By Brent Owen
When I talked to Evan Cranley, bassist for the Canadian group Stars, last week, the band had celebrated the kickoff of its North American tour playing "Late Night with Conan O’Brien" the night before. He chatted about the band, their influences, and the latest album, In Our Bedroom After the War.
LEO: You all sounded great on Conan last night.
Evan Cranley: Cool. I haven’t seen the tape yet, but I hear it went well.
LEO: So in what ways did your hometown of Toronto and the band’s homebase of Montreal influence your sound?
EC: It’s a big influence on us and me personally, because the winters are so cold and very isolated there. I find that when the band is at the height of its writing cycle and the height of its creativity – it’s usually winter. I would say that we’re definitely inspired by the city around us at winter time; you just kind of huddle up, hibernate and create music. I know personally I have intentionally tried to make music sound like snow. So I think the climate and the culture of being in kind of a European society is a huge influence on us.
LEO: When you’re working on an album, is touring the penance or the pay off for you all?
EC: It’s definitely the height of the excitement, after finishing a record, is kind of showcasing your new material to people. I mean, we’re the kind of band that goes away for a year, writes a record, and then goes back on the road for like two years. For us it’s almost like two different careers. There’s studio and songwriting Stars; and then there’s the live aspect of Stars. They’re different worlds in a way. The best thing you can ask for is that people dig what you do and playing in front of people and celebrating music – I mean that’s amazing.
LEO: Describe what it is you experience when you’re playing live.
EC: I’m definitely there with the audience. I think what we’re trying to do is create a suspension that we can get people away from their lives and into this world with us. I even try to engage the audience, inviting the crowd to forget about their day or their year or their life, so they can just get lost in our stories and the way we sound. It’s like they can forget about their lives for a couple of hours.
LEO: You all are known as an indie-pop band. Isn’t that kind of an oxymoron?
EC: It depends on what you call pop. We’re independent only because we control everything we do in that way. We’re very creative with the business side of what we do, and we try to be creative with the musical side of what we do. I just think for a lot of people, pop is a dirty word, but for us it’s just the song structure we write in. We believe in powerful choruses and storytelling; and for me, that’s what pop music means. It’s more song structure, inspiration and romanticism in song. That’s what pop music is to me, so I find that they work hand-in-hand.
LEO: The band seems to weave from Bowie to Barrett, Joy Division to Smashing Pumpkins, Morissey to the Cure seamlessly into something original and innovative. Are these real influences that you all draw from because they all seem to be purveyors of the kind of song structure you’re talking about?
EC: Definitely, those bands are definitely influences. I think what I have the most fun doing when we write music is making something that sounds familiar but then putting our own twist on that sense of familiarity. It’s fun to play with the influence of all of these great bands but then you put your own twist on what they do, because they did the same thing with bands before them. I think you can take a band’s creative idea and make it your own – I think that’s what’s great about pop music: Everyone’s kind of doing the same thing in their own special way.
LEO: The album title In Our Bedroom After the War is kind of misnomer. It kind of implies a sort of political urgency that isn’t there. Was this intentional to have kind of a salacious album title and when you listen to it you find that it’s not really a politically driven album at all?
EC: The title was definitely on purpose, but it kind of has two meanings though. It’s meant to inspire you politically, in the world you live in right now; and it’s supposed to inspire you in your personal life. So it can be take politically or personally. Whether you’re at war with a lover or a (foreign policy) that you disagree with – after the fight is over you’re just kind of left with your own thoughts. And the bedroom, to me, is the most intimate place you can go. You’re in the innermost sanctum of yourself.
LEO: How does everyone’s personal side projects like Broken Social Scene, Torquil’s acting, solo albums, etc. effect what you do when you get together to make a new Stars album?
EC: I think that we’re a band obviously, and we’ll always be a band but we’re musicians and artists first. What we do outside of what I call our home, which is Stars, it can only inspire new things for the group. So I love seeing Amy do her own thing, I love seeing Chris do his own thing, and Patty do his own thing; because when they come back they are recharged and ready to work on the band again. It’s easy to get burned out on one project, so you have to find inspiration elsewhere and then bring it back home. It’s only been good for us.
LEO: You all also tend to have eclectic song structure with songs like “Personal” off of the new album. Where does this askew structure come from?
EC: To break down Torq and Amy are the lyricists of the band and myself, Patty, and Chris write all of the music for it – so that’s a cool role to play. With a song like “Personal” I thought it was a really poignant song about relationships and trying to find love in 2008. And the attempt to find intimacy on the internet and trying to find intimacy in the world we live in now, seemed like a really cool story. It’s interesting. So I write music for these storytellers; which is a pretty fun role to play because I kind of get to add a soundtrack to their story. That’s kind of how I see the way that our music works – we’re providing a soundtrack to their story.
LEO: When you all released this album in September was it disheartening to be putting out a new project like this and then to see it compared by critics to your previous album Set Yourself on Fire, instead of letting it stand on it’s own?
EC: Yeah, it was kind of difficult – because we’ve put out four records and Set Yourself on Fire seems to be the only one they were comparing it to. Like we didn’t have a career before that record or something. And it’s very interesting reading the feedback – both positive and negative – because we’re a band that matter to a lot of people now. So it’s almost flattering that you get the good and the bad press from it because it means we’re affecting people’s lives on a level that we never have before.
LEO: Did you feel, even for a minute, that you might have set the bar too high with Set Yourself on Fire?
EC: No, God, No. That was a record and a moment in time. I mean, when we go back and do another record, it’s going to be something completely different from anything we’ve ever done, and I think instead putting that spin of familiarity on pop music again, we’ll just try to put that spin on ourselves and just reinvent ourselves.
If, in 20 years, Set Yourself on Fire is the one that everyone compares the bands career to, then I think that’s cool; because a lot of bands never have that [defining] record.
Stars and Martin Royle play Wednesday, March 26 at the Bomhard Theatre in Kentucky Center for the Arts. Doors are at 7:30 p.m., and tickets for the all-ages show are $20.
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