Paperbacks’ writer McLean pens audacious tunes

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/07/2003 (8373 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MOST musicians will tell you a band name’s just a band name — a couple of words thrown together in time to scrawl something on a gig poster.

This unromantic process is how The Paperbacks got their name. But I like to think there’s more to the band’s moniker than just convenience.

The word “paperback” suggests a lot of information crammed into a light and easy-to-transport package. It’s the perfect description for a Winnipeg band that packs a heady literary wallop into an otherwise straightforward indie-rock sound.

Episode Of Sparrows, the first CD from the three-year-old quintet, is almost like an old-fashioned singer-songwriter album, with melodies accessible enough to have been composed by Jackson Browne.

But the lyrics are something entirely different. Singer Doug McLean isn’t afraid to use literal narratives, a device which tends to make songwriters look stupid if they aren’t careful.

“I’m assaulted by the verse of peers that stresses, line by line, how anything’s assertable as long as it can rhyme,” sings the 28-year-old bandleader in a song called Books As Furniture. It takes a brave human being to write lyrics about lyrics, but that’s just the kind of songwriter McLean is.

“In the end, it’s just pop music,” he says over a morning cup of coffee, trying to downplay the importance of lyrics to his band. “Our songs have to be sung, they have to have a melody and ultimately they have to work as pop songs. Our music has to be taken as a whole.”

All five Paperbacks have been working for more than two years on Episode Of Sparrows, which will be released tonight at the West End Cultural Centre. It’s the first full-length album by the band since it was formed from the ashes of McLean’s last project, the louder and more punk-oriented Bonaduces.

Joining the singer-lyricist is drummer Jack Jonasson, pianist Tanya Zubert, guitarist Jason Churko and bassist Jaret McNabb, who set up a makeshift studio in the spare bedroom of his house in West Kildonan and recorded the entire album digitally.

Thanks to this set-up, the band spent a measly $450 on the disc. But it turned out to be expensive in other ways, as the lure of limitless studio time gave The Paperbacks a nasty case of perfectionism.

“We anticipated having it done much earlier. We kept calling the guy at the label (Psshaw Records in Minneapolis), saying ‘Oh, we’ll have it done by February. Oh, we’ll have it done by June.’ It’s not Sgt. Pepper or anything but there’s a lot going on in the songs,” says McLean.

“Still, this was the easiest musical project I’ve ever been involved with, just because I’ve never been able to play with a group of friends before.”

Episode Of Sparrows is on sale at local stores that carry indie product. It’ll be available for $12 tonight at the WECC, where The Paperbacks share the bill with John K. Samson of The Weakerthans and Novillero.

Admission is $6.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca