(On April 20th, 2009, Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw surprised Winnipeg with a free acoustic show at The Pyramid Cabaret. I was lucky enough to sit down with the two of them before the show and find out a little bit about what makes them who they are. Traditionally, I would edit this article down to around 1,200 words, but I feel that with all the things we discussed, it would be a disservice to Emily, Jimmy, and you, the reader, to cut out anything but the most mundane exchanges. Therefore, this article was originally published in three parts on May 5th, 6th and 7th, 2009. Please enjoy.)
* * *
“I guess all I can say is that I think life is about experience, and the life of the planet, the life of the individual, the life of the economy, the life of music... Life – it's completely anarchy; it's completely uncontrollable; it's magical; and the more that we embrace that, we realise that things are going to happen that we never could have predicted; and that your whole purpose is to experience, and ideally, conduct yourself according to a set of ethics that keep you out of the primordial moral ooze.” - Emily Haines, 04/20/09
These are the first words that dance out of Emily's mouth – mere moments after I meet her – in response to me asking if there is a place in the world for darker times (if only to help us appreciate the brighter ones). This confusing mass of words dances around my ears with such ease and eloquence, effortlessly transitioning from foxtrot to salsa to ballroom and back without a single misstep, and portraying her ultimate message as she slows the last three words, pausing and contemplating after each one, “primordial... moral... ooze.” Then – a slight giggle. You had me at “ooze”, Miss Haines.
There is an aura of mystery and intrigue that surrounds Metric's famous front-woman as she joins band-mate Jimmy Shaw and I in the messy upstairs dressing room of The Pyramid Cabaret; located in the one-way street ant-farm that is downtown Winnipeg. Her face hidden behind classic white sunglasses, Emily makes a nonchalant comment about an out of place, leopard print chair, made in the shape of a stiletto.
"Why does there have to be a chair that's shaped like a shoe? That one.”
As our eyes follow the tip of her pointed finger, Emily smirks with a bit of a laugh; an endearing quirk that she exhibits throughout our time together.
“Hi, I'm Emily,” she says as we shake hands.
It's not often that a person can manage to make you feel both comfortable and awkward at the same time. Emily Haines is one such person.
* * *
When I arrived at The Pyramid, Danny, Metric's tour manager, informed me that due to time constraints, Jimmy and Emily would have to sit down with me individually, and if things got really tight, Emily might not be available at all. While the majority of the questions I had prepared were not specific to either individual, I had intended on directing certain ones towards Emily and others towards Jimmy in hopes of evoking more intimate responses. Truthfully, I (wrongly) assumed that Emily's arrival was unlikely, but quickly realised that whether or not she did join us, Jimmy had plenty of wisdom to divulge, and I was more than willing to open my ears.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” Jimmy politely asks. I shake my head. “Thanks.”
Surrounded by futons and the aforementioned giant shoe-chair, Jimmy and I both elect to sit in hard plastic lawn chairs. Maybe it is because there are two of them, or because they are the only movable seating options. Whatever the reason, here we sit, face to face, legs crossed and hand on chin (me), or holding a cigarette (Jimmy). Très Inside the Actors Studio.
In what I suppose is an attempt to prove (whether to Jimmy or myself) that I'm not a bandwagon jumper, I open by recounting the first time I saw Metric perform live.
“I remember when Billy Talent were just hitting their stride, they played at the old Walker Theatre here during a fall tour in 2004,” I begin a story that Jimmy is quite familiar with. “They had two opening acts touring with them: Death From Above 1979 and, of course, Metric; neither of which I had heard of prior to that night.”
Not surprisingly, the story ends with me purchasing a copy of Metric's debut, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, and another fan added to the Metric stable. Corny story notwithstanding, it is a true one, and one that Jimmy appreciates with his nods and smiles.
“That album is still a mainstay in my car stereo,” I tell him.
“Good driving tunes are very important,” Jimmy coyly replies
Rapport, consider yourself built.
With the clock ticking, I decide that now is as good a time as any to dive into some not-so-light topics. Jimmy and Emily are passionate about their opinions and outlook on the world, and my intention is to fill as many buckets from their wells of thought as my metaphorical arms can carry. But first, we share a mutual moment of admiration for the man that I consider to be both the best vocalist, and performer, ever: Freddie Mercury.
“He's one of the greatest front-men of all time,” Jimmy concurs, after I tell him about my goal to acquire all of Queen's original records on vinyl, (I'm currently at 15 of 21). “His voice is unbelievable.”
I'm beginning to grow quite fond of this Jimmy Shaw guy.
* * *
Considered to be their most positive album, Fantasies parallels much of the energy and hope flowing through the world. Despite the fear of global warming, a frightening worldwide economy and a questionable war, it seems that the general consensus sees recent changes in the world as a major step forward. This record wasn't created overnight, so unless the members of Metric are psychic, they couldn't have known what the state of society would be when Fantasies was ready to meet the ears of the masses. So then, how did it come to so accurately reflect the world we live in today; and as the minds behind it, how did it feel when it all worked out so perfectly?
“I see it more like, positivity just breeds positivity,” Jimmy explains. “It's like the fact that Obama is in office is definitely a massive victory for hope and for positivity. I'm not totally sure that when we were starting to feel more this way that it was directly related to his campaign, and to specific things reflecting the fact that we see more hope going on in the world, or more positivity happening. I think it was more in the sense that we actually started to feel that way – as people. It sort of stemmed more from an inner place than an outer one. As we kept going and brought this album to fruition it was nice that it was sort of being mirrored in some way, being reflected in the fact that a few things were happening in the world that were sort of on the same tip. It felt nice that we were sort of relating, and in the same place as a lot of other people, which I'm not totally sure that we've really felt in the past.”
I can see where Jimmy is coming from. After all, there is a noticeable lack of bitterness in Metric's latest effort, as well as more of a general means to relate.
“When we wrote our other albums, we were sort of going through what we were going through,” Jimmy continues. “There was a lot of frustration about the war and about a lot of the shit that was going on, but I'm not sure that we felt like a giant solidarity with like sort of a movement. It seems like the world is in a good place – there's a lot of bullshit going on, like obviously there's a massive economic worldwide crisis – but to us, anyway, and I think to a lot of other people, it feels like the tearing down of an old structure and the rebuilding of a way that maybe is a little more stable and a little more fair, and that might actually last. I think that the more we can feel like we're taking part in that sort of consciousness – that's a good thing.”
Always one to play the Devil's advocate, I pose the question of whether these positive times and feelings of unity would have come about had it not been for the negative events leading up to them. A necessary evil, if you will.
Unlike Emily's more whimsical response, Jimmy does not mix his words.
“It would be amazing to think that there's a possibility that we could just get everything right from the beginning, but we're human beings so that's not a possibility, you know? Every once in a while it's like the whole world gets a slap in the face and then realises what not to do anymore. There's an amazing feeling in Europe; they will never fight a war again because they've seen it and they saw how much it destroys everything and everybody's lives, how deeply the wound goes. Whereas, in the western part of the world, it's a little more like that “teenage, ready to fight” mentality, so you get your fucking face kicked in for bumping into someone.”
On a smaller, but more personal scale, Jimmy touches on the strain of touring for five years straight.
“It's really weird to come home and your phone doesn't ring for a week because no one even expects you to be in the country.”
Before pulling out the world's smallest violinist, put yourself in their shoes.
"We felt distant from our friends and families, and even the simple idea of just making yourself something to eat.”
Even with that said, Emily joins us and is quick to quell any notion that they aren't grateful for where life has brought them.
“We bounced back. So often when you try to talk about it and be honest about things that have happened, it's like, we don't feel particularly melodramatic about it. I think it's an experience that most bands have.”
“Or not even bands, just anyone,” Jimmy adds. “If you achieve any success it probably means you worked really fucking hard.”
Like one voice in two bodies, Emily elaborates on Jimmy's comments, adding a layer of self-awareness that makes me question whether she was talking to us or to herself.
“At some point the thing you always wanted kind of eclipses everything else, and it's a confusing place because the dream comes true and then you don't have a dream -- which is...confusing.”
It's hard to tell behind the sunglasses, but I'm not sure that she's looking at anyone in particular.
“You gotta always have a dream,” Emily concludes.
* * *
There’s something odd yet striking about hearing these words come from Emily Haines. This is one of the few who chased her dream and achieved it, and has gone beyond, and yet her point still resonates. Without goals and ambition, without a dream, what is there to really drive us? For Emily, it’s a matter of shaking things up to keep the dream fresh.
“I like doing unconventional stuff. People get kind of confused, but why? People are asking me what this [surprise acoustic show] is, it's like, ‘we're just gonna play some songs, it's free, don't worry about it,’” laughs Emily. “Come on down!”
Though not quite unconventional, Emily flexed her creative muscles with her 2006 solo release Knives Don’t Have Your Back as Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton. This should come as a surprise to no one, but the most requested question from fans was if and when we would see the release of a new Soft Skeleton record. The response should be equally expected.
“Umm... I have no idea, you know? I've got lots of songs and lots of ideas, but I'm sure you can imagine, I'm completely absorbed in Fantasies. The way that I make decisions about creative stuff, about music, is like, there is no plan, right? You know, it wasn't like I planned to need to make that Soft Skeleton record, so it's kind of like, if the time comes and the songs feel like they need to come out then I will oblige the universe at that time.”
I assure Emily that the universe will be ecstatic. It’s interesting that she mentions that there is no plan and things will just happen “if the time comes.” When Emily travelled to Argentina to get away from everything she knew, I doubt she anticipated discovering the artistry that awaited her in the forms of Oscar Bony and Hollywood in Cambodia. These two drastically different takes on art helped inspire and enlighten Emily during her time away, to the point that she included personal photos of their work in the deluxe edition of Fantasies. As soon as I mention the artists Emily perks up. It is amazing how passionate she is about their work, and how excited she is to discuss it. I ask if they reflected her as a person upon arrival, and departure, in Argentina.
“Yeah, definitely,” agrees Emily. “I mean, that's exactly what it was. At the beginning, Oscar Bony's total contribution to art was creative suicide. He was part of this whole collective, in the 60s and 70s, of artists who created these works that were really controversial. They got shut down by the government, and every single artist that was involved in that just left art completely, for the rest of their lives. He [Bony] switched over to photography of bands actually, and there are some really incredible rock and roll bands that came out of Argentina in the 70s and he documented all that and then ended up doing this art later in his life.”
Surprisingly, Jimmy doesn’t appear to know the whole story, so Emily turns to him.
“This is the stuff I told you about,” Emily says to Jimmy, “where it's like he does this self portrait – which is kind of like suicide, pulling a trigger on yourself kind of thing – so he sets up the camera and will shoot himself, like, falling down the stairs. Then, he frames the image in glass, takes a shotgun, and puts bullets through his own head and body, like it looks like a mafia killing. When you see it in a gallery it's like the glass is all shattered in the frame.”
While a bit dark in nature, Bony’s work acted like a creative wakeup call for Emily. Now that she was awake once more, she sought a different kind of inspiration, one with more positive connotations.
“That's what I saw when I first got there,” Emily says of Bony’s work, “and at the end I was more into this work of the Hollywood in Cambodia Collective which is a lot more, you know... the opposite of creative suicide. They're kind of like the visual equivalent of Broken Social Scene.”
While Emily did much of her writing in Argentina, Fantasies was put together in several geographical locations. This wasn’t a random or unorganized decision, but rather a calculated one that Metric felt was necessary in order to achieve the specific sound they wanted for each song.
“For us, the idea of a cohesive album is really important,” Jimmy concedes. “There were definitely challenges involved in it, but strangely enough it was the going to all of these different places that was actually chasing a common sound as opposed to the opposite. It was like we knew that in some parts of the record we needed a certain sound and the only place to get that sound was some crazy studio in Vancouver or something like that. Most of it was recorded in my studio [in Toronto]. The drums were recorded in four different studios. That really was about chasing a specific drum sound for each song on the record and how we wanted to get sort of this big, spacious, canyon-type sound in the drums.”
Of course, not every band has the luxury of travelling around the world to chase a specific sound. The ones that do, though, have that luxury because they’ve earned it through success. Metric’s choice to self-release their album in the U.S. with no label support, and be heavily involved in its worldwide release, was definitely a risky one. However, considering the first week sales of Fantasies (they surpassed the first week sales of their three prior records); the choice seems to have paid off. Being that they are living the dream of being a successful band without being a corporate mascot, I ask Jimmy what advice he has for others hoping to accomplish similar success.
“Well, it's weird. It's hard for me to say that bands should do what we did because what we did on this record is very specific to the situation that Metric is in,” admits Jimmy. “We're in a fortunate enough position to have a few hundred thousand fans worldwide and not have a label, and so we were able to do this. I'm sure there are a bunch of acts that are sitting three records deep into a seven record contract with Capitol Records right now that would totally do what we're doing if they could, but they needed that label to build them and then the label still has them. For us, we always had a hard time finding a really solid home in the label world, and so it sort of resulted in the fact that we ended up homeless and relatively successful at the same time. So it was an easy decision to do it because our situation dictated that we could and it was so blindingly obvious that we had to. The numbers just made sense.”
So it made sense for Metric, but what about artists that don’t have thousands of fans worldwide?
“If you're an emerging band and you've got ten fans and six of them are your family, then you're in a very different position,” says Jimmy. “Getting from zero to five thousand records is like the hardest part. Once you're at five thousand things start to snowball by themselves. So if I was to give advice to someone on how to get from zero to five thousand? You need people. You need good people, and you need them to not take you for everything you're worth. The music industry has a trend and a habit of capitalizing on your potential and they bet on artists like the do on horses. You just have to be careful that you don't end up signing something where they are taking you for everything that you might possibly be one day. Just get people to pay for who you are right now. The argument on the label front is, 'for that ten thousand dollars we have to own everything that you do for six years, or else financially it doesn't make sense for us because nine out of every ten things we do fail, so we have to be able to find that one to fund the other nine.' But then you could turn around and ask the question, 'well, why don't you make sure that the nine don't fail?' You don't just bail on it because it may not be working. The idea of artist development is not going to come from the industry, so it has to come from the artist. The artist has to be the one interested in developing their own career and realize they are the only one that's going to own their career from day one to the last day. It's in your power to do what you want.”
I can’t resist pushing a bit further on the topic of major labels.
“Do you think the majors are dying?” I ask.
“Oh yeah, for sure! They're terrified,” Jimmy proclaims. “They're all losing money, so their answer was to take more money from the artist. The fact is, the record industry, in terms of pure records, there's not as much money in it anymore. So maybe they should get used to not making twenty million dollars a year. If you want to continue to make twenty million dollars as the CEO of Universal records, maybe you should change industries.”
Jimmy’s perceptions of the labels and the industry are really eye opening. Not just in the fact that we sometimes forget just how much these labels take away from our favourite artists, but in the fact that he, Emily, and Metric as a whole really care about the music and the fans first. Some people feel that the state of the music industry is in a decline, but I really see it as a separation of the wheat from the chaff. We now get to see which artists care about us, the fans. But, I suppose that is another discussion for another time...
With OWU, WAYN? still being my favourite Metric record, and a diverse change in sound from record to record, I had wondered which album they felt best represents them. In other words, which record would you play for a Metric “virgin” if you wanted to say “this is who we are?”
“Well I think right now it would be this one,” Jimmy responds, “just because I'm kind of jazzed on it and I feel like it's most representative of who we are now. I have a hard time getting out of now. It's like, if someone wanted to see a photograph of you, you would probably show them a photograph of you in your present state, instead of you ten years ago.”
As I look at my watch, I realise that the three of us have been talking for half an hour. With a sound check awaiting them, and adoring fans ready to burst through the door, it’s almost time for me to let Jimmy and Emily go do what they do best. Outside of music, what exactly inspires them to do such fantastic work?
“Film,” they say in perfect unison.
“We've been hanging out for a while,” laughs Emily.
“We both watch a lot of film,” elaborates Jimmy. ”Films actually, to me, have worked their way into our music more than other music does. It’s like a lot of what we're actually going for is like sonically representing visuals, more so than like, ‘let's do a song like Gang of Four.’”
As we’re wrapping up, Emily asks me to express her appreciation to Winnipeggers, with two film geniuses in particular.
“We love Deco Dawson and Guy Maddin. Thanks for the love Winnipeg,” says Emily with a smile.
“[And] don't be confused when we continue to do things unconventionally,” adds Jimmy.
“That's the main one, try to keep an open mind. We're not done surprising you yet,” Emily finishes.
Being the kind of person that can’t walk away from a good set up like that, I give us all a visual that might have been better left unsaid.
“As soon as Jimmy gets up there in the Freddie Mercury spandex unitard with his chest hair sticking out, I'll say I was the first to know,” I joke.
“I might need like a glue stick first (for the chest hair),” says Jimmy.
As soon as Emily echoes her agreement, we all burst out laughing.
“He really was the greatest vocalist,” I begin, as the laughter dies down.
“Ever,” Emily and Jimmy finish my sentence together.
I hear they’ve been hanging out for a while.
Post new comment