Canadian group counts its lucky Stars

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This article was published 29/11/2018 (2850 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the last 12 months alone, Canadian indie-pop/rock group Stars have released their ninth full-length record, There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light, tacked on the release of three additional singles and have played dozens of shows across North America.

The Toronto-based six-piece is back on the road for their final tour leg of 2018, which brings them to the Garrick on Saturday, Dec. 1, and vocalist Torquil Campbell says he and his bandmates are feeling pretty good given the hectic year they’ve had.

“We’ve left pretty big gaps between tours it so it hasn’t been too crazy. The fatigue always comes, like, a day in. You leave bright-eyed and bushy tailed and by the time you spend one night on the bus you’re like, ‘I feel like I’m 700 years old,’” he says, laughing.

“But it’s always been like that; tour costs you a lot but it gives you a lot, too.”

Campbell chatted with the Free Press about There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light and the singles that followed it, the connection Stars believes exists between music and the spirit world and how the veteran group feels about their place in Canadian music.

Free Press: It’s been about a year since the album came out and people seem to really be latching onto it. Is there any sense of relief when new music is so warmly accepted by fans who have been around since the beginning?

Torquil Campbell: There is a sense of, well, maybe not relief but just affirmation and a sense that the conversation between us all continues. We’re not the kind of band that doesn’t think about their audience, we do, we love our audience and we want to make music that speaks to them about their lives and helps them get through the day, so it is important to us that we feel like we’ve expressed the idea in such a way that people can receive it, you know? And particularly this record is something we’re very, very proud of and feel most is like Stars in a way. Thelonious Monk once said the genius is he who is most like himself, and if that’s true, then I think this is the closest thing to genius we’ve done. It has an air of relaxation, I think, that we’ve struggled to achieve in the past.

It’s a weird record to play live, it’s not like No One Is Lost, it’s not a big dance-y album, it requires a bit more contemplative mood from the audience but that also just means you can build levels in the show that are a little more dramatic.

FP: Have there been any surprise fan favourites while you’ve been touring this record?

TC: I’ve been surprised how much people love Losing to You. That’s maybe my favourite Stars song ever, so I am thrilled they like it so much. It is six-and-a-half minutes long, and it’s slow and mega-depressing, but when I think back on our history, there is a certain sector of our crowd that likes the mega-depressing stuff, so maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised. But I love that song and I love singing it with Amy (Millan) because it’s one of those ones we get to do in unison and I love that experience of really feeling like we’ve gotten to a point where our two voices are one. It’s an amazing place to have gotten to with someone.

FP: And obviously you released the three singles this year as well; are those stand-alone releases or perhaps the path to a new record?

TC: I think the newest one is maybe the beginning of something. I think we will probably make a record with Kevin Drew, who is from Broken Social Scene. I think that will probably happen. The other two are more stand-alone. You know the nature of streaming is that you must provide constant content in order to keep your Spotify numbers up, so we are trying to do that. Also, I think people’s attention spans now are so short that you put a record out and six months later, it no longer exists, so it’s just all about trying to keep the audience engaged.

But the newest one (Are You With Me?) came very naturally and was something we wanted to do. And Kevin came around and had time, and that was something we had talked about for a long time, so that was a beautiful experience and we really enjoyed making that song.

FP: Is Are You With Me? actually the first Stars track Kevin Drew has produced?

TC: Yeah, we’ve never worked with Kevin before. Kevin’s always been super helpful to us, he’s helped sequence a lot of our records and has always been an enormous supporter, as he is with so many things. You know, Kevy is an incredible supporter of people and if you need help, Kevin wants to help, and I think we’re in a place where we wanted to make something quick and on a very human scale and Kevin was there, and nobody does gasping humanity quite as well as Kevin Drew. He’s the king of humanity.

FP: He should put that on his business card.

TC: Yeah, Kevin Drew: King of Humanity. He’d like to hear that!

FP: I know the track was partially inspired by the passing of Gord Downie and sort of finding ways to remain connected to him. Is the idea of someone being with you in a spiritual sense something you think about a lot?

TC: Yeah, I think I’m quite obsessed by it. I lost my dad nine years ago and I think that the price of love is loss. I know that the price of love is loss. And I know that’s a devastating truth, and I think that it’s something that pop music is amazing at talking about. Because pop music is such a febrile, temporary art form, and it captures the sense of loss maybe better than any other kind art because a melody comes and goes, you have to play the song again in order to get it back. But yeah, I think Stars has been pretty obsessed with ghosts throughout our whole career and the notion of using music as a way of communicating with the dead. I keep on saying things that I realize will look absolutely ridiculous in print, but I think it’s true. It’s sort of like an Ouija board, music exists on a plane that is not entirely of this earth, it goes out in waves, floats out across the world and maybe they can catch it on the air somewhere. That’s my hope.

For whatever reason, I’ve always been obsessed with the notion of bringing back those who are lost. And I think people need a sense that this isn’t it, that it doesn’t just end in emptiness and blackness, and I think music can be a way of giving people faith that there’s a little more to life than just what’s in front of us.

FP: There was a tweet from the Stars official Twitter account earlier this year that alluded to the fact the 2018 tours may be the last ones — is there any truth to that?

TC: Well it may be, I just think we’re at the point in our lives where we don’t take anything for granted and we feel very aware that things don’t last. Life is temporal. I don’t think we feel comfortable looking any further than this tour because I think, after that, if we don’t feel truly compelled to keep making music together and truly compelled to continue to speak to our audience, then we shouldn’t do it.

And I think that, I’ll be honest, I think there’s an element of us right now that feels that maybe we’ve become taken for granted in the Canadian music scene, and that in order to get our due we have to disappear, almost. It does sort of feel like that these days, with bands that are mid-career, that you’re kind of more popular if you don’t exist. (laughs) The music industry and the prize-giving industry is so predicated on the new and I would say that Stars are a band that have not gotten the respect we deserve. We’ve gotten a lot of respect, and that might sound whiny and I sure don’t mean it to because we are incredibly grateful for our listeners and the career we’ve had, but I also feel like the music industry is an industry predicated on fear. People operate out of fear in this industry and we won’t want to do that. We don’t want to make another record because we’re scared that if we don’t, we’ll have to do something else; we want to make another record because we love it and because we have something more to say.

I doubt very much this is the last you’ll see of us, but it could be, and I think, I guess the reason ultimately for saying that is more about gratitude. It’s more about giving ourselves the understanding that every show we play and everything we do now is gravy and we just feel incredibly grateful to still be doing it.

 

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @NireRabel