Depending on how close your ear was to the ground at the time or how many memory obliterating substances you’ve indulged in since, you may need a refresher: It’s been thirteen years give or take since You Forgot It In People had critics getting it right (yes, it happens occasionally) and blogging the praises of Broken Social Scene in near unison. Give yourself a gold star if the thoroughly excellent, ambient Feel Good Lost instead served as your introduction to the seminal Canadian indie rock/pop (that’s baroque pop if you’re the Grey Poupon type) collective.
Speaking of indulgences, Broken Social Scene co-founder and oft defacto spokesman Kevin Drew is good enough to meander down memory lane with me when I bring up an unforgettable 2004 set that featured a wide-eyed incarnation of BSS opening for the then-just-reunited Pixies at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom. “Oh, that was great! We had forty five minutes to play everything we could and I remember we just got on stage and went for it.”
Drew hasn’t stopped going for it. Darlings, his first proper solo record, was released last Spring. It’s been well generally received but momentum-wise may be best classified more slow burner than inferno starter. The same afternoon I catch up with Drew, another publication names it one of the ten best records of 2k14 thus far.
On Darlings‘ creation, he gushes like a proud parent. “It just was one of the great things in my life, making this record. The people that I made it with and the places I got to go and make it– I just had a wonderful time. I loved going deep into the depths of where I like to go and how I like to explain things with love and sex and life; the victories and the losses and the mistakes and the regrets and all of those things. Putting them all into one big record was gratifying for me but I approached it in really just a very ‘living life’ kind of way.”
Darlings innards certainly serve as evidence that the ever-candid Drew has been an active participant in his own life since the hiatus that BSS announced in 2011 has presumably afforded him the time, space, and presence of mind to be. We won’t get into the number of ‘I’ or ‘You’s that permeate throughout, but the record is eleven tracks or just over forty minutes of what feels like Drew singing the pages of his journal over discrete orchestral moments and thoughtful synth swells. Not that sharing and occasionally over-sharing are anything new (as anybody who has been listening would agree), but his voice and patented lyrics are truly the stars here. On Darlings, there is no real vacancy for the signature guitar shreds that he has so frequently and adeptly co-habitated with. With the exception being the eternally lovely Leslie Feist’s vocal interjections on ‘You In Your Were’ — the video for which she also appears in with Zach Galifianakis (eat your heart out, Fiona.) – -there were no other obvious distractions, additions, or guests, either.
[blockquote author=”Kevin Drew”]“I’m not the flavour of the flaves but for those who’ve stuck around and stayed with me, I still believe I’m making music that they want me to make and making the music that I want to make.”[/blockquote]
The ongoing struggle to balance work and life is one he seems to have quite recently vowed to maintain permanent mastery over. “I thought I was ready when I put this record out but it turns out I wasn’t. I would say a lot of things and realize I wasn’t practicing what I was preaching (in my personal life) but I was trying to give as much as I could to the ideas of connection and tenderness. You end up needing a subject, you end up needing something to fall back upon when you go and you talk about yourself and about what you’re doing and about your art. So now I’m staying really true to the message that I came out with originally and I’m going to stay in that message for the rest of my life.”
If Darlings is a snapshot of the life and times of Kevin Drew , it’s fair to say he resisted using some of the more dramatic filters that are at all of our fingertips these days. Even still: “Someone just told me it was an art record the other day. The poppiest record I’ve ever made in my life, but it’s still a fucking art record?” He laughed, “I can’t escape art rock records!”
On the topic of the aforementioned BSS extended timeout, he is happy to discuss what it was and isn’t about. “We never had any bad blood when we took this hiatus and said let’s stop for a while. But we did have an exhaustion and we all seemed to want to get away from it, and I think that was the best thing we could have done. When you’re going out there and you’re showing yourselves as a team, as a unit, as an army, you can’t misplace the reason why you’re doing it in the first place. We played a lot of shows in the last year that were kind of exhausting and maybe done for not the the easiest of reasons. We can’t do that with Social Scene. It dictates what is supposed to be true about it.”
The self-titled 2005 follow up to You Forgot It In People saw BSS touring extensively. So did the the Drew-centric release that came next, 2007’s Broken Social Scene Presents… Kevin Drew’s Spirit If. Technically a “solo” record, it featured all the members of Broken Social Scene assuming quite familiar roles which is why Darlings is truly Drew’s first effort of the sort. Brendan Canning’s Something For All Of Us was also released under the ‘Broken Social Scene Presents’ umbrella and lastly, in 2010 the full band effort Forgiveness Rock Record garnered still more favorable reviews.
Every once in a while, the culmination of a moment, an idea(l), an ethos, and/or a feeling a handful of people share becomes a band. Once in an even greater while, a band flourishes until it’s woven into the very fabric of the cultural landscape. It becomes larger than itself, greater than the sum of its parts– (which is really saying something in this particular case if we’re talking sheer number of parts in play) — growing still until it just can’t be contained. Said band can only then be described as a juggernaut. When cogitating the heights that BSS reached as a unit and also calculating the considerable amount of wind their success generated for the sails of several separate but related projects (see: Metric, Apostle of Hustle, Feist, Do Make Say Think, Stars, etc.), it’s fair to say they garnered certifiable juggernaut status somewhere circa Self Titled. All things considered, you figure a solo record can do one of two things: 1. Paralyze its creator with fear under the weight & pressure of a truly solo release sans safety blanket or 2. Relieve the creator who wasn’t tethered to the expectations that came along with the weight of the moniker as well as unburden them from the infamously democratic process and nature of the full band records records.
When asked which of the two was the case, Drew didn’t hesitate: “No, there was no pressure because when you have nothing to lose, you don’t have any pressure. I really felt like I had nothing to lose and I still feel that way.” Adding, “You know you’ve got to get judged, you know you’ve got to go through the system, you know you’ve got to get good reviews– or OK reviews– but when you love something so much, it’s kind of untouchable to you in a way. The great thing is, going into this was like… it didn’t really matter. Maybe that’s because I’m older, maybe it’s because I’ve been through the ringer over a lot of this stuff, but I knew going in that it was my favourite work. It was just my favourite thing that I’ve done and everything’s honest. Everything is always honest.”
With a resume as sumptuous as Drew’s (I haven’t seen too many freelance juggernaut ringleaders on LinkedIn fishing for endorsements, have you?) it’s safe to assume being an integral part of BSS means your solo record is a slam-dunk-cake-walk-you-can-take-to-the-bank. With your your eyes closed. Right? As it turns out, the short answer is no. 2014 is a tough time for anyone to make a living off of a record without touring almost non-stop in support of it. Drew describes Darlings as spiritually “amazing” but financially “not amounting to much.” That being said, he is decidedly upbeat even when describing the recent decision to cancel a handful of European dates: “Getting six guys over to Europe was becoming exceedingly difficult. I come from the Social Scene side of things where we always just made it work and we always could afford things, but this is a little different.” He added, “The shows that I have played, I’ve absolutely adored. I love the band I’ve put together (which seems like it’s going to be constantly changing). They’re great guys and everyone’s playing with their hearts. I honestly just wish that I could get out to more people and for more people to have this in their homes and in their cars and in their lives– but all I can do is try to do the work to get out there more.”
Months upcoming will see Kevin ‘doing the work’ and playing a handful of shows with previous collaborators like J. Mascis as well as contemporaries Modest Mouse and Belle & Sebastian. Drew is flattered to keep such good company and describes these show offers as “sweet”.
“I’ve done a bunch of solo shows and people introduce me I sound like an aging sports player. ‘He’s been around, he’s still here! He did this and… let’s get him out on stage!’ It sounds like I’m supposed to walk out with a fucking cane or something.” At 37, he jokes about how all of his friends now devote significant portions of their conversations inquiring about the condition of each others’ backs (“How’s your back?” “Oh, it’s pretty good, pretty good. How’s your back?”) . When discussing the record’s theme, he describes how he can’t help but write “within his age”– “I think about the people around me and I watch the parents disappearing and the kids getting born, and marriages continuing and the divorces happening. I can’t help but just observe that. I’m not dropping ecstasy and dancing until five in the afternoon and stealing a car and going out to the countryside to set off fireworks. So that sounds amazing as I say it; I should probably get doing that pretty soon! But the point is I’m not doing that right now. ”
The very necessary respite from the band that put him on the map has clearly done him well. With his tank refilled, he’s open to anything and everything as of late. “I’m bored, you know? I’ve done a lot and I want to do more. There’s so much to do out there! I don’t even have a list. I’m just kind of standing in the sidelines until someone says, ‘You wanna try that?’ and I usually respond, ‘Yeah I do.'”
And trying things, indeed he is. Writing and recording an upcoming record with Mr. Andy Kim, a singer-songwriter best known for the classic cavity-inducing piece of pop confection known as 1969’s ‘Sugar, Sugar’ is just one of his many projects. He’s called Kim “a dreamer” and the original songs the two have been collaborating on are anything but vapid pop tunes. Drew thinks of them both as “underdogs” at this point and told Pitchfork, “This is a man who is singing about his mortality, moving on, getting older, and the idea of trying to connect with an audience who’s possibly lost their parents or are dealing with their friends going away. Andy’s really hitting something with that.”
He’s also hosting an Independent Music Residency at the Banff Centre for the second year in a row, this time in cooperation with Brendan Canning. “That’s where I recorded lots of Darlings, and I fell in love with staff and the mountains and the people and the whole idea of it being based around artists and just trying to create a hub for people to come and do their work.”
When asked what it was like to play with Broken Social Scene a few weeks back at Arts & Craft’s two-day festival Field Trip (which also served as the boutique label’s 10 year birthday bash), Drew recounted with equal enthusiasm cheering his friends and peers on sidestage as he did playing his solo material and lastly, playing a highly anticipated set with BSS. This was only the second time BSS has reunited (both times on account of Field Trip) since the break. “It was nice to do those two shows again.It was nice to be up with the ones that you started with and the ones that you built this whole platform with.”
But wait, the blasts from the past don’t stop there! Drew also just got his pre-Social Scene band K.C Accidental back together for a one- off with longtime collaborator Charles Spearin. When describing preparations for Social Scene’s hometown set at Field Trip, he said they never practiced for more than half the rehearsal time they’d booked. Playing the songs they’d toured behind for so long was as intuitive as ever. The K.C Accidental experience was another animal altogether. “We were pulling songs out from sixteen years ago– some we’ve never played before– and it really, truly was an incredible feeling looking across the stage and staring at these guys, looking in their eyes, and just reflecting on where you were when they were written. Getting into these old instrumental tracks from when I was 20 and 22, that was really something. And everything’s emotional. I’ve always said that. Everything’s political, everything’s personal, and emotional. I really found a couple weeks ago a kind of a new awakening in the idea that there’s always going to be something next, and it’s great to embrace. There’s tons of music that’s always going to be made because it’s kind of what I do, it’s what my friends do, it’s what we do.” Adding, “The idea of just doing new things is what I love these days, just trying stuff out. Like, sure. What’s that? I’ll try that. What’s that? I’ll try that. I find myself sitting at softball games now in Toronto bringing my glove with me just hoping someone will say they need a sub so I can go play even though I have no fucking clue how to play. I just want to get out on the field, you know? “
By all means, if you see an ancient man, glove in hand, just roaming the fields of Toronto with his heart on his sleeve and a gleam in his eye, invite him to play some ball. Just tell him to be careful because he can throw his back out at any time– and he’s still got plenty of work to do.