Emily Haines

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is Emily Haines of The Vectric. Emily,
good to have you on the podcast, so I can
see you in a studio. But where are you? New York, Toronto, wherever?
I'm in a rural hamlet, Okay, rural himle if there's

(00:29):
a lot of them, rural hamlet, Canada, United States. Yeah,
it's in Canada. It's just outside Toronto. And is that
where you spend most of your time these days? Um,
Now that the world has come back to a certain degree,
I'm back in it, um, but certainly for the making
of music and the living of life. I do love

(00:50):
a rural hamlet. So what is inspirational about a rural hamlet.
I just the lack of a town, which means less
of the usual things that humans bring to everything, which
is politics. Like I love how we separate out politics
as though it's something separate. It's all of life. So
because there's no town, there's none of that, and it's

(01:12):
rolling hills and rivers and I always see like little foxes,
and I see turtles and frogs and deer and you know,
rabbits and every day, certainly at this time of year.
What it's a completely different landscape in terms of blooming.
I have all these wild flowers that just do their thing.

(01:33):
Even the weeds, you know, milkweed. I'm down with it.
You know, the butterflies need it. Uh So that's why
I like a rural hamlet. So what inspires you in
terms of your creative work you're writing, I'm so glad
you added something to that sentence. Is that was big? Um?

(01:54):
In terms of the work, uh, I feel that it's
over the years become quite clear that it almost I
would feel it's a balanced combination of these things. Which
is at this point a deep loyalty and commitment to
my band, and which is they're my family. UM. So
I'm inspired by the idea, just the idea of us

(02:16):
UM following through on our ideas and visions. UM is
now like deeply motivating and inspiring. UM. The people who
listen to it, I'm inspired by them because I still
can't believe even though there's so much cynicism, I just
still feel incredibly fortunate too exist in someone's mind. I

(02:38):
know it's hot real estate these days, UM, and I
feel pretty pretty toughed and lucky that my music makes
it into people's lives and soundtracks. So I'm inspired to
like continue providing that service to people. Um. And then
there's just the craft itself which keeps me busy. As

(02:59):
every songwriter will tell you who's obsessed. Um, it's just
a fascinating craft. Um. The fact that you have eight keys,
and the incredible amount of things that can come out
of just these keys, you know. And I only write
in one language, and I even still feel like there's
so much to be done. Um. And definitely like driven

(03:23):
by a sense of my legacy to my father, who
it's just like such a great strange poet, um, with
such a love of language and the idea of the
feeling when you get an insight sort of encapsulated in
to something so concise and beautiful as he would do.
So those are the things that keep me going. Well,
let maybe very specific. Some people they walk down the street,

(03:46):
they look at the people it inspires them for ideas.
Other people watch TV, other people read books or magazines.
Other people just live their regular life and inspiration hits
them whenever, like in the shower or driving a car.
In terms of writing music itself, how do you begin

(04:07):
the process. Uh, I feel like I'm kind of always
in it. Um. You don't want to get too far,
but uh, and I know what you mean, like that
distinction between sort of like principles that you live your
life by, which is sort of more what I just
gave you. Um. But in terms of like when things strike,
it's kind of an odd sensation, like I'll kind of

(04:27):
be doing something, it doesn't really matter what or where,
and I'll i'll sense that you know, um, something might
be getting clear. And that's why I have pianos. I
never really have a piano like too far away from me.
I have one on each floor of my house, um,
just in case. And I just I'm always amazed by
the feeling because you can't. It's a humble thing, right,

(04:48):
It's like, you know, so much is on the cutting
room floor, but um, it would be like this weird
sensation and I'll go to the piano and usually it's
just like, you know, it's just gibberish, and it's those
same mean, there's only so many chords, right. But the
strangest thing when things coalesce in this odd order, um,
which I do find mostly inspired by the natural world.

(05:10):
The way you see it play out where things have
such symmetry, but there's no way that you could stage
that m or force that. But so I usually record immediately.
As soon as I kind of have that sense, I
just sit down. I just start recording, and you know,
lots of it's nothing and some of it um, I'll listen.

(05:30):
I'll listen back quite immediately, and it's almost like this
is a super old school thing. But like you need
to take a pencil and rub like a piece of
paper over in nickel and it would like show the
form of the nickel. It feels like that, like I
like what was gibberish, I can hear the whole thing
and then and then I'm like, okay, well now I
have something. And then that's just the beginning. And then

(05:53):
it has to go through this like tough love, uh
process to make it on a metric record. But that's
sort of how begins. Okay, let's go back to something
you said earlier. Your father, your father was a poet.
Tell us about that. Uh. Paul Haynes vast Or Michigan
UM football star and secret poet. UH served in the

(06:18):
Korean War. Didn't see battle, but he because he could
type had the job of typing up the leaves of
absences for soldiers, which is I think such a great
job to have. So of course he did everything you
could fabricate as many as possible, I'm sure, Um. And
then as a result of the g I bill uh,

(06:39):
which maybe you're familiar with, absolutely incredible for those who
may not be that you know, if you serve in
the army pace for your college. Yeah, but in which
is for sure the correct, succinct version of it. But
in the case of someone like my father, Um from
a small town in Michigan, he it was a passport
to the world for him. So he in his travels,

(07:01):
UM got to build upon some of his early discoveries
of jazz. Um in Flint, Michigan and driving to Detroit
he was he would go and record um musicians playing jazz. Well, well,
let's go a little bit slower. So your father was
in the military, and before that he went to college
and he was a football player. Do I have the

(07:21):
order right? You do? The football player was deeply high
school and I'm the photo of in Miami. Yeah, Just
so I understand. Did he go to uh Korea before
or after he went to college? After he went to
Miami University of Miami. Okay, so we already graduated from
Miami when he went into the service. I think that's right.

(07:42):
And then while he was there he was able to
build upon his love of jazz, which is where he
met Mitchell Konta, whose end up was a writer about Sartre.
My father had all these interactions with this world. Wait
wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, these things
just don't happen. Howes he get from Korean uh to
interact with all these people and they aren't necessarily you know,

(08:04):
around the corner in Michigan. I don't. This is and
this is uh. You know, it's funny with speaking with you, Bob,
because I know that you love a detailed conversation, and
it's hard with a question about my father because we
really could have a whole separate I feel like there
should be an episodic series on the life of Paul Haynes.
So I'm more than happy to sort of direct my

(08:25):
my tail, but as much as I can, because we
could there's a lot um. Well then let me let
me be let me let's go back to the way
you were saying it. So he's out of the army,
and he's traveling around getting these influences. Just give us
a little bit of the story, you know, as it's
been told to you. Yeah, that the mythology and the family. Um.
So then you know, he comes back to the United

(08:47):
States having had these experiences. He meets my mother in
New York City, um, introduced by a friend, and there
they get aloft in soho and or I guess that
would have been the late fifties, early their sixties. We
can check all my timelines. Um. He shared a lot
with Michael Snow, the Canadian artist uh times where they

(09:10):
would share like going back and forth between each other's
cold water lofts as they called them, I guess because
they had no hot water. And then in that time,
as I understand it, he met Carla blaz the composer,
and they started up an incredible creative relationship where he
would write these librettos, these lyrics for her work, the
most UH known of which UH was the culmination of

(09:34):
work he did when my mother and father were in India.
Their travels took them to New Mexico and to India,
so they had me and New Delhi, and in that
time my father was writing what became the libretto for
Carla Blaze Escalator Over the Hill Um. And then so
my childhood was imbued with not only the story as

(09:55):
I've tried to tell it up till now, ah, but
this actual music and the incredible life force that is
Carla Blay Um. And there were all of these other
tentacles that my father had through mixed tapes that he
made that he sent. You know, one of my favorites
is Evan Parker, the incredible saxophonist who performed at my

(10:16):
father's memorial, connecting him with Robert wyatt Um from Soft Machine,
who my father would make tapes for. And then when
I was a young woman coming up writing songs, I
would send my songs to Robert and he would send
me back postcards and give me guidance. And yeah, but
all of this in this like non celebrity. You know,

(10:37):
my parents are teachers, right. My father is a French teacher. Um, okay,
just when you're when you when your father is in
New York and when he's in India, is he teaching?
Is that how he's paying the bill? Yeah? I kept
I don't know if he was teaching in New York. Um,
I know that in India he worked for the International
School UM and I have his He got an award

(11:00):
for endurance, which I look at a lot in softball
UM from the embassy in New Delhi. I don't know
what the story is there, but I just I love
his like I'm obsessed with this idea of the athlete
poet like this is my calling is to hopefully master
the hybrid more than he did, because in the end,

(11:21):
his body succumbed to his mind, if you know what
I mean. He was so such an intellectual that I
just feel like if he was able to stay with
a part of him that was an athlete, we wouldn't
have lost him so young. Um, How old was How
old was he when he passed? Yeah? He was seventy okay?
And are you athletic yourself? I am? I am even

(11:43):
more so now as a result, my brother and sister
and I all of us are pretty fired up. But
he passed away on my thirty, just before my thirtieth birthday,
on the day that we finished World World Underground, our
first album, So is a The torch was handed very dramatically,
died very suddenly. So um, But what a cool life.
I mean, endlessly inspiring and his I feel like you'd

(12:06):
appreciate his writing. Actually, can I tell you? Can I
tell you one? Let me just give you one. You'll
you'll love this so um, I think so. An example
of Paul Haynes's poem is this um poem is called
Practicing Safe Emotion. Practicing Safe Emotion. It was the back

(12:27):
of his chair, she rubbed. That's all. But those things
you know, you'll be walking around doing your thing, you're vacuuming,
think about that stuff, you know. He's like these observations
so beautiful or something, but also like the least commercial
thing that's ever been thought of. Probably, um, okay, I'm

(12:49):
just I'm interesting. I'm interested in your own pursuit of
athleticism as half of your life, the creative intellectual part
being the other half. Well, I think it's funny when
you think, you know and your kid, how we get
we get? You know, it gets decided right in in
school at some point. Um, if you're a jock, or

(13:09):
you're theater kid, or your whatever else, all the categories right,
but it's usually you know, it's either the life of
the mind or the life of the body. And I
think that It's took me a long time to realize
that I really am both. And the only way I'm
going to be able to do what I want to
do is to have my my body be part of
my mind and both. You know, I can't just live

(13:31):
in your mind. You gotta the music is like it's
it's through you. Um, so you know, And there's also
like a practical reality of metrics shows. I mean, it's great,
it's a self fulfilling thing, but a metric show demands Cardio.
And because the metric show demands Cardio, that I have
to do it, and it kind of all it's part

(13:52):
of my plan. Okay, So Cardio would imply that you
work out, but also are you a runner, a hike
or a skier or any of that? Or is your
physicality mostly about working in the gym. I don't work
in the gym. I run, And so how often do
you run? As much as I want to have this

(14:14):
joy based approach. Um, My sister in law and and
my brother are both marathon runners, but they're so chill
about it and it's really inspiring. I'm not remotely on
their level. Um, but you know, some people get so
addicted and it becomes like everything else in life that
you've just basically ruined it for yourself. So for me, UM,

(14:37):
I I feel like the formula is like I have
to come to it with joy. I have to come
to it genuinely wanting to do it, um. And then
once I'm in UM, then it's every day because you
just want to. It's like a body scan of really
amazement when I, you know, think of myself jumping off
speaker stacks into crowds, or doesn't even living in a

(15:00):
on a tour bus, or like, you know, the occupational
hazards of being a musician, just running and being like,
oh my god, everything works, nothing hurts. How is this possible?
You know? And I know that as time progresses there
will be obstacles, But at this point in my life, incredibly,
I'm out on the trail and the rivers running by

(15:22):
me and nothing hurts. So I do it as much
for that reason, you know. Okay, let's go back. You're
born in New Delhi. Do you have any memories of
New Delhi? And how does the family end up in Canada?
They left when I was three? Um, I don't I
feel like it's that thing where you have pictures in
your head. That are the photographs you saw. But um,

(15:44):
they got work in Canada as teachers. Um. I think
it was again through Michael Snow and Joyce Wheland, who
my mother is a visual artist. And Joyce Leland was
a tragically overlooked in my opinion artist. She's the wife
of Michael Snow who's very famous in Canada. But she
did like almost like Tracy Emmon style, like fabric work,

(16:06):
really cool stuff ahead of her time. But I believe
they helped um along with UM. That's right, Zalman from
The Loving Spoonful. I mean, honestly, you might know as
well as I do. I don't have to ask my mom.
I can't remember how, but it was just you know,

(16:26):
you're growing up, you're like, oh, yeah, of course your
pals with him, UM and I and I have seen
the letters where my dad wrote and said, hey guys,
UM any word of work, you know. And obviously at
that time it was um not related to anything to
do with military service. But the previous Trudeau, obviously Pierre
Trudeau is really opening the borders to people. A lot
of people were coming in the seventies, so this was

(16:48):
seventies six. Um, so wait, so I was two or
three whatever, seventy six something like that. Um and Zal
I think I think maybe he was the one who
found sent my dad like a clipping that some remote
school in the north, um you know, deep snow. Uh

(17:08):
I was looking for teachers, and they applied, they got
my dad got a job immediately, I guess. So my
poor brother and sister went from you know, being in
India two being in you know, snow up to your neck.
And the quintessential Haynes family photograph is I'm a baby
and they're we're all standing in front of the sign

(17:29):
that says like no food or fuel north. At this point,
it's just like snow up to your ears. And you
know they were adventurers. I think that was their love story. Okay,
so how long were you in that area or did
you move to the city? Uh? Well, the families sort
of stayed there, um north in and around. Uh, but

(17:52):
I when I was fifteen moved to Toronto. Just you know,
because they've got a lot of Americans listening, We're not
Canadians savvy. Where exactly is this in Canada? Um? Well,
I do value my privacy, Bob, So it's North I'm
just talking. No, No, I'm talking about where you grew

(18:12):
up with your parents. Yeah, we're all that snow. Oh
so it's it's it's within close driving distance of Toronto
that you grew up. The first place that they that
they landed was smooth Rock Falls, which I don't remember.
And just where is that? Is that? North five fars? Yeah?

(18:36):
I should also full disclosure and really bad with like
and believe me, I get mocked for this of having
a band called Metric and being like I can't measure anything,
Like I'm not trying to, you know, I'm like, how
far is it? I'm like, I don't know. I'm measuring
it in time, you know. My brother's like how big?
How big is it? I'm like, I don't know. He's like, Okay,
if you hold two albums up? Is it two albums?
Is it one? So just so you know, that's why

(18:57):
I'm extra sketchy on those U okay the files kilometers
you're living far from civilization. You come to Toronto with fifteen,
but prior to being fifteen, are you out in the boonies? No?
They moved to this other town that was more like
weird and the kind of place that you want to

(19:18):
probably get out of quickly. And if you wanted to
get in your car and drive to Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto,
how long does that take. It's a couple of hours
to Toronto. Okay. So you're growing up, do you have
a perception that your parents are outsiders bohemians? Are they
just teachers and you're a regular kid in the in

(19:39):
the town? Um? Yeah, I think I yeah, I felt
the weirdness. Um, but it took a while because I
just was having such a good time. Like we had
this huge backyard and you know, it's that thing where
you're a kid and you don't realize that you don't
have any money, and then it's like later, I'm like, oh,
weird they you know, we were taking the washing to

(20:01):
the dryer in the laundromat because it broke and they
couldn't fix it. You know, it's like, right, this is
a bohemian situation. But I was just the house was
full of all these like crazy beautiful pieces from India
and their travels and books and music, and we were
having a good time and um, but yeah, I remember
there being a story about one of the neighbors saying

(20:21):
because my parents had friends over probably um uh, Michael
snow Enjoyce Weeland came up from the city and they
had quite a few garbage bags out, I guess. And
then the rumor was that my parents were having orgies.
So it was. And I remember also my mom Blesser
had to do some supply teaching at some point, which

(20:42):
I don't know if it's still the case for kids
now of how this works in schools where you'd have
to wheel a cart through or did you have that? Yeah,
so in this school, and I believe it was because
she was supply teaching French. And again, I'd love to
do a whole other conversation with you about French and
English in Canada. Fascinating amount of um sort of dissonance
between the two languages. Sadly, you know where no one

(21:05):
wants to go to French class. And my father's the
French teacher who's like, but I've been in Paris, you
would love it, you know, takes all these kids to
Paris and they're like, oh, it is school to teach French.
She and so she's being a supply teacher in French
and no one wants to take French. They make you
were a heart, and I'm an American. Are we referring
to home economics? I don't know what supply teacher is,

(21:26):
so it's no, A supply teacher is like a substitute teacher.
The word the world doesn't really make sense. It's true,
substitute teacher. Um so, yes, this is all just in
relation to did I know my parents were weird? Was
I remember? My mom wore like really bright stockings and
everyone just lost it, like they were like, with this

(21:46):
cannot be like you know, they're probably read or something.
And I was in maybe the fifth grade or something
like that. Um, so later I I and obviously now
with time, I'm like, oh my god, these people live.
These guys are legends. They did such cool stuff. Okay,

(22:10):
so you're in the house living with very artistic people
they is it totally free form, run free, do whatever
you want? Is it? No? You have to take piano lessons. No,
you have to watch public television. What's it like growing
up in the house. Well, you know, it's and it's
funny how much things have changed, because I mean, I'm

(22:30):
only forty eight. But the you know, we had two channels,
so there wasn't a lot of having to control what
you watched because and then there was like a really
big deal when we got the box that you could
press the buttons to watch TV. But even then, you
know that was not something that could even be restricted. Um,
I did from discover early in terms of chores and

(22:52):
stuff that if I said that I had an idea
that I wanted to play on the piano because I
picked it up really young, if I said that, I
could get out of doing the dishes, and I think
that may have sort of defined my choices made a
big That was a big revelation of like, I see
how this works. If I'm at the piano, maybe I
can get away from the mundane and would be the

(23:14):
type of thing where everybody's doing their own thing, where
you sit for dinner with the whole family and you
have discussions and they pull things out of you. Yeah,
we would always set for dinner. That was that was
definitely a thing. And in the morning because we're every
you know, everyone's getting up at the same time. Um
My mom when she was working was the teacher as well.
My dad would play the craziest music like Dai Gelo

(23:35):
Abortions was a favorite um in the morning, which she
would also do in his classes, but it could other
times be like Albert Eisler or like, you know, some
of the craziest jazz you've ever heard in your life,
and he'd just be like, you know, handle it. Um,
So the mornings were fun for that? And what kind
of kid were you? Popular? Unpopular, good student, bad student?

(24:00):
I was a good student. I really loved school, um.
And I had a lot of friends. I feel like,
I like there was a lot of I feel like
I was betrayed a lot um, which is probably more
of a conversation for a shrink, although I'd like free therapy.
I don't know if I'm gonna give anything back. But
what did that betrayal look like? Like? You know my

(24:25):
best friends? Um? You know it's like you had Madonna
and you had Cyndi Lauper, And I was like, oh man,
I really you know, click with Cyndi Lauper and I
actually got to play her benefit. We sand give me
sympathy together. It was amazing later in life. But um,
you know the idea of girls just want to have
fun key line in there after the working day is done,

(24:49):
girls just want to have fun. I was like, I
love how she buried. The lead, which is you have
a life, you have your own money. You're like a
self possessed person who can be whatever you are. Really
great message for like an eleven year old, and you
do know that it was written by a man, Robert Hazard,
out of Philadelphia. Boys boys just want to have fun. Well, however,

(25:12):
whatever does not mean I hear what you're saying. It's
just fascinating. The guy had one quasi hit, uh, the
Escalator of Life, which was great, but his other claim
to fame was he wrote girls Just want boy was
really boy just want to have fun. That does not
undercut your It doesn't mean whatsoever. But okay, so you
were into Cydey Law for everybody else and my best friend, yeah,

(25:34):
well my best friend was into Madonna, which was obviously
very sexualized. I think it's around the time and she's
like on that boat in Venice, which was just like
what's happening? Um? And my boyfriend and my best friend
which was her, they walked me around the field and
said we have to talk to you. I was like, okay,
like you're my best friend and you're my boyfriend, and

(25:54):
they were like we're together now. Um, that's betrayal. Yeah,
because and it's because like I you know, I wasn't sexual, right,
I'm like, I'm not, I wasn't so and she was.
I was Cindy Lawfer, she was Madonna. And then it
was less so sad, and then I like, still after school,
I still went to her house because she's my best friend.

(26:15):
And then he's just calling her at her house instead
of me. So I feel like, you know, you can
make a case for anything in your life, but I
feel like when I if you know, one of the
takeaways of my life from a child my childhood was betrayal.
So I'm very loyal and really admire that in other
people too. It was there another instance of betrayal or
that just you know, was so big that it overshadows

(26:37):
everything else. There's been a lot, but that's you know.
My favorite. One of my favorite lines that I quote
all the time is from Michael Andrews, who produced Old
World Underground. We were at the very beginning of everything
twenty years ago ish and he said, um, if you
sell your personal life, you can never buy it back, which,
of course at that time I was like, what are
you been talking about? Nobody even were at playing the

(26:59):
silver Lake lound like there's no danger of that, and
there have been so many instances where I've been, you know, tempted,
and I just my life is my own. Thank you,
Michael Andrew's Okay, just so I know if you did
sell your personal life, what would that look like? There
are some some crazy stories, so I think that it

(27:21):
would look like, Um, it would be it would explain
a lot of things. But I have made the decision
that I'd rather be a writer, protect my privacy and
not let let things go. Okay, you're a very dynamic

(27:42):
person who knows where she's going. Were you a leader
or ringleader? Growing up? Uh? Yeah, yeah, I think I'm
having a memory of like something in kindergarten where they
I think they said, like she always wants to like
be the mom and the thing or whatever. They just
judge you, right, So funny reading those things. Um, but yeah,

(28:03):
I think I was. I was revved up. I was
ready to do some stuff. And did you have a
dream at a very young age or you ultimately just
went down the road and ended up where you did it? Was?
I mean, it's so it's painfully earnest and genuine five
year old going to the piano, writing a song, being

(28:26):
like this is all I want to do, and being
fortunate enough to be in this environment, um, where I
was just so supported to do that. Even though pop
music and the style of music that I write is
like it's it might as well be you know, the biggest,
the biggest rebellion of all time is to make music

(28:48):
that is as accessible as the music that I make. Um,
But that was all every It's just wild now to
be me as a grown up. It's exactly what I wanted. Okay,
did your parents you know, you said you played the
piano to get out of washing the dishes, But did
they encourage artistic endeavors? Did they give you piano lessons?

(29:11):
Are you totally self talk? Um? They did. My Uh.
I had a piano teacher who was not very supportive, um,
which I think is also cool. She was like not
impressed by the song I wrote when I was five,
which I still remember that song, but which I think
is good, Like whatever, get used to it. And you know,
the conservatory stuff was really hell for me. That you know,

(29:33):
I feel like my mom really did the right thing
of being like if you show an interest, if you
can afford it to try to support that. But when
she saw you know what that did to me. Those
terrible for me. The conservatory stuff was just like that
is not my world. Um, the judgment. So then they
just just yeah, I guess believed to me and helped me. Um,

(29:58):
you know, made it possible for me to go to
that school when I was fifteen, and the you know,
the principle of the school that I was at was
like you got to get out of here and help
me get an audition and get in. Okay, just going
sideways for a second. So your siblings, you have two
siblings and they're older than you, so you like the
baby of the family or was there very cohesive with

(30:19):
you and your siblings. Well, it was kind of like
we were two families because and I felt bad for
my brother and sister because I would find it annoying
because you know, Tim was born in New York City,
Beth Israel, whatever was sixty five or something, and then
they went to New Mexico and had my sister, and
then they just did that for like that was like

(30:41):
nine years. And then they're in India and it's like
they planned nine years later baby, which was me. So
and then that's when they stopped all the travel. You know,
all the photos up till then are like beautiful black
and white photos and like Rome and Morocco and you know,
and then now it's just like you're in a generic

(31:05):
Canadian northern town getting beat up by hockey players and
going into puberty. That was what my brother and sister's
experience was so um. But I had a very My
life was all in one place, but they were always traveling.
So your sister is a news reporter, Your brother does one.
He has a record store um called Blue Streak Records,

(31:28):
which has been amazing to watch. It's like having a
line on just the amount of intel that I get
vintage record store. He sells new as well, but he's
sold vinyl for over twenty years. It's almost like thirty
now something. Uh, And so many times when people were like,
you gotta go out of business, You've got to close down.
It's over c DS, this, that the other thing. And

(31:50):
now he's like, it's just amazing to see as vinyl
is king. And he's like I was standing here all along,
and where is this store that's in town called Peterborough,
just outside of Toronto, right hyd sister end up in
the news business. She was very talented. She was as
a young woman. She got on the radio. UM I remember,

(32:11):
like I think she was just still in high school,
even like she had a summer job or something like that. Um.
And then she got into Ryerson, which is the college
in uh Toronto for communications. And then she got hired
really early at CFRB, which is the main news radio station.

(32:32):
And it was still at that time where you know,
nobody would blink when you said, like, men do news,
girls do traffic. It was that, you know, it's all
very anchorman her whole career. But uh, and then she
got into television, had all kinds of wild adventures um
in the public eye. And now is the head of

(32:52):
what's called W five and Canada. It's a very respected,
um investigative journalism team that she heads up and it's
like prime time and she's she's cool. Well, one has
to ask, even though we've damced around it, what was
in the water that these two women were uh so

(33:13):
intelligent and pushing forward in their careers. Was it something
you know, you know, since there are two of you,
when you're so successful, I wouldn't think it just happened.
There must have been something your parents said or some
sort of environment or something. I mean, I feel like
my mom and dad were really cool people who really
set us straight. Of like again, for depending what you

(33:36):
want to do right, Like you know, success obviously is
only measured by what you actually want to achieve the
most obvious thing. But people forget right, Like I think
they just distilled in us this idea, like instilled and
distilled over the years. Were like, you know, you're what
you what do you? What's your point? You know, like

(33:57):
do something? Um and I then I think all three
of us do in our own way contribute something as
a result. So tell me about going to the conservatory
and what that experience was, Like, oh man, just you know,
it's like a bad like uh flashback footage from a
TV show or something. It's just you know, you're walking

(34:19):
down the dark hall and like the sterile environment and
the clackity clack of the heels and going into this
room where there's a panel of judges. It's cold and
air conditioned and unpleasant, unhappy looking women usually judging you.
Just like sitting down at the piano and trying to

(34:39):
play something that someone else wrote, and I was just
like this I was so like whatever magic or talent
or however small it might be that I had, it
was instantly extinguished in that environment. Um. And so luckily
my mom was like, Okay, that's not happening. So how

(35:00):
did you end up going to school in Toronto? Him?
What was that like? Um? That was the you know
against funny most people can remember, like the great teachers
and the terrible teachers. And so the great teachers that
helped me that the one the principal, Dr pap ky
Um because I was being terrorized by my grade seven teacher.
I skipped a grade and he just I don't know.

(35:21):
He was one of those people who was like, I'm
gonna bring her down. And it was so out of hand,
and I was getting sent to the principal's office every
day and Dr Pappy was like, we gotta get you,
we gotta get you. Daddy here, and he he told
me about the school. He and the music teacher helped
me prepare an audition and I actually got in to
go for the ninth grade. Um. But my parents thought

(35:42):
I was I was so young because I was only
like because I had skipped a grade, I was like
thirteen or something. So then we waited till eleventh grade. UM,
and that was just the most amazing thing. My sister
let me live with her in the city, and that
school was just everything. They I auditioned with one of
my own songs that I wrote. They let me UM

(36:04):
developed my own curriculum around my writing. And and they're
actually every all the sort of types of people that
you fall into those boring traps in high school. We're
just totally blurred because so many different people were into
different things. And I met my best friends. It was
I feel so lucky to go to that school. And

(36:24):
so you go to that school for two years and
you graduate and then what at that time in Canada
it was three because we had grade thirteen UM. And
then I was at a real crossroads because I loved school,
as I said, UM, and I got this award, like
this big award that was like most likely to achieve

(36:46):
in the arts. UM. But I felt really weird about
like studying music. I just may be because of that
conservatory stuff or I just it felt like I don't
want to, like I'm not trying to get a PhD
in like you know, talk like what are we what
are we talking about? I want to I need to
go have an amazing life and write about it, like
that's what you do. I probably need to go meet

(37:08):
Lou Reed, which I ended up doing. But uh, after that,
the program that I decided to go into is this
program called Arts one at the University of British Columbia UM,
which was pretty crazy and exclusive to get into. The
small program that was UM where you get all your
credits around one theme. It's a very small group of kids,

(37:30):
and the theme was First Nations land claims, the legal side,
the ethical side, the history, the geography of the you know,
the land that we were talking about, just just for
those outside Canada First Nations or Native Americans in the
United States, people who were here before the Caucasians came. Correct.

(37:52):
So I had a teacher, Leslie Pinder, who was a lawyer. UM.
And you know, it's become a very big topic of
reckoning in Canada in recent years. UM. At that time
it didn't. It felt quite fringe e UM. But so uh,
such a so perfect program for me where I like,
here's our theme, but we're actually talking about everything else.

(38:14):
You can learn everything under that theme, but the oral
history of these traditions and UM. But I wasn't suited
to the like despite my claims of wanting to be
this poet athlete, the gortex lifestyle and the you know
the latter is it just wasn't for me. Um, I

(38:35):
don't ski. I I was wearing tivas. I just remember
being like, I'm not myself. I don't know what's happening.
Why am I wearing a patigony jacket, like I, I
think I gotta go. As I had my piano in
a closet, I was like always sneaking into the music
building to go, like spend all my time in the
dark at a piano in a practice room is like,

(38:55):
this isn't right. So I uh, I decided to pivot
and go to Montreal where I studied electro acoustics, which
was really cool. Where I did like splicing tape and
getting into analog synthesis and uh finished out my degree.
There was that more of the engineering or the performing,

(39:17):
so it was more the inside like I wasn't I
wasn't studying again like I was always felt weird, like
studying the thing that I wanted to do. I felt
like I should study all the sort of adjacent UH
areas and then and then just right from whatever the
hell was happening. Um so this was in keeping with that.
It was like electro acoustics of of was learning was

(39:39):
learning about Like ye as I said, Analog said, this
is with the huge you know where you're doing patch bays,
You're you're cutting and splicing quarter inch tape. Um studied
a lot of music history and there was some theory
in there that some of it I got kind of into,
but mostly was over my head. Um. But it was
a great environment to be in and you graduate and
then and then I came back to uh to Toronto

(40:03):
and uh met by chance, uh James Shaw who had
just graduated from Juilliard studying trumpet, and he came back
and we met and then started It's the Key to
the metric. Literally, Uh so I was. It was this

(40:27):
place called I mean, it's this it's so funny as
time goes on, the story is just so ridiculous and
scripted sounding. So there's this venue called the horse Shoe
and anyone who knows it in Toronto will be like
full body eye roll. The Horseshoe was like the classic venue,
the classic tavern, the place that you started all, you know,
kind of like the Mercury Lounge in New York, and

(40:49):
we had mutual friends that were playing, and we were
introduced by this guy, Joe Phillips, who's a really great musician.
And I was leaning on the pool table and Jimmy
Cami leaned on the pool table, and we both sort
of proceeded to, uh make a concise list of all
the things that we thought weren't working about the Canadian
music industry, um, the band that had just played the

(41:14):
future of Music, all the things, and you know, sort
of committed to this life together, um right then and
there and said we got to move to New York,
which we did. Okay, So this was also a romance, correct?

(41:38):
And how long or to this day did the romance last? Um?
I feel like I need to ask him again. This
also counts as a measurement, by the way, which we've
established full disclosure. I'm terrible at so we what was that? Um? Right?
So it's like until my father passed away, we were

(42:01):
together and then which was two thousand three. Was that
a triggering event your father? Yes? What was going on there?
Everything just fell apart. I mean it was like the
end of my youth, the end of the whole point
of everything, which was his mind and the story that

(42:23):
you know is being created um as a result of
the work that he had done and the peep the
world that he showed me, UM, and the way that
I that I found out, UM, which was just you know,
we just finished our record. I'm at a at the
Kinkos at Beverly and whatever in l A and um,

(42:47):
photocopying flyers for our next show. And I was actually
there with a friend. And at the time it's hard
to believe, like Jimmy and I shared a phone, a
flip phone, UM, but I would use the landline at
the kink Goes all the time because they had those
phones there and you could just use it. UM. And

(43:08):
I called Jimmy about something like else, just being like,
you know, hey, what time are we all getting together
to celebrate the end recording the record of the finishing
the album. And he's telling me stuff and he said,
by the way, your sister called and left a message.
He said, it's really important. That's all really important. And
so I'm like okay, and I'm with my friend and

(43:30):
photo copying stuff and he suddenly, um apropos of nothing
gets this really weird look on his face and says,
something really bad is about to happen and I have
to get out of here. And I was like, okay,
you're I mean, you've always been kind of a weirdo,
but that's pretty weird. But okay, catch you later. And

(43:50):
he's got this like terrible look on his face and
he leaves. UM, keep photo copying whatever. And then I'm like,
all right, I should call my sister back. So I've
used the landline, and as I do, and I call
her and she just tells me that he's dead, and
like you know, I went into complete shock. I couldn't

(44:15):
remember my address, I couldn't remember any phone numbers. I
was on the ground in the Kinkos and people, sadly
humanity people just fully walking by like nobody. I was like, oh,
this person seems like they could use some assistance, um

(44:39):
and I and I was like completely incapacitated. And I
saw the back of this this guy, and I, for
whatever reason, was felt like that I could connect with that.
And I stood up and I just said can you
help me? And he said yes, UM, And I said, okay, well,

(45:00):
I don't know where I live and I don't know
like who I am or what. I don't know what,
I don't know what's happening. And he was Canadian, believe
it or not, and he and his girlfriend, uh, walked
outside with me, and I have a lot of this.
I only remember because we later like had them come

(45:21):
to shows and we were eternally grateful to them. But they,
I guess, got me to remember Jimmy's phone number, so
then they call him and then he gets to have
the same complete world destroying experience of being like, you know,

(45:43):
what just happened? And then he came to get me.
We went back to this place we're renting. We walked
in and the whole place smelled like my father's cologne.
The whole place was just like cologne. Um. And then
and then it was like I was on a plane
and that was just like the end of my youth,

(46:05):
the end I could, you know. Jimmy and I tried,
but for whatever reason we just couldn't get back to
whatever innocent sort of thing we'd had. It just it
just broke. And then all the shows were happening constantly
on tour like very unhealthy um, and I was just

(46:26):
basically throwing myself off the top of like speakers or
whatever else. I just I was so self destructive. It
was insane to me that I'm here able to like
go for a run and have nothing broken. Um, but
yeah that was how that? How did your father die? Um?

(46:47):
Just a very sudden heart failure, so definitely sudden. So
you go to New York? Now, needless to say, to
stay in New York. There's issues of a green card, etcetera.
So how do you end up going to New York
and staying in New York? And what do you doing
to New York? Well, I've always had an American passport

(47:09):
and Jimmy had a green card. So how did you
have an American passport? My parents were both American? Okay,
so the fact you're born a New Delhi and you
never lived in America, it doesn't matter. You have an
American passport. Vassar Michigan and uh you know Brewer remain
my parents. Okay, great, So you're in New York. What's
the plan. What do you do? The plan is to survive? Um?

(47:34):
Not easy. We had that. We were lucky to have
a place to stay. Um that a friend had lent
us on Seventh Street between A and B. That was
pretty great, and it was like, Okay, it's gonna be hard.
Hit the pavement. Got to get a job, you know.
Going out there, I'm like, okay, I got all my resumes,
you know, I'm gonna wait tables. I walk around the corner,

(47:56):
I walk into Cafe or Lynn on Eighth Street. I
hand my resume and they're like great. I leave. By
the time I get back to the place, they've called,
get home. At the end of the day, they've called,
and I'm hired. So it wasn't at all like you know,
and Cafe ere Lynn is a legendary spot that I
feel so lucky to have worked out and actually stayed
in touch with the owners um a vig door uh

(48:20):
for for years. So it was that was it. That
was the hustle, and then the hustle was where the
hell are you going to live? Um And sadly, at
that time it became clear that we were going to
have to go to Brooklyn, or even worse, it looked
like it was going to be Williamsburg, which the taxis
wouldn't even take you across the bridge. When I'd finished work,
I'd have to lie and then change my destination because

(48:43):
otherwise they wouldn't start the meter. UM. So we're trying
to find something. We're trying to find something, and Jimmy saw,
you know, at that time it would be like a
poster with the numbers on the bottom that you break
one off and call the number. So, uh, Jimmy find
something like that. And for this like ridiculously huge not
for human habitation UM warehouse kind of space strangely is

(49:07):
on the L train. First off on the L train
in the shape of an l over a trucking company
sharedal trucking UM. And he reaches out to Stanley, and
Stanley is like, sure, maybe I'll let you get the
get the lease on this place, but can you take
my dad to the dentists? Can you take my dad?

(49:30):
He's got he's got an eye appointment. Can you take him? Like,
Jimmy drove around Stanley Green's dad, um until I guess
Stanley got a good enough vibe. And then Jimmy was
in the position of having to pull together all these
tenants because it's not like we could handle the rent.
But it's got all these spaces. It's like rooms supposedly
for human habitation, two bathrooms and just like raw space

(49:54):
of rooms um Metropolitan between Bedford and Tricks. So one
of the first people that shows up to move in
is Niaxine zinner Um with eurygene Chun, which is uh.
She was an amazing visual artists. I'm sure she still
is um. And then a hilarious cast of characters ensued UM,

(50:14):
including Friends of Ours, members from Stars, Chris Seligman, Um
moved in, future members of TV on the radio, members
of Liars, Um, and you know, whatever people said about
the sixties, this was the opposite. Was like everyone was
just like, we gotta get We're so motivated because we
want to get out of here. Um. You know, heated

(50:35):
by oil. This huge truck would come up, but you
could there's no way to like see when it was
running out. So we would just all be living in
terror through the winter of like any minute now it's
going to run out, and we'll have no idea how
much it's gonna cost or when it's going to be
And then it would just be like and sure enough,
you're out, and Jimmy would have to go knock on

(50:57):
everyone's door and be like I need three hundred bucks
uh from each of you know, to like fill the
tank and uh, the sound of trucks revving underneath. But
amazing time, an amazing start. And uh we met Josh
and Jules and that in that window too. Okay, So
tell us about the music end of it. Well, we
were doing uh are sort of like bedroom electronic stuff,

(51:20):
a lot of which is represented on the album Grew
Up and Blow Away. Um. We had no live existence whatsoever.
We were just into recording recorded music UM and kind
of this like, ah, there's an innocence to it that
I love when I listen back. UM. And we got

(51:42):
a lot of interest out of the UK UM. And
this manager invited us to come and like just like
he was like, move here, I'm going to get you
a publishing deal. I'm going to get you a record deal.
You don't even need to play a show. People have
heard these demos, which is a word I'm now allergic
to to um demos and uh, come on over him

(52:04):
and make you a star. And we were like great,
and we both quit our jobs. Jimmy was working at
a dinner which is like the really cool restaurant in Williamsburg.
Again it hadn't been there before, but it was like,
you know, it's like that time Williamsburg Win Like the
White Stripes was just blaring out of someone's window as
they drove by, and like, you know, the Strokes were

(52:24):
just like playing such great music and cool stuff was happening. Um.
So but we were like, okay, we're going um And
it was amazingly fulfilling in the fact that we did
get this publishing deal that that was a good deal,
I believe it or not, and did support us through

(52:46):
what would would what would come, you know. But the
whole process of the demos for the record labels thing
was was pretty onerous and I was pretty allergic to
that and we ended up having to come back. And
even though I quit my job at Cafe or Lynn,
Luckily I wasn't a bridge burner because when I humbly

(53:06):
was like because they were all like, good for you,
you're going Like when I came back, they just said,
no problem, I'm you gotta shift on Thursday, you know. Um.
And that's when we were like we got to start
a band. A couple of a couple of questions, how
long were you in the UK? Uh? So we went
into that. It was like it was like a year
and a half and did that publishing deal intop haunting

(53:29):
you in the future. No, it actually was a good deal.
I mean as much as a publishing deal can be
a good deal, UM. But no, I mean we're well
out of it UM. And it gave us at least
some infrastructure UM and an office that I could mail
my cdr s out of in uh Los Angeles. So okay,
so you come back to New York. Do you stay

(53:50):
in the same place in the yell we did, which
also hurt because we had all our we had to
We were waiting for all our furniture to be shipped
from London because we'd like we went there. We got
a publishing deal, and we got this beautiful place on
Charlotte Road again kind of like Williamsburg before shortage completely
took off. We found this cool place UM and bought

(54:13):
a bunch of furniture and we were like, this is
where it's all going to happen, and then had to
face the fact that it wasn't. UM but happily. Years later,
on um our album Art of Doubt, we did a
mural campaign called is this Dystopia? That was just the
question that we put to the world. We did it
in London, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and unbelievably we

(54:34):
get we're on the promo trip. This is like and
the mural. If you're looking at the mural, you can
see the window of the apartment of the loft that
Jimmy and I had on Charlotte Road. It was like
the most unbelievable place and and connection to the past
I have really ever experienced. So I I have no

(54:57):
no qualms about that time in London, but it hurts.
It was It was a big fall. So you're back
in New York, you work in your day gig, and
you say you gotta put together a band flesh that out.
So we played a show at oh Man. It used
to be the place under the Fez Cafe, under the

(55:17):
Time Cafe, which has now been a million other things.
I think it's the Lafayette now. UM and we it
was just me and Jimmy. UM. We had been, as
I think from our previous conversation I mentioned, you know,
doing our own kind of like CDR mix UH distribution campaign.

(55:38):
So some people in New York knew our songs, UM
and we luckily knew Sam who worked at Beacon's Closet. Um,
Sam who would go on to be and I believe,
of course was at that time the drummer in Interpool.
His wife owned Beacon's closet. He worked there. They had

(55:59):
records section Jewels, who became a big part of our lives,
was friends with those guys. So Sam with Sam would
stock stock our CDRs in there. So Jewels got ahold
of it. Um allegedly this is this is as the
story has been told to me. So then we play
this show Fez Cafe Terrible. There's no one there except

(56:19):
for really Jewels and I think a couple other people
from the loft we're there. I can't remember. No, Nick
wasn't there because we played it just me and Jimmy.
Jimmy was on the drums, and we were not happy
with with how that went. And we went back, you know,
after the gig, to this place called Black Betty where
Unitar were playing, which is Nick and Karen from Yeah Yeah's.

(56:42):
That was their um acoustic thing. So they're playing. We're
just like hanging out and this guy comes up to us,
who's Jewels, Um, great looking guy. And he comes up
and he's like, man, I'm I love I love that show.
I love you guys. I know all your songs. I
love it, and Jimmy's you know, so dark, so discouraged

(57:02):
as we are both and he's just like great. While
joined the band because we need a band. Jules was
like great, Jimmy's like amazing, what are you playing? He said, drums?
Um and sort of like fine, cool done. And then
later we find out like through this sort of like
grapevine of like Williamsburg and New York music people, they're like,

(57:22):
you don't realize you have no idea who that drummer is.
He's insane, He's like the best drummer in New York.
You just landed this guy, sure enough. To this day,
I'm just like, who is This guy? Trained himself in
a bomb shelter he built in Texas, um and he
and and Joshua Winstead, the bass player, had moved to
New York, similarly as Jimmy and I had like sort

(57:44):
of as a duo looking for their other half and
they found us. So you can see why I'm so
committed to my band. Good people. Absolutely, So you now
have a drummer, what continues to happen? And how do
you end up in l A H. So we are
we have the drummer. We're we're practicing, we're trying to

(58:07):
get stuff started in New York. And then September eleven,
ah happened and it seemed like we should go to
Canada and um, so we did, and Jules came with

(58:35):
He actually uh got together with his still wife, um,
who worked at the same place as Jimmy. Like right
before we left, we're like, what did you just do?
Because like I'm gonna go, like I'm going to join
the circus, but also I just found the love of
my life. And bless them, they've stayed together, they have
their daughter, they have their whole life, they've they did it.

(58:57):
I'm so amazed. But so we came here and then
from here we realized we had to go back to
the US and that l A was the spot for us.
And you go to l A. What transpires, Um, well,
we had some good and bad luck, but more than that,

(59:19):
I feel just adventures that make me so happy and
moments of you know, I still have feel incredulous about
things that went down, like Alex Luke, for example. So
we get you know, we're just we're burning c drs. Um,
no one's got any money, We're just playing and trying
not to spend money and like eating expired power bars

(59:41):
from the store and just committed right and trying to
get a gig, trying to get something off the ground,
and somehow Alex Luke I think it was somehow with
this like CDR campaign. I swear he got his hands
on one of these CDRs with the song combat Baby

(01:00:02):
on it and reached out to us by email and
we became friends, and he hired us at what was
then the new legal napster Um. He hired the four
of us to do q R, which at the time

(01:00:25):
we had no understanding of what was going on. It
was all the companies on a daily basis, we're selling
their catalogs to be digitized, right, and we were doing
quality control just to confirm that the track names were
the same as what they were supposed to be. And
every day there'd be a no whole new wacky be
like oh cool, basically just like listening to all this music,

(01:00:47):
but zero you know, uh altitude of understanding of what
how significant this moment was. Um. Alex Luke went on
to head iTunes, which made sense UM, but around that
same time he I believe it was him who sent
combat Baby to k c r W. But I might

(01:01:10):
be getting it backwards. It might be that Casey r
W played it and he heard it on kc RW.
He had a radio background. But at any rate, in
that period of time, you know, we got these legitimate
you know, no one's, no one's doing anything for us,
just our own lives playing out. Our song is on
the radio, and we're all making ten bucks an hour,

(01:01:31):
the four of us in this room uploading basically ruining
the world via digitizing everything that's ever been recorded by anyone. UM.
And then around that time we were we were playing
you know, terrible shows in like Santa Monica for people
in beige shorts. It wasn't our scene, UM And somehow,

(01:01:52):
by good fortune, managed revel was that one of those
shows and connected us as I recall, with this guy
who did UM shows at the Silver Lake Lounge. And
that was the beginning, as we did a residency at
the Silver Lake Lounge. Then Michael Andrews came and heard

(01:02:13):
us play. Then he and Andy Factor pulled together and
amazingly made it possible for us to make Old World
Underground UM in two three and then and then we
had we had a real foundation because the band was solid.
We had our fans. It was small, but it was real.

(01:02:33):
We had our identity and you know, Michael Andry's like
the kind of producer and Andy being people who were
so in supportive us creating whatever we wanted to make.
It was so weird what we made and they they
loved it, so you you know it hindsight, it looks
like traction out of the box with that record. What
was it like on your side of the record, Well,

(01:02:56):
you know, back to the reality of losing Paul Haynes
on the day that we finished the album, I'll never know.
And you're right, it's interesting when you look back and
you see, you know, when you try to make a
cohesive story come together, it does sound pretty like it
was playing out pretty well. Um, it's you know, it's

(01:03:17):
it's fine that it was hard work. It's supposed to
be hard work. But that moment, I just it's just
hard for me to have any way of evaluating because
I feel like I just I don't know, I just
checked out or something. Um, I could not. I did
not cope well with that. And in retrospect in my

(01:03:38):
own education now a bit more in you know, the
way that trauma affects the body and all those considerations.
I realized it was the way that I found out
more than the fact of what happened. And I think
that feeling of like at any second everything could just

(01:04:00):
be lost, is it? It's causes hyper vigilance and anxiety,
and you know all these unpleasant sort of chemical reactions,
like even talking about I feel like it's like surging
through my body, this like fight or flight or like
just you know, you want to run screaming because you
have no control. UM. So that's that really colors my

(01:04:22):
ability to to remember what that time felt like. Are
you still hyper vigilant and anxious today? It's a lot better.
I have. I have techniques um and philosophies that i've
I hope are useful, since that's my point, um useful

(01:04:44):
to other people. And I think they're in the music.
The the idea of the music as a sort of
salve um acknowledgement of legitimate anxieties, but also a recognition
that if you can't function, you know, no amount of
concern and for the well being of yourself or others
or you know, spiraling thoughts. You're not You're not you

(01:05:06):
can't you can't. If you can't function, you can't function. So, um,
I do feel like I'm on the other side of that,
I hope. What exactly is the technique? Uh, well, it's
as much as anything, it's like a shift in my
approach to my life, which is expressed very much on

(01:05:27):
this new album. But so it's the sense that the
scope of your control is actually incredibly small, and that
reckoning with that is the first step to a really
fulfilled and beautiful life. At whereas you know, feeling this

(01:05:49):
sense of the vast realm of all you can control,
it's everything. What you can control is so minute that
that's the place to be in the seat, with your
hands on the wheel, prepared to make decisions as you
need to make them, but with very limited powers. Um.
And there was actually a book that I've found incredibly helpful,

(01:06:13):
even though it's sort of coming at it from another angle,
but Oliver Berkman four thousand Weeks Time Management for Mortals,
because his you know, his whole thing is that's how
long a life is. It's four thousand weeks. And some
people might find that depressing or like, don't tell me that,
I don't want to, you know, to me. That's totally
consistent with this philosophy I've adopted of what can I

(01:06:37):
actually do? It's so much and it is so little.
So that's sort of a the gist of it. So
the first record comes out, there's some action to what
degree do you play live at that time and how
does that turn into the second record? We constantly toured
from that point on. UM. We had an early break

(01:07:00):
which was somehow actually I think it was a friend
in Toronto who's an actor, played a song for someone.
But olivier Is says the French director had a film
called Clean starring Maggie chung Um and he needed a
band to play a scene at the beginning of the film,
have and have the song in the movie and play

(01:07:23):
a scene. And he'd worked with Sonic Youth previously, who
we absolutely admired and continue to admire Um, and they
loved Dead Disco and cast us in this movie like
we have lines. It's very entertaining to watch, At least
to me, the movie starts with us, you know, talking,
We played the song Dead Disco and then as a result,

(01:07:45):
very early we had this like beautiful moment of feeling
very famous in Paris around that time and that was great.
Like we went, we were it was such interesting people. Uh. Um.
We were at the very beginning, we didn't have any clothes,
like you know, Agnes b gave us closed. It was
people gave us stuff because it was like Jesus, you know,

(01:08:07):
what are you wearing? We were like, I have no
idea even what to wear. Um. I think around that
time I had one stage outfit that I just washed
in a sink and bore every night. Um. So that
was a really amazing moment. And we just continued to
develop the live show, which I think was getting better. Um.
And we did uh you know some interesting stuff in

(01:08:31):
l A where it was like a little more stylized,
a little more styl ish, a little more fashion, you know,
Nylons paying attention, stuff like that. Um. And we the
pivot point I think that brought a heavier sound into
our consciousness. Sort of out of necessity was um, we

(01:08:53):
were playing this John Kerry benefit in Miami, which will
tell you the rough time line. Um. And it was
super swish and we're staying at the standard and everyone's
stylish and you know bart bar, table service, all that
stuff that we was new to us at that time,
and we had that show and then we were starting

(01:09:14):
this Canadian tour with this band called Billy Talent UM
and the first band we were we were the main band.
The first band was UM, this band called Death from
Above and we were like, great, We're just continuing touring.
It's going to be great. We fly from Miami to
like of as I recall, like a smallish town in

(01:09:36):
quebec Um and the province of quebec Is has its
own you know, identity as a result of the French language. Obviously,
UM so feeling really out there and very high contrast
to the kind of shoulders we were rubbing with, like
hard rock, cold tough people. Not the band Billy Talent

(01:10:00):
and not the band Death from Above nine, but the
human beings who were assembled. We're very tough. And we
then proceeded to get bottled and heckled two almost to death.
UM to the point that Ben Um on that whole

(01:10:20):
tour event as a singer and Billy Talent, he would
come out and say, you guys, you gotta you gotta
go easy, you gotta go easy on Metric, Like you know,
Metric fans are getting beat up in the audience, but
I remember I had this like so indie, you know,
like masking tape. I need masking tape to write like

(01:10:41):
love on my sweater, you know, like that kind of
stuff like you're cut off, socks are your wrist, things
like it's so indie and so like not in the
real world, you know, so like art star And I
remember being on stage and one of those shows and
just seeing the like masking tape peeling off of me,

(01:11:01):
like there, this is terrible. The women were the worst,
which was heartbreaking. I was like bawling on stage and
they're calling me every worst word, and we just powered
through and it was the best experience you could ever
have as a band, at least for us. We were

(01:11:21):
like nuh and they were right. We were not good enough,
and even though they were just being loyal to Billy Talent,
but we learned at that point they're the energy from
the stage will always be more than the energy from
the crowd. It doesn't matter how big the crowd. That
we reversed it um and then we made we came

(01:11:44):
off that tour and then we made the album Live
It Out, which is just blistering like rock rous, you know,
because we needed the armor and that was the other
kind of concept that came out of that was like
songs as Armor UM, which I still use because it's
like I'm going to need that, you know, to cope now.

(01:12:08):
That record, you know, end up having a lot of success,
certainly in Canada. So you know, one of the parallel
stories in metrics careers. It's always been independent, but at
that time, were you independent by choice or independent because
none of the big people wanted to invest in you? Well,
we it's and in fact, that was when we were

(01:12:30):
with um Last Gang, so you know, and we in
those early days is like the license with UM Ever Loving,
which was you know, uh, Mike Andrews and Anti Factor
and the um Last Gang. I mean Chris Taylor, that
was amazing. He started this label basically to put out
metric Um because yeah, we you know, the combination of

(01:12:53):
shared disdain I think of for me, I just these
guys in the music industry. I was like no, and
I think it's better now. But you know, they being
told like, yeah, you could be the next Macy Gray
or whatever. I'm just like, this is this is never
gonna work, um, but what but if we do it ourselves,
it's going to work and we had that confidence, but

(01:13:15):
we definitely had help. I mean Chris Taylor put out
that record, he helped us get I think he played
us for ben Um of Billy Talent and Death from
Above was also on his label. That was the first
time we were in a tour bus was with those guys,
So you know, it was it was a short lived
connection and we also always contractually protected our independence. But um,

(01:13:38):
at that time, I didn't feel any sense of like,
oh I wish I was on a major label or anything.
I think I think we really let that go after
England and to this date have major labels sniffed around. Yeah,
like we had you know, it's a now it's actually
kind of a mutual respect vibe. I feel like we've
had great chats with Jimmy Ivan and Tom Wally and

(01:13:59):
all those guys are like, you know, it's always a
funny thing where I like, I think Jimmy Ivan I
was like, you know, well, if you ever want to
work in her scope, I was like totally. You know, um,
like around Fantasies, which was our most mainstream success, I suppose. Um,
we went in and he wanted to meet with us,
and you know, he's like thrown around like the Farrell

(01:14:20):
remix idea, like you know, the stuff that you should do.
But it's like, you know, I like no doubt as
much as the next guy. We're not no doubt. We're
not a package heble entity like that. Um. And contractually
it's like there is no amount of money the guy
was going to give me, Like literally there is there was.
There is no amount of money that would make it
make sense. Um, which I know sounds extreme, but again

(01:14:44):
like kind of you know, the idea of a life philosophy.
If your life is like you're trying to you're trying
to retire, Like if you're trying to like do it
and then stop doing it, then you might want to
just sell off anything you can sell off. But if
your goal is to own it and live it and
have your own life, it just doesn't make any sense.

(01:15:05):
And they could see it and we could see it.
So later in my career, I actually enjoyed those conversations
because I can tell, I mean, they're trying their best, right,
they're doing their thing, and um, I feel like they
respect that I've done it my way, you know, but
are you frustrated it all as much successes if you've
had and the in roads you've made is part of

(01:15:27):
you say hey, I want to be bigger and I
wish I had help well again like philosophy, right, um,
we right now it's a it's an interesting time to
be chatting with you about this because right now we
feel really happy with thirty Tigers, Like David Mass is
obviously a mutual friend, like that's your new distributor label

(01:15:50):
services company. That's right, and what he's doing and the
way that they're doing it is kind of the thing
I feel like we've always been looking for because we're
team players, like we love you know, we've always put
together our own ad hoc teams um and it's just
always with the music industry the terms of these contracts
where it's just so unpalatable to us and are the

(01:16:13):
way that we run our business and make our work.
So we'll have to see I'd love to like do
a check in on this how it plays out with
thirty Tigers, because for this album so far, the setup
and we just all comes crashing. Just got to number
two in Canada, hopefully next week before the release we'll
get to number one. The it feels like we got

(01:16:33):
we got people, but they're not telling us what to do.
They're telling their they're facilitating what we want to do,
So you know, I the question of being bigger is like,
it's it's funny to be right now, because I feel
like with the data obsession that we're all, it seems
like it's a global addiction now in all in all ways,

(01:16:55):
everyone's just like tallying up everything, right, Like there's a
talker mom who's tallying up how many likes she got
on like her cupcake photo. And you know, every artist
is tallying up how many streams they have on Spotify
and the other platforms. And it's like it's fun and
it's addictive and it's all these things. But it's like,
I really think we're in need of a reckoning of

(01:17:17):
like what are we actually tallying here? And it's cool, like,
but recognizing on Spotify, you're you're tallying how many times
your song has been listened to on Spotify. This is
from someone who's added We've added a million and a
half listeners in I think less than a year. So
I'm super happy it's going great, But I'm not under
the illusion that that data is the tally of all

(01:17:40):
things of value in my existence. You know, TikTok. We're
into it. It's cool, We're like coming up with stuff
to do. We're enjoying it. You know. I'd rather do
that than go sit in some guy's office or try
to please the head of a record company school. If
I don't want to do it anymore, I won't do it. Um.
But again, it's like this like sort of frothing at
the mouth, sorry, of like casino atmosphere around you know,

(01:18:03):
success in these measurements that I guess I have chosen
a different way of looking at success. How do you
look at it? Well? Mental health, physical health, love, health
of the band, quality of the work. So from from
our perspective again, how can you evaluate quality in the world?

(01:18:24):
As we know, lots of things are huge, lots of
things sucked, you know, chicken McNuggets, they're everywhere. I don't
I don't think anyone's under any illusion of a Michelin star. Right.
So for me, for our values and what we want
to accomplish every day of my life is one step
closer to the artists that I want to be. The
work on form and terra the band is playing better

(01:18:46):
than we've ever played. We're doing what you know, to
the extent that anybody cares. I hope they do. Uh
And from all you know measures that we're seeing, it
seems like they do. But that's that means things are
working out, you know, um, and there's like love in
my life with my band and my and my family,

(01:19:08):
and like it's not all being destroyed by this obsession,
you know, this idea of like, you know, fame at
all costs. I feel like the last standing like lover
of privacy or something. When people just rattle off all
these things about TikTok, it's like you want to be this,
you want to be that. It's like I don't know, maybe,

(01:19:29):
like I get that somebody wants to be that, but
not if you're someone who loves like being in the
woods and going on a hike. Like, yeah, maybe you
want to do some cool shot on tip talking, that's
not your whole purpose, right, Like, not everyone wants to
be the most famous person ever. Okay, although I've yet
to meet in artist who didn't want more people to

(01:19:51):
listen to their music or be exposed to their work. Yeah,
I mean that would be completely disingenuous to say like,
of course you want people to hear it, but you know,
I guess I just it's not about being nostalgic, But
it's more about like reminding people that that feeling before
we were all in this kind of colosseum of like

(01:20:11):
data and living online where everyone's looking at everyone's everything.
Like you could be a really cool band and you
don't have to be like constantly reminded that someone's playing
an arena. It doesn't matter. Sometimes you want to go
to an arena it's really fun. Go see a huge band,
it's great. Sometimes you want to see an art rock

(01:20:33):
band like Metric do something really cool in a theater
like that. That's that's more the spirit of it. It's like,
imagine if your favorite restaurant. You know, when you go
to your favorite restaurant that you love and the chef
is so good, and it's like hard to get a
reso because it's so awesome. You don't go and have
that meal and think this is amazing. But I wish
that they had like seventy five franchises. It just doesn't

(01:20:55):
work like that, you know. So I think it's more
my state of mind is like if it can grow
and be what it is. Those are the terms. You know,
if it can if it can be that the mainstream
comes to us, which has been the case to a
large degree, then I'm down. We're We're totally cool to
you know, everyone's welcome. But the singular quest of just

(01:21:20):
more and more people and more and more numbers, that
just doesn't sound like a good life or even a
good party. Like I don't know, there's you want to
be in an audience that knows why they're there. Um,
And I'm sure like my whole team has a different
agenda in terms of, yeah, let's just get as many
people as possible, But it's not really what drives me. Now,

(01:21:40):
this is a business where you really can't predict the future. Um,
being like yours has a certain number of fans. But
in the back of your mind you're saying, well, you know,
if we don't interact, to be, if we don't interact
with our fans or they don't like our record, they
may not buy our tickets and the whole thing could

(01:22:01):
fall apart. Yeah, is that in the back of your mind,
Or you say I'm gonna do what I want to do,
the chips will fall where they may. I mean I
gotta say it's the latter, Like we're you know, we're
so hard working, we're so driven, we're down, we're like
doing all this stuff. But if if there, if the

(01:22:24):
arc is the arc, and it changes so far it's
only grown consistently and beautifully blossomed throughout my life. And
if at some point it's like we fall off a cliff,
then I guess we'll be like, well, that happened. But
you know, I guess this is sort of speaking to
the anxiety piece too. I mean, it's just like if

(01:22:46):
it all falls away, then I guess I'll do I'll
deal with that at the time. But in the meantime,
it's like focusing on all the beautiful artwork, but obviously
the music first, but then all you know, all the
beautiful artwork, getting all these things, going, getting the stage
and going taking care of all like being out there
on all the platforms do and all this stuff. It's
like a dance, right and like whatever is gonna happen

(01:23:09):
is gonna happen. And knowing me and Jimmy, we will
one keep going. We own a beautiful studio, the band
is great, and I just I feel like my role
right now is to put a little bit of like
like mellow confidence. And some people are just like guys,
what you have might be pretty good, you know, including

(01:23:30):
in our audience. Like I feel like people feel so inadequate.
It's like hellish. Everything you look at is somebody just
having more of whatever you're supposed to have than you.
It's like how how are people supposed to function? There's
got to be a place of like, damn, this is
actually pretty good, you know, like let's enjoy this. I
feel like that's going to be my vibe on this cycle.

(01:23:52):
I hope I can keep it up. Okay. You know,
I grew up in the era where the Vietnam War
and people went to Canada to avoid the draft, having
me into Canada's zillion times. Now, I would go to
Canada in a minute. Canada's got a lot of advantages
over the US, like a social safety net. But certainly
when I grew up, you know, you could have a
minimum wage job and pay all your bills. That is

(01:24:15):
not the case now. So to what degree are you
looking forward monetarially? Are you consciously saving money? Do you
think about money at all? Do you think about money
when you spend? How does that factor in. Yeah, I
mean I think about money all the time. Like everyone else.
We deal, you have to deal. Um, I run a company,

(01:24:37):
so a lot of my consideration is recognizing that I
need to keep everybody on salary and I need to
keep you know, this studio running, and um, you know,
I try not to focus too much on the fact
like when I'm writing where you're like, you know it
really is. It is such an amazing and ridiculous craft
and thing to dedicate your life to, like, you know, help,

(01:25:01):
I'm alive, tremble, you know, those couple of chords and
that thing. I mean, that's that's of you know, of
a lot of equipment and various things. That's like the
songs have paid for the life. The songs I write
have paid for my life. So you know, we're pragmatic

(01:25:22):
in terms of our business. We have a whole team.
We're like keeping this thing afloat um. But on a
personal level, like you know, I just feel like, you don't,
you know, whatever the stupid kill the Golden goose, whatever,
I don't. I just want to be capable of writing.
And you know, I have a place in the woods

(01:25:43):
which had already happened with covid where it was. I
got it in case everything went to hell. It did,
I went there. It was great. If if I have
to shrink my life down, it will still be so
such a rich life with you know, my own water
and a piano on each floor. So that's kind of

(01:26:05):
how I gauge the financial side. I'm I'm more into, like,
you know, pouring money into making the metric shows great,
you know, continuing to sort of defy gravity in our
weird way, then then being too worried. But um, professionally
we're yeah, we're very We're practical. We're practical. How many

(01:26:28):
people are on the payroll? Uh, well, the band's bent
on salary for I mean over a decade um. And
then we have all our services, Um, so you know,
business manager, a couple of lawyers, accountant obviously, our manager, obviously,
our agents. UM. I have a person that is essential

(01:26:53):
to my health and happiness who I do all the
social media stuff with. We have a great time together. Um,
she's on side Lary. Um. We have a day to
day person that we're like, nowhere will we go without him.
We just switched a new management and we're like, this
guy is coming with us. So he's on as well. Um,
then we have a day to day guy in in

(01:27:15):
Toronto as well, so you know, ten or fifth something
like that. I can't. I can't do math, you know that, Bob.
But some people, how did you hook up with Matt
Drulin and how did that end up helping your career? Um?
That was just I have a big grin when you
say his name, because foot a legend and you know

(01:27:35):
so great. Um, he that I can't. I don't remember
how we met exactly, but the visual I have is
when we when we had left New York in two
thousand one. Um, God, these timelines are so crazy, but
I guess it must have been that we still had
Jimmy still got to rent that place later, but all
the way into like two thousand four. So around two

(01:27:58):
thousand four, Um, we met him and we was this
place was on above a bank, and so there was
this huge safe and Matt just came in and sat
cross legged on the safe and you know, proceeded to
make us so much money over the next decade. It
was always just such a classic image. But he is

(01:28:19):
a He ran DKD for a while. His whole resume
is pretty impressive. But he was always really interested in tech.
He was always interested in being disruptive too. And you know,
not everyone loved this about his work in the music industry.
He's now left the music industry, so he claims, um,
but he was really you know, like me, just felt

(01:28:42):
that there were inherent systemic flaws and just the boiler
plate contract that is presented as a premise for a
career in music. He was just right there with me
of like this is a bad business model and no
one should ever sign this. And he was like, I'm
going to go over every single thing with a fine tooth, Coe,
and we're going to figure out a way to do
things differently. And thanks to him for Fantasies, which was

(01:29:05):
the album after Live It Out. Uh, we owned everything,
put it out ourselves and that album performed the best.
We did really well at radio in UM in the
U s. Which is like unheard of. He's got all
the stats of like no one's ever done without a
label or whatever. He loves like the sizzle, real vibe,

(01:29:27):
um and we just we ended up having such incredible
uh uh success in that period of time. And simultaneously
the world was changing towards tech. He's was close friends
and still is with Shawn Parker. So we got to
have like, you know, an inside view, which is not
for the faint of heart. UM into tech bro existence

(01:29:53):
and some friendships there, you know. He hilariously to me.
We were playing UM probably around two as in eleven
something like that. Uh, We're playing this thing in New
York where inexplicably Patti Smith was opening for us. It
was this thing at Milk Studios, and uh so it's

(01:30:14):
just like already kind of a funny memory standing side
stage with Patty is about to go out and she's
just like, God, it sounds like hell out there, and
like it's gonna be okay. UM. And then and then
Matt Brook brought Daniel Eck obviously he started Spotify backstage,
and he was like, guys, this Daniel Alex Spotify. You know,
she really meet him. We're like, what's that man? Nice
to meet you, you know, and we're not the We're

(01:30:38):
Matt didn't like lead us. He wasn't like you gotta
like kiss this guy's ass, or this is your future
or anything like that. He just was in. He was
aware that the world was going where it was going,
and UM did his best to help us by making
sure that we owned everything. And then well, you know,
we parted ways totally amicably. UM right before the pandemic.

(01:31:01):
UM we got new management, and you know, it was
a lot to take apart because he had the energy
to be someone who would put together individual record deals
in every territory, you know, so there's never a cohesive thing.
He would just you know, out of Montreal like a lunatic.
He'd like run this thing. So you know, now that

(01:31:21):
we have more uh sane management, they're like, Okay, we're
gonna we're gonna streamline this a bit. We're going to
and luckily that's why thirty Tigers is now in the picture.
But other than having to kind of get it straight,
he was just like being handed our own the keys
to our own existence because we own our material and
now we can do all this cool stuff. And fascinatingly,

(01:31:45):
Jimmy said, that didn't ultimately that was your one big
break that really ultimately didn't pay any dividend. UM. That
was we were approached by Howard Shore, who I stayed
friends with. UM. We then did the Cronenberg film together
after that, but yeah, they needed UM someone to do
the theme song. He was obviously doing the score, so

(01:32:07):
we clicked. We went out to his place in Tuxedo Park, Um,
which was really cool. Is like see like where he
wrote all the Lord of the Ring stuff and the
Hobbit hole and all this stuff. Um, and you know,
fascinatingly to me, he took I didn't know it's going
to work like this, but he took my melodies and
then wrote the The themes of the score were actually

(01:32:29):
derived from that song, which was really cool. Um, Jimmy
struck up a friendship with Pattinson and it was it
was a great moment, you know, some hilarious red carpet moments.
But yeah, to Jimmy's point, I mean, like so many things,
and I think it's it's actually to our benefit, but
I guess we'll never know. It feels like it just
added to the body of work, you know, and we

(01:32:52):
would play, we know, did lots of Late Night with
the piano and the string section doing that song. You know,
but we were doing Late Night already, Like it kind
of just was another thing that we did that kept
it groovy and we kept on going. Um, but it
it did seem in retrospect, It's true, it's like that
seems like that should shoot you out of a cannon.
But you know, the song is playing at the credits,

(01:33:13):
everyone's walking out. What are you gonna do? Is there
anything that's happened in your career that really did push
everything forward sort of a changing moment, or has just
been a slow evolution? I mean, I think it's unless

(01:33:36):
it's I suppose we'd have to ask ourselves what how
we're measuring that, because I'm sure if we look at
the data there's bumps, you know, we can see like
that the video for Risk, you know, did so well
on YouTube. I'm sure there's something similar like that that
we could look at objectively. Um. But to me, the

(01:33:58):
things that have meant the most have a negligible effect,
you know, obviously like working with Lou, my friendship with Wilner,
all all that stuff that is like the basis of
my craft and you know, identity and sense of like,
you know, now it's getting good. I have no idea
if that's served us in any sort of verifiable way.

(01:34:22):
So how did you meet Lou reed Um? That was
through Haw Wilner, who, as as I recall, Kevin Drew
and Brendan Canning from Broken social scene. My pals from
here in Toronto. They were going to meet how about
doing this Neil Young benefit in Vancouver, and they were

(01:34:45):
in New York and they went to Howe's studio, which
is like a hilarious room full of his Like, sadly,
How's not with us anymore. I just got to put
that out there ahead of the how did the gate
because I feel like he's still like one of the
casualties of co bit unfortunate life. That's right, Um, I
did really just feel like he was still alive. That
was a very weird feeling. Okay, So Kevin Brendan, they

(01:35:12):
go to meet will Nor to talk about this thing.
And the first thing he does, you know, in this
cramped room with his speakers and all his like puppets
and all this crazy like collectibles, Will there's like, you
gotta watch this film, and you know, they think they're
just gonna have a chat with this guy, and he
sits them down and makes them watch the Escalator over
the Hill documentary, which is of course the making of

(01:35:36):
Carla Blaze album that is my father's lyrics that he
was writing in New Delhi when they had me and
Kevin is just like Okay, what's going on? Like that's
my best friend from high school? Like she how is that?
What's happening right now? How do you have this? Also,
it's very rare, hard to find and will and there's like,

(01:35:56):
oh no way, um, that's great. Well, you know Lou
and I we we love Emily solo record. We play
it on our radio show. They had the show on
Serious um and they were best friends obviously, and so
Kevin was just like, this is too much. I gotta
I gotta get him on this Vancouver show. Um. And

(01:36:19):
it was a really busy time and he actually makes
fun of me because it was not easy, like I
wasn't like, oh my gosh, I'm so lucky. Like I
was like, I don't know, like Vancouver, I don't know,
maybe not like there's a lot going on. I'm living
in New York. I'm like, I don't feel like getting
on a plane. So he persuaded me, and thankfully because

(01:36:40):
then you know, I meet Lou and the first thing
he says to me is Emily, ay, and it would
you rather be the Beatles or the Rolling Stoves? Isn't
that the best? Which maybe your listeners don't know, is
a line from our song Gimme Sympathy. But and you know,
this is what I'm talking about when I say like
we got get away from this data. There's no data

(01:37:02):
collection for that. I can't. There's no spike in, you know,
in the algorithm. It's like, that's the best thing ever period.
Um struck up a friendship Lori's there as well as
she's amazing Um of course, and he then both of
them invited me to perform at this amazing thing they

(01:37:25):
did at UM Sydney Opera House. Uh they did a
whole curated festival of music and oh, man, Bob, I
feel like I'm gonna cry. He uh Blue and I
did Perfect Day together and uh yeah, and then we

(01:37:50):
just stayed friends. Like I did a hilarious um Shell
Silverstein thing with him in Central Park. It's like another
Willner production, you know, always like total Muppet show bringing
together all these people. And Um, I was lose straight man,
like I'm playing piano and he's just like ripping into Bloomberg.
It's the best. It's the best. And after he passed Um,

(01:38:17):
you know, of course we did the song together as well,
you know, Electric Lady. He came in and sang on Wanderlust,
which is on UM Synthetica. But uh, but after he passed,
like you know, Wilner and I then stayed in touch too,
and um, I came and did a tribute to lou
in the City and then Will nor would would keep me,

(01:38:39):
keep me in the loop on things like you know
the amazing t Rex covers album, uh that I did
with them Ballrooms Ballrooms of Mars was my song, this
crazy line up like Bono in the Edge and all
these guys are on that record. And then, um, I
feel like I'm us now telling the story of the

(01:39:01):
death of these two best friends and it's making me
really sad. But then you know, Sheila managed to you know,
a year after we lost I guess two years after
we lost well there did the memorial in New York
and Kevin and I played, um, only Love Will Break
Your Heart and got to meet Bono in the Edge

(01:39:27):
and how I have a really ridiculous picture of as
you know, we're walking in for sound check and there's
everybody's names with their COVID tests and it's like Kevin Drew,
Emily Haynes, like the Edge, Tom Waits, Bono, It's like
again immeasurable absurdest photography. Um that is I don't even

(01:39:48):
know if you can call that a high point, but
it's a something of the wildness of life, but legendary
humans that I got to cross paths with. So now
what am I going to do? Now am I going
to meet? Oh? There's always something. It's just like, you know,
remember being in the Rose Bowl seeing the stones, and
I have at all access past the rolling stones, so well,

(01:40:10):
you know, doesn't get any better than that walking on
the stage. But you're a woman in a man's world.
So what's that been like? Uh? Well, I think I
learned from Carla Blay by example, which again was a
little bit like finding out later that we didn't have
any money because I didn't understand that. Um, as I

(01:40:32):
grew up thinking like that's just what you do. Is
what she did, which was you know, start j C
o A records, right, all of this insane music, um,
all these arrangements which I can still recognize her arrangements
and in fact that Wilner's memorial they played ah an
arrangement of hers, which was stunning. Um, you know, wrote

(01:40:56):
our own arrangements, um, saying this stuff and pulled together,
you know, Jack Bruce from Cream, you know, with Paul
Haynes from Paul Haynes Um, and I just, you know,
always felt like everything she did was unrelated her. She was,
of course she's a woman cool, but she always resisted

(01:41:18):
being on the like women in jazz collections, and you
know that's sort of pink ghetto thing that can happen
of Like, you know, I just always saw like I
want to play on the regulation field, right, So I'm
I'm a woman in a male dominated industry, so I'll
be a woman on that regulation field doing what I

(01:41:39):
can do. I haven't done well with the idea I
was supposed to go to this other category and have
everything be like a disclaimer or a caveat of like
female friends at or like you know, And I think
some people lean into that because they there is a
way I guess that you can maybe garner attention in
a way that serves you and works for you, which

(01:42:01):
I totally respect and get. But for me, I've just
always been like, what now, can we just can you
just talk to me about like my phrasing on you know,
the third line of the second first of track eight
of my sixth album, You know, I don't. I don't
really have like an agenda as a woman other than
I hope that girls who come to my shows go like,

(01:42:22):
I'm going to do whatever the hell I want. That's
basically my message. But okay, that's on your side. You're
an attractive woman. Fronts of band has a certain amount
of fame. The truth is many men are attracted to that,
both people in the audience and people who were famous

(01:42:42):
amongst the entire population. So to what degree when someone
comes up to talk to you I'm talking about in
an insider setting as opposed to just being out with
the public, you say, in your back of mind, are
they really want to talk to me for what I think?
Or are they thinking about me sexually? I mean, that's

(01:43:03):
just a human question that has nothing to do with
what I do for a living. I think that's just
like and I'm sure there's a male equivalent. So I
don't know if I'm sure there's a male equivalent in
maybe in the fashion makeup world it could be. But
if you are there, you're one of the few women

(01:43:24):
amongst many men. So it's a little bit different from
society at large, where it's kind of fifty fifty. Well,
to be fair, Jimmy did say to me what she's like,
you know, the problem with you is, you know, you
don't realize that when you stay at the bar after
closing till three am, you're the only one who's there

(01:43:46):
to collaborate. I was like, oh, oh, okay, right, So
I think I am a bit like out of it
when it comes to that, But which also works. I mean,
I I like the approach of just ignoring big tree
and you know, adulation in equal measure, you know, just
ignore it all. Be like, I have no idea you're

(01:44:07):
talking about. So anyway, this is this new guitar. Okay.
You know the reality is, and I have personal experience
with this. When a woman is extremely attractive, certainly there
are men who uh observe boundaries. But there are men

(01:44:28):
that might say at three in the morning, oh that's good, okay,
cleavercia tomorrow morning. And there are other men who might say, hey,
you know, let's go up to my room now. And
you know, I wish him well because I'm going to
be like, sorry, what now, let me rephrase the question.
Have you been in any bad experiences as a result

(01:44:49):
of being a man a woman in a man's world, yes,
and how do you eat? How do you handle them?
So sadly, And I've spoken a lot of my friends
about this, and I think this is a generational shift
that is happening. Um. But I have been of the

(01:45:13):
school kind of the logical next progression from my attitude
of like, I'm going to pretend that I didn't see
you looking at me that way, or treating me that way,
treating me lesser or um as a result of some
perception that you have about my gender. I've similarly been

(01:45:36):
very quick to dismiss and minimize and move on from
all the things that have happened. And it's a choice.
I didn't really think of it as a choice. And
I think probably other women that you've spoken to, um
my age are older, we'll we'll tell you the same thing.

(01:45:56):
There's no mechanism for really anything else. It felt at
the time, and certainly at this point in my life,
I feel resilience and I've overcome everything. So having said that,
I'm very supportive of this next generation of girls who

(01:46:21):
they I mean, things that we don't think would even
register with me. They're flagging, and good on them because
if they have, they have the energy, they have, the
they have, the social language, and you know a sense
of understanding. UM that they can address those things. So
I think I think if they they should. UM. But

(01:46:42):
for me, I've just been like, can we please talk
about my music now instead? Oh, I just want to
clarify when I talk about being on the having experienced
with this is with a woman I was involved with,
not that I was bad behavior, just men approaching her.
But in any event, you know, this is also a

(01:47:03):
dicey area. But the reality of biologically women have a
limited amount of time to have children all certainly they
can adopt, they can freeze their legs. Do you feel
you sacrifice to my knowledge, you don't have any children,
you're not married. Is the music more important or did
you say I want that but I can't have it.

(01:47:25):
Where do you sit on that? Um? That probably is
the only question so far that sits on my Michael
Andrew's scale of selling my personal life. UM, which is
me saying in a hopefully charming way that I'm probably
not really going to answer that. UM. I would just
say I was married, and I did try to have

(01:47:49):
a family, and I am not married and I do
not have a family. And leave it probably at that. Okay,
let's move on to today. The album is called Forming Terra.
For those who've been to Abisa know that form and
Terra is across the water. And uh so why is

(01:48:12):
this album called Formintara? So it's funny even though we're
so early in this album campaign, I already have that
little cringe, which you gotta do it right, Like I'm
we're promoting the album, but where you hear yourself about
to say something you've said before. But it's cool. I
just I feel the need to preface that, like it's funny.
I'm just looking at it right now, this book in
the studio. Okay, So here it is, Uh, we're deep pandemic.

(01:48:40):
And not only are we deep pandemic, we are in
a frozen tundra in a rural hamlet and the doom
scrolling is completely out of hand and what is on
the other side of that phone is really dire and disturbing.
Friends are dying, um our industry is completely gutted, and

(01:49:05):
predictions for worse are coming in daily. Uh. We're in
the studio and we were like, we need We're gonna
need something here because everyone's we're not well and we
got the idea to open this book that it's one
of those like a thousand Places to Go before you
Die book, like dream destination books. They're like, okay, maybe

(01:49:28):
we opened this to a page, well, like it'll transport
us will get inspired, and we'll just that that's going
to make give this day a sense of shape. And
we opened the book and it's for me, arra. And
originally we thought maybe we'd do a different page every
day or something, and it just never left that page.
And that day we wrote that song. And I'm not

(01:49:54):
trying to be dramatic, I just I can't. I don't
really remember the way that it happened. It really did
feel like Jimmy played something, and I went to the
piano and played something, and then there was something. And
then for the weeks that followed, I just spent all

(01:50:14):
this time like when I was walking, when I was
in the bath, when I which was basically the two
things that I was doing. Um, I I would just
be kind of tweaking this melody and these words that
were essentially what got me to what we were discussing earlier,
of like coming to this conclusion of letting go of

(01:50:36):
the being unsustainable the level of anxiety that I was
trying to contain in my small frame. So the song is,
you know, why not just let go? You can't take
a sober stroll and free my childhood dream. I'm done.

(01:50:56):
I can't. I can't carry all this UM. So then
that was we're you know, we're very harsh on our work.
I love it, We're harsh editors. We had other material,
we're working away. That song was done and we're progressing,
we're continuing, and there was it was not front of

(01:51:18):
mine UM for quite some time. And then as we
were coming to the kind of end of the process,
we realized it was time to sort of reckon with
all these different tunes. And sure enough it was so weird,
but like independently, everyone had this like epiphany that not
only was that the heart of the record, it was

(01:51:40):
definitely the title. And Jimmy then being him, was like,
I know what we need to do. We need an orchestra.
We need to arrive via orchestra and have it carry
us through into the next track, which is Enemies of
the Ocean. And you know, he says stuff like this,

(01:52:03):
I'm like okay, Like I don't know, calls up Tote
or Kobakov, who have we worked with before, our Bulgarian
composer friend. He writes this piece, it's perfect. Get the
Bulgarian art Orchestra uh up and running, and we record
it by live cast and it becomes the heart of

(01:52:24):
the record. And then you know, going into artwork meetings
and the artwork guy comes bursting in the door and
it's like, I know what the album is called, and
I know what the song. It's like, it's called formIn Tera,
and this is the thing. And I'm just like, Okay,
this is happening by consensus, um, but like psychic consensus.
So have you been to formIn Tera? And do you

(01:52:44):
want to go to form? I have? I have, and
it's and I and I actually it's funny because now
things are open, right, and it's taken on so much
significance um and yeah, and we're still at the beginning
of the campaign. So I'm like, oh, man, I think
I can't go now. Like I think that's too it's

(01:53:04):
too literal. I mean, I need to experience it as
this figurative escape, you know. It's like a poor man's
vacation was our whole idea, Like none of us can
go anywhere, you know, and at the best of times,
I don't know how many of us are yachting to
form in terra. But at one point in my life
I was um, and so I was just really torn,

(01:53:25):
like what do I do? Because I'm kind of like, man,
I wouldn't mind going. We got this promo trip, so
we're going to London and Paris Berlin for work. I'm like,
maybe I should just go, but I think I've decided,
you know, another lockdown. Notwithstanding that I at the end
would be really nice to just go with the band.

(01:53:46):
You know, maybe by that point the tourism board will
really appreciate our work. Actually, I was going to ask
you with this, did you ever see the Um Pink
Floyd movie? More? No? So, so they made a film
and and spend all this time obsessed with Pink Floyd

(01:54:07):
best music. They made a film and spent all this
time on for Mentara, and people mistook it to be
a visa. And then I had like the craziest connection
of things where I discovered that that the windmill on
the cover of that it's like a concert movie. I
suppose h is forming Tara. And then I found the

(01:54:28):
club Club to Peak is there where they played this
concert in the seventies. I was like, oh man, this
is our move, like Metrics going to Farm and Tara,
We're gonna play Club to Peak. Of course, no, it's
shut down because of like fraudulent tax returns. There's something
sketchy and it's it's all not happening. But um, I

(01:54:49):
love that there is a connection to it other than
just being a place in my mind that I can
go Okay. The world is in turmoil, and certainly the
United States we have this battle between right and left,
and you also have it in Canada. Does music have

(01:55:09):
a place in this, because certainly in the sixties it
did relative to national international issues. Doesn't have a place,
And do you believe you need to play or want
to play a role in that? I think our position
is like now, Um, it's more about anything that reminds

(01:55:38):
people of the the shaded edges of the sides that
they've chosen, of the left and right. So there's a
song on the new album called false dichotomy um, which
of course is where you're presented with two things as
though they are mutually exclusive, but they are not. And

(01:55:59):
you know we present you know the idea of there
are two ideas in the song. They're presented of like
examples of false dichotomy. You know, being who being you're
being true to yourself and being successful. That you can't
be both of those things. That I would say that's
a false dichotomy. And then love and hate I would
also say is a false dichotomy. Recognizing the complexities like

(01:56:21):
the lack of nuance in our sort of public discourse,
it seems um is part of the problem. And music
is nothing but communication. So if you know, without being
two on the nose either because like nothing can be preachy,
Like I don't have any answers. I have questions, but

(01:56:41):
I don't have any answers, you know, but let's all
just hang out with the questions, like tolerate the lack
of resolution if you can the fact of the complexities,
try to find some commonality with other people. Um, but
the entrenched sides is just uh, it's terrible, and it

(01:57:03):
seems to be the inertia is moving everything in those directions,
similar to the sense economically that the inertia of richer
and richer and poorer and poorer as the middle kind
of stretches and disappears as a really unnerving and um unpleasant,
you know, way to live. We gotta we gotta find

(01:57:24):
another way to communicate. So hopefully, if anything, it's that.
But I don't see myself like endorsing a candidate anytime soon.
And you have an American passport, you lived in New York,
you lived in l A. That's where you had your breakthroughs.
What is really the difference between Canada and the United States,

(01:57:46):
and why do you choose to live in Canada? Um?
I think that's it an exceedingly case by case and
personal uh answer everyone would have. In my case, the UM,
the really cool thing that happened is like I mean,

(01:58:07):
I think it's from being born in New Delhi and
always feeling like I'm supposed to be somewhere else, right
like my parents were on this amazing journey, their romance,
their world travels, and that it wasn't so it wasn't
supposed to be that like so that I would then
stop here supposed to be that I'm supposed to do
the same thing. And the really great shift that happened,

(01:58:32):
as I realized, is like, you know, if I'm able,
the world is there for me to be in and
be a part of, but denying the anchor of my
what I honestly feel it almost like a debt to
this country. I mean, and it's funny because you don't
think of me as an immigrant, but I am. You know,

(01:58:52):
I kind of grown up in some crappy town in
the United States. So I grew up in a crappy
sound in Canada. But like, you know, the arts programs,
the teachers, I had, the friends that I made this
you know, this country made me. And then I had
the extreme privilege of also always carrying an American passport

(01:59:12):
so I could participate in culture uh in that country
as well, And like I need those cities, those like
particularly New York. New York is like a person in
my life. Like I just go by myself with and
hang out with my friend New York um all the time.
But I you know, single, being being alone in the world,

(01:59:34):
you know, single meaning not related to your relationship status,
but you in the world is such a beautiful feeling.
But I'm so happy I realized I'm no longer looking
to make that anchor somewhere other than Canada. And for
me to actually answer your question, it's because what Jimmy
and I built here is so anchored with the Toronto

(01:59:56):
community and our beautiful studio and our family, and um,
that's just I'm so relieved that I have stopped trying
to be like you know, the absurdity of the idea
of putting down roots in l A is like I
can go to l A anytime, get an apartment, stay

(02:00:18):
there for years, but no longer with the illusion that
you know, you can grow a you know, maple tree
and sand. Okay, Emily, thanks for being so honest and open.
This is very, very insightful and I want to thank
you for taking the talk. Thank you, Bob. I appreciated

(02:00:40):
the conversation. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex

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Bob Lefsetz

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Emily Haines