind of radio stations that your average secretary listens to, along with the likes of Rod Stewart – I would never have guessed that! So I don’t know what the industry would be hoping for. The Canadian bands that I’m in love with, they’re certainly not compromised or capitulating…

In terms of Broken Social Scene, there are so many elements to it – and so many people on stage even – that it almost seems like a collective rather than a band. Would you go along with that?
“We got a little bit of backlash for using the word collective due to its political connotations, so I wouldn’t want to use that because we’re not really an overtly political unit, although the lessons you learn from being in a band that has this many people – meaning anywhere from eight to sixteen, not including all the non-musical people in our crew – fluctuating, changing together, you learn certain lessons politically…sorry, what was your question again? (laughs)

Seeing the group as a melting pot or a team, rather than just a band…
“Yeah, absolutely. I mean it feels exactly like a family – a large, dysfunctional family, and it’s just what we do together.”

I was listening back to ‘You Forgot It In People’ recently and there seems to be a definite progression from the KC Accidental days right up to the new album. Would you agree?
“Oh absolutely, I would.”
What do you think that’s down to?
“Given that KC Accidental was pretty much Brendan and Kevin, and the first Broken Social Scene record was just them noodling in the basement. Then came the band and we played for a year – approximately five shows – but we jammed a lot. Then we hooked up with (Dave) Newfeld and made ‘You Forgot It In People’, and his thumbprint is all over that. For some reason, we played some more shows and the record blew, so now we’ve been on tour for three years solidly and in between coming off the road is when we made ‘Broken Social Scene’. So progression was inherent in that. Plus, Newfeld was as shocked as anyone else that ‘You Forgot It In People’ took off so he obviously amped up his side of things considerably – (impersonates the producer) ‘More! More tracks! More compression!’”

I’ve been told you’re playing a three hour set tonight…
“Oh reeeeaaaally…I don’t know about that.”
Well would that be very much a one-off thing then, or do you come close to that in your standard sets? Can you even sustain that over a tour?
“It depends…we do get into it. On the last tour, we did end up playing two and a half hour sets, so it’s not unheard of. I doubt it’s going to happen tonight, simply because this is the first show of our tour and we’ve had three people exchanged. We lost Lisa Lobsinger and John Crossingham and we got Jason Tate on percussion – who’s never played with us before – and then we have Amy and Evan from the band Stars, who we haven’t really toured with in a year and a half.”

Are you interested in how it’ll sound, whether it’ll keep things fresh for you?
“Absolutely! Are you kiddin’? I would die of boredom without these little injections of newness.”

It hasn’t been that long since you were last in Ireland. Would you remember that, or is it all just a blur?
“No, no, no. Certain places stand out. Well, everywhere stands out, but Ireland’s special for everybody. We’re thrilled to go there and play, not just Dublin, but Belfast too – that was a big thing for us. We were really happy to reach out and go there, and then playing here is the same sort of feeling. It’s fantastic to play somewhere that’s not ‘the’ place where everyone goes. People are like: ‘oh, we’re going to Ireland…’ – no you’re not, you’re going to Dublin – which is a fantastic place, but if you’re going to Dublin, then you’re leaving straight after – that doesn’t count, that’s not Ireland. I wish we could spend more time here, basically.”

So what do you think of the Heineken Green Spheres concept?
“Well, let’s see…I wouldn’t exactly know the back-story to it, but if you follow down every event and who is paying for it, I don’t know whether or not you’d be shocked but more likely than not, you’d find people promoting that event and paying for that event that you’re not really proud of and that you’re not willing to support. Sure, Heineken’s the same way – it’s a giant multi-national corporation. I didn’t know personally that that was going on here, but I do know we’re playing here – we’re playing Galway and that’s fantastic.”
Well the idea is basically to have “trendy” bands and have them play out of the way places for fans only…
“Well the only other gig that I know Heineken have done is a gig that I wish I was at, which is one with my favourite flamenco singer, Enrique Morente. He did a gig where he jammed with Sonic Youth and they played in Valencia in Spain, and that sounds like exactly the same sort of deal. You know, Valencia’s a bit out of the way, and that’s a fantastic gig so maybe they’re doing great shows. It’s great for the fans and it’s great for us too.”