Out of the darkness

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This article was published 24/03/2016 (3836 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sometimes things go from good to bad to worse in the span of what seems like seconds, but the result of that downward trajectory doesn’t have to be a negative one. For Marianas Trench frontman Josh Ramsay, it led to the creation of the Vancouver-based quartet’s fourth full-length, Astoria, an album drummer and backing vocalist Ian Casselman calls their “best record yet.”

Astoria is a concept album of sorts, taking root in some drastic ups and downs in Ramsay’s life during the two years following the end of the pop-rock band’s previous tour. The group had become popular enough to start playing arena-sized shows and Ramsay, 30, saw some personal success after co-writing and producing the massive hit Call Me Maybe for Carly Rae Jepsen, which earned him a Grammy nomination.

At the same time, however, his mother was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia (a disease that combines symptoms of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s) and his engagement to his fiancée ended, leaving him in a dark place and unable to write.

“It’s not easy to watch your friend go through stuff and, just like anything painful… it just takes time and you have to go through it,” says Casselman, who was also experiencing a difficult time with the death of his own mother. Ramsay’s mother is still fighting her disease.

“We wanted to give Josh his space and be supportive. Obviously, we would hang out — we’re all really, really good friends; we’re probably closer than we’ve ever been right now — but sometimes guys need space to go through stuff, so we just gave him the space he needed and were supportive but didn’t push, because that would not have helped anything.”

During a stint in the hospital recovering from gallstones, Ramsay finally felt his creativity surge back. After he got home, the songs started pouring out of him.

He took a decidedly cinematic approach, pulling some inspiration from the band’s love of the classic 1985 coming-of-age film The Goonies. (Astoria is the town in which The Goonies takes place, and diehard Goonies fans will notice the name of the tour — Never Say Die — is also a reference to the film). That musical echo of the ’80s is heard loud and clear in the snippets of decade-specific riffs and melodies that dot many of the tracks.

“We made it an ’80s-style album — not necessarily ’80s songwriting, but sonically, we really chased after a lot of ’80s sounds,” says Casselman.

While Astoria still very much feels like a Marianas Trench album — which typically already adopts a bit of cinematic flair in dense arrangements, four-part harmonies and Ramsay’s impressive vocal prowess — there is something different about it. It’s a more mature breed of pop music that recognizes the fun of the genre without letting the actual songwriting slide into something easy or predictable.

“Some stuff is old; he (Ramsay) only banks ideas,” says Casselman of the writing process. “Take, for example, the song Wildfire: those verses have been around since before we released anything — well, the vocal melody of the verse has, anyway. So he has ideas and we’re like, ‘Make sure you hold on to that one.’ He comes with the main structure and main melody and we all just give our two cents. He’s definitely the head chef in the kitchen, but we’re all cooking away.

“With this album, we had a lot of input with sounds. A lot of the little parts that fill in can really make that section, or help create the vibe of the section. We’re all extremely involved in the recording of this album; it was a really fun process.”

The band is currently on tour to support Astoria, and is especially looking forward to playing in Winnipeg again.

“When you go to play Winnipeg, there’s no bulls—,” Cassleman says enthusiastically. “If they like it, they let you know; if they don’t like it, they let you know, and we love that.

“When we played the MTS Centre, it was one of my favourite shows because people were fired up. It was a good place to play, it sounded good, and the energy was… I don’t even know how to explain it. It was loud and in your face, in a good way.

“Whenever a crowd is really into a show, it gives you energy and then you play better — it’s cyclical.”

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @NireRabel