Time to turn Lights back on

The last time indie quartet Federal Lights held an album release show, the band played the Good Will Social Club and sold tickets at Music Trader.

It was March 2016, so frontman Jean-Guy Roy would forgive you if you believed his band was just as defunct as those Winnipeg establishments.

After playing with nationally acclaimed acts such Great Lake Swimmers and Imaginary Cities, with considerable radio play under the band’s belt, Federal Lights’ decade-long absence from local stages might seem puzzling.

That’s Roy’s fault, he admits.

After touring sophomore record Coeur de Lion in 2016, the band returned to Winnipeg and Roy simply felt disconnected from the music and the industry, which felt like it had drained the joy out of his lifelong passion.

He’d decided that he’d failed.

Even in jam-packed rooms for European showcases, playing well in sets at South by Southwest, Roy found himself wondering whether anything would ever be enough, whether the spectre of failure would always haunt him under the brightest of lights; it got harder to see the love.

“I got to this point where I just could say, eff this. I’m done. In my mind and in my heart I packed it in,” says Roy, whose bandmates are Rob Mitchell, drummer Chris Gaudry and keyboardist Jodi Roy.

“To complete that process, I kind of needed to delete us.”

So Roy logged on to Facebook and YouTube and Instagram and erased the band’s digital footprint — every note of support, every photograph, every live recording. Gone in a few clicks.

It wasn’t gimmickry or hiatus, says Roy. It felt like time to give up.

“It was a decision, made alone, made by me, and I dressed it up as necessity. I told myself I was being practical. That I was being honest,” he writes.

“What I did to Federal Lights wasn’t a response to failure: it was a pre-emptive strike. If I ended it, it hadn’t failed me; I’d ended it. People do this with more than bands, and for the same reason: it’s a way of staying in control of the story, even as you’re destroying it.”

Now, a decade later, Federal Lights are powering back on.

In December, when the band was listed on a Times Change(d) bill with Ridley Bent and Leaf Rapids, the group had to announce its reanimation. “Federal Lights isn’t dead.”

Reborn and revitalized, the group released its third album, Celebration of Failure, on Thursday at Sidestage.

The group is also playing the Trout Forest Music Festival in Ear Falls, Ont. (Aug. 14 to 16), as part of a lineup that includes the Bros. Landreth, Union Duke and We’re Only Here for the Snacks.

“(My bandmates) pushed me back into this, and I’m very grateful, because we were able to make another record we’re really proud of,” says Roy. “It comes from a real place of honesty and struggle.”