Emily Haines

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 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 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. 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? 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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.

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. 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 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 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, 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, 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 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. 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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

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, 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, 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, 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

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 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 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

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 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? 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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

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 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 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 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? 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 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, 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, 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, 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

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. 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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? 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, 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, 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

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 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 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, 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 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, 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. 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

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 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 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

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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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.

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. 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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?

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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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, 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 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? 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 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? 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,

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 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 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 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? 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 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, 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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.

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 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, 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 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

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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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, 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

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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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, 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 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 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

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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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. 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 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 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

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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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

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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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? 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 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, 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, 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

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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

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 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. 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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.

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 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, 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 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

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 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,

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 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 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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

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

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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. 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

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 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 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 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 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. 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

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 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, 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

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

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 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, 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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, 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 the conversation. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex