Sam Roberts

Part 1

0:00Alright, I'm here with Sam Roberts and I was three number one songs in Canada. First off, growing up, you played hockey for the Montreal Junior Canadians as a goaltender. Was that your dream as a child or being a rock star? Shh, man, to be honest with you, that's not true at all. I never played for the Montreal Junior Canadians. No way. No. That interview was a lie that I read. Oh, you made that up. So I'm not totally making that up myself. No, no, no. I purposefully misled people. I don't know if that's a good thing to do, but I did it anyway. Oh, Bob Dylan, you still do it all the time, so you're following good footsteps? Yeah, exactly. When did you start writing songs? I don't know. I was about 15 or 16, I'd say. Yeah. Give or take. And I don't know what made me keep doing them, do it, like, we keep writing them because

0:45they were terrible. For a long time, they were really, really bad. And then, you know, I'd torture a few people for something to listen to them. And then, eventually, one day, it was just like somebody said, hey, that's not bad. And I took that as a serious encouragement, you know, and just kind of went with it from there. That's cool. Any of those songs appear on any albums, any songs that you wrote? No, they weren't that. They were better, but they weren't good. You know? Cool. For many fans, it seems as if you came out with Brother Down on the Inhuman Condition EP. I actually heard an interesting story about you being drunk for the entire recording. Is that one to her or is that also Bob Dylan on? No, that one is true. I don't know where you got that inside information. But yeah, we had a few pops, you know? We usually do in the studio. It depends.

1:30Over a month or two months or three months, it's tough to keep on the sauce, you know, or hit the sauce hard every day. It wears you down a bit. But we were just having fun, man. That's the whole thing is that the whole EP was based on hanging out with friends and making music. It wasn't intended to necessarily skyrocket us anywhere. It just happened. But that's usually the best way to make music anyway, you know? And just do what comes to you naturally, you know? And if that'll translate into, I don't know, into something that's at least honest. And when something's honest, I think people, whether they like it or not, at least we'll give it a fighting chance. Yeah, for sure. For sure. How long were you playing in Montreal in clubs and stuff before Brother Down was actually released?

2:16And like 10 years or so? Really? Yeah, about that, I'd say. I think we played our first gig. We were 17. This club called Station 10 on St. Catherine Street in Montreal, which is long since closed down. But us and a whole bunch of other bands, like the Deers or whatever, we all played shows there all the time. And never really got anywhere, you know? Well, we got somewhere because we were playing music and we were having fun. Your live show's a really upbeat, lots of fun to go see. Are they starting to show promise here in the States as you've been touring with Guster? Yeah, this is our third tour in the States this year, I think. We did one of the soundtrack of our lives. That was the first one we ever did. So that was starting from square one, basically.

3:02We've just been trying to build on it. So yeah, it's going pretty well. But man, we played in Canada for 10 years before anything happened. And the same thing, you have to have the same sort of take-no-prisoners attitude down here as well. And I don't just assume that because you have a record deal or anything like that, that doesn't mean anything. Really. Doesn't mean you're going to get played on the radio. Doesn't mean people are going to show up at your gigs. We have to work just as hard down here to get the music out as we ever did in Canada. So we're patient, not overthinking the whole situation. We just go out there and we play every night. Yeah. Speaking of live shows, you were asked to play at Star of Stock. I was in the crowd. I'm not even sure how to describe it. What was it like to actually be performing there? Very similar to being out there in the crowd.

3:47I think it was just something that none of us had ever seen before or were used to. So the fact that we were playing was just sort of, I guess gave it a slightly different twist for our own personal experience. But really, it was just being in that environment was very overwhelming the whole day. Not just while we were playing the whole day. Just every time you looked out there. And that's why people were just as busy sort of looking behind them and around them on the sides, you know, as they were at the stage. So it was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity to perform. But it was also maybe a once in a lifetime happening. And we tried to take full advantage of that.

4:32When you're on stage, I remember I was in Toronto the other night and you look genuinely happy. Like you reminded me of ACDC. Just how happy they were to be there. And you're not taking any of this moment for granted or anything like that. You just look genuinely happy to be there. Are you actually happy or are you just kind of playing up the crowd? No. You know, like I can't really describe what it feels like to work at something your whole life. And then, you know, have moments like that. Like the shows in Toronto, the show we just played in Montreal. These are the kind of things where you dream about them when you play in a rock and roll band. And there we are and we're living it. And to think that we'd be immune to it, you know, that's insane. That we wouldn't have some sort of emotional response to that kind of, to that kind of,

5:19you know, event in our lives. Like it really is, man. Every show, every time people show up at a gig like that and give it up for our band, it feels like your reaction to it is like, well, man, this might be the last time this ever happened. So I'm going to take it full advantage of it and enjoy every minute of it. On the new album, We Were Born a Flame, you play all the instruments on it except for percussion. What made you decide to do that and not have the band? Is it the same band you've been playing with for a long time now? Same guys. Yeah, same band. You know, things are like the reality of playing in a band live and the reality of sitting in the studio with the tape recorder on are two different things, you know. And I like being in the studio on my own. I like, like, I come up with a lot of ideas in the studio while I'm just laying down tracks,

6:09you know. And, you know, for people who perform on stage doesn't necessarily translate into performing in a studio. So, I mean, that's something to, yeah, I can give you an answer to that, but the guys in the band as well, you know, how comfortable they are in the studio. It's completely different. And I like just being in there with my, you know, doing my own shit really and that's how it started. That's how the songs were written. That's where, you know, brother down and whatever songs have appeared on the last couple of records, they all came from me just sort of locking myself away and that's how I write music and that's how I record it. So, I don't know if the next one may be different because I like the idea of having, you know, the energy of a live show on tape. So, as we get better as a band, you know, that becomes more and more of a possibility.

6:58So, you know, who knows, you know, but I'm not going to say, well, the next one's going to be all the guys on the record because it might not be. It might be me doing exactly the same thing, but I don't really know yet. Not there yet. Yeah, you know, it's cool. One last thing. How do you feel about the downloading of music? Has it helped you or has it harmed you more, do you think? I don't know. I don't think we've been in this sort of like really in the thick of it long enough. I mean, I know for, you know, you know, it doesn't take, you know, rocket science to figure out that had, if there were no downloading of our record, you know, we get numbers from a record company of what they think our record would have sold. But to me, it doesn't, you know, there's so much about it that reflects something wrong

7:46with the music industry in general. So it's not that you can accuse down loaders or accuse musicians of taking one position or another on it. I think it's just something, there's a root problem that has to be fixed somehow. I don't really know, you know, because I don't think people go out there and intentionally rip off artists that they respect, you know. So I don't think that's really the case. And it's also, you know, hey, man, like sometimes music should just be kind of shared out there and doesn't have to be this commercial thing. It's ironic because I guess I make out my living off of it now, you know. I think that the people who are conscientious about it, who go out there and use it as a, you know, as a means to discover things that they'd never heard of before, those are the

8:32people who chances are still going to go out and buy the record anyway, you know. And go see the concert and everything. And it all comes back to you in some way, you know. You can never replace a live performance. So whatever happens with the idea of, I would hate to see records disappear. I'll be honest with you. I like the fact that music takes on a physical manifestation, you know. And there's album artwork and all this kind of shit that a lot of thought goes into it and it is a big part for me in my experience. So I don't want to see that disappear at all and become some, you know, music becomes some sort of whatever cyber-info thing that can. But at the same time, you can never replace a live performance. And that's how we're going to, you know, persevere through whatever happens in the

9:20next few years, you know.

Part 2

0:00Last night's headliner from the Folk Festival, Sam Roberts. How are you man? I'm good, how are you? I'm fantastic. Good to see you here in Calgary. Thanks, nice to see you. Vina, well I expected some sort of club show to start the tour off, but I guess you're not doing those or what's the deal? Well this isn't a season four. Nobody wants to be inside of this some year, so all of our shows are summer outdoors. Oh yeah? Yeah, literally all of them. So I was expecting some for the fall maybe? Yeah, we're gonna be back doing a big Canadian tour starting at the end of October and running right through into the new year. So I imagine we'll be on the west coast very early in 2009. Who do you want to play with? Do you have any ideas? Is that even up to you or is it just kind of like people throw bands on the bill? You know a lot of bands sort of offer their services for a tour like this and and sometimes there are some very pleasant surprises that find their way to you.

0:45Unexpected obviously and so it all depends and essentially I think when you're planning out a tour you're trying to make for a certain kind of mood every night. And obviously trying to offer the people come out the best possible evening of music. So we haven't hammered out all the details as a year but we certainly have a few good ideas. Yeah, how was the show with the stills the other night? It was great. They're good friends of ours from back home. There are rehearsal space roommates as well. Oh really? Oh that's cool, I didn't know that. So it's always good to get up there on stage with those guys. They got a new record coming up as well. It's fantastic. They came in studio the other day actually and they were just after opening for Paul McCartney the other day and I saw them a few days ago. You saw them more recently and when I talked to the guys they were overwhelmed by it all.

1:34Couldn't sleep the night afterwards still just it hadn't sank in yet. They were still very much the same frame of mind and I'm sure that would last for at least another couple of weeks. Yeah you'd think so. You don't get over that kind of experience. Well it's like you with the stones almost. Yeah that's going to be. The stones probably them flying in flying out or did you get to meet them at all? We did very very briefly. Oh yeah. But again it took a year to get over it. It's not really that long. It was just it's such a you don't want to say life changing but it's almost the collision of two. That's why you got into it though. Exactly and it's almost something that's never actually meant to happen. And there it is you know the opportunity presents itself and it becomes physical and real. And it's almost too much to process. Yeah you'd think so. You spend so much of your life fantasizing about something like that.

2:20Your brain doesn't register it when it's actually you're confronted by it. Is that why you play Rick and Walker's? Because of Lenin? Yeah. You think? Well I think it's why I was interested in the guitar in the first place. Oh really? It was the Beatles for sure. Absolutely the Beatles and Tom Petty too. And the birds. And I think that a lot of the great 60 sound came from that guitar. Oh yeah for sure. It's definitely why. I've kind of put the Rick and Walker. Oh really? Yeah I see I haven't seen it in a few years. Yeah I've put it to bed the last couple of years and sort of been changing around the guitars. Different guitars it's amazing how a guitar can sort of bring different things out of different songs. And you end up having developing these relationships with the instruments and eventually the...

3:11Sometimes you dump them. Well eventually something you know not that it's sour but you try something new and all of a sudden you know it'll breathe new life into a song and then that becomes your new fling for a while. What are you using most on the new record? We used a lot of telecasters on this record which is definitely a new sound for our band. Not to get to. No get to it. Not to get to it. You try to segue into a song and see what it's doing. Some people you know it's not something that we necessarily talk about all that often but it does have a huge influence on the way a song sounds and the way they end up turning out. These guitars are just that much more clarity to them and I think that that sort of comes through in the recordings on the record and certainly on stage as well.

3:58Even the blues are if they come across in that first song. Love the end of the world and the new record. It's pretty cool and the harmonies are awesome and everything. Well thanks. And you say Kilimanjaro in it and it was reading the lyrics today. I'll just automatically go to Totos Africa because it's the only other song that mentions it I think. Or like one of the big songs that mentions it. Well you know they're always right up there. Yeah Totos Africa. In our list of influences. Oh yeah. Toto 4 big influence though. Let's play a tune for people though because I like it. Here's Sam Roberts.

6:57Ask every man that comes in five questions. One word answers. Road or studio? Road. Leonard McCartney. Lennon. Alcohol and marijuana. I know it's the hardest one. I can't go with booze. Alright. So you've written your most proud of. It doesn't have to be one word. Bridge snow. Cool. And one word. Sam Roberts. Small. Small. Let's play people bridge to nowhere because I like that tune. That's it. Another day breaks and the last one's going.

7:42You dig deep just to carry on. You dance great I put it on for you go. So you stay back in the back and you move it all. Yeah. And the video is just incredible.

10:32Your say or all directors? No that was something the directors are a good friend of ours from high school. And James our bass player and Eric the keyboard player and myself all went to high school together and this fellow Dave was in our class and we sort of drifted apart for a number of years and then all of a sudden came back together and ended up making videos. Is he going to do them all? He's done he did them kids as well. Oh yeah. Possibly another single. He's doing our next one as well. Which is what? Detroit 67. Jangly piano with the end record. So I figured you change up the vibe a little bit. So it's just a rare opportunity where you're actually good close friends with a video director. Must be easy. Sit around your kitchen and really hash the ideas out and also he gets to hear the songs

11:19months before anybody else does. Especially this time around. You recorded at home. Absolutely. And he was in the studio with us a hell of a lot this time around. So he really has a good idea of what we're trying to say with a song. And then he brings exactly that he starts developing his visual interpretation very early on. And so I've actually really started to enjoy the video making process. Oh really? Yeah. I know a lot of bands don't like his lot of sitting around. Well not the actual shoot day necessary. But the writing I'm certainly the lead up to it and sort of again trying to reinterpret something through somebody else's eyes essentially. Because that's why I like to really give the project over to the director.

12:04Would you ever write a song you think strictly for a video? Like have it all written out that way it can be shown visually? You can try that? It could be interesting. I'll almost like do me like scoring a film kind of thing. Almost. But like writing your song with the video in mind in a way. I think we do. I always have a very strong visual picture that accompanies it. It's not necessarily the right one for a video. But I think there is a you know in the songwriting process anyway. There's always far more of a visual element than you'd think. And that's where a lot of the imagery in the lyrics flows out of. Is this very strong actual you know almost a photograph or a film that plays in your mind as you're writing. So I think that you definitely go hand in hand.

12:50It doesn't necessarily mean that those images again translate well into an actual music video. But sometimes it can be a great starting point. For sure. Them kids or Detroit 67 when you want to play people? Oh I want to go with the new one. So let's go with Detroit 67. Jang Lee, who's playing the panel? That's our keyboard player Eric. Lots of changes in your life.

17:08You've had a child now and I'm wondering if having the child makes you more conscious of your lyrics knowing that knowing that they're going to hear it. No I've always been conscious of what I write. I mean it's lyrics to me have never just been a throw away. No they can't be. Well they can be. A lot of people. Well names of names. Well I don't know if I'm not pointing anything. No I don't. But I think a lot of people just sort of you know are more driven to write music than they are to write words. And that the words themselves are often just an act of thought or a vehicle for melody. But for me the actual words themselves have always been a really key element to everything. And in fact they can bring along a lot of the musical elements of the song and vice versa actually. So needless to say the changes that go on in your life are going to have a profound impact

17:58on the direction that your lyrics end up going in. So having a child for example is about as profound a change as any human being or any animal actually can be under go. And not to say that every song refers to holding that you know your baby in your arms. But certainly your outlook on life and your place in it and your again your child's place and your ideas as to where the future will lie. You know all circle around these events in your life.

18:43So what's one song that really stood out for you when you were writing it? We should play people that you wrote after the kid was born and just kind of involves that. I think maybe the most. Was the one that was the most direct references is lines of the Kalahari. And and and you know I guess that'd be a good start. You really want your bones eaten by a lion after you die? I figured it's good a way to lay them to rest as anything else. Yeah. That's wicked. Thank you. Appreciate it. That's a good way to close it. It's a pleasure.

Part 3

0:03Hey Sam, how you doing? I'm okay. Thanks. How are you doing? Good. Nice to be speaking to a fellow Montrealer Are you from up here? Yeah, we've talked about this once we used to swim together a point Claire How's it going man? It's going well. Are you still trading or you still you know, you still have these still have Olympic dream No, not anymore. How about you? No dead in the water man, so to speak but Well, you become a surfer, right? You did the chemical city out in Australia, didn't you? Yeah, that's right Perfect marriage of beach life and it took a long time to make that record though, man I gotta say our productivity was in an all-time blow. I can only imagine when you have the beach at your disposal That was that was part of the pop part of the magic and part of the problem. Well, what about this one collider?

0:51What was it done? How was it done? Where was it done? We well I started writing it in my basement here in Montreal and then we we had the whole gang down to Chicago and And and made it in Chicago for between September. It's really quick. That's like two months Yeah, I mean again We worked worked hard on the songs beforehand Which is something we'd never really done before now to come to think of it We'd always sort of just gone into the studio with sketches of the songs and then just hammered away at them till they Sound like was this time around we been in the shape before going down there

1:36So that cut down the actual studio time the actual recording time And now I haven't heard the record yet. I've only heard the single But what I gather from the press releases that there's more woodwind instruments and less guitar solos Give me wrong. There's also, you know, we're not ready completely to relinquish that There's just a real free-flowing feel to the to the writing and the recording of the record We just didn't want to necessarily put any boundaries on it or try to make it one thing or another thing It was just you know just seeing where each song would take us and are you playing as much as you used to cuz you used to I know

2:26You used to play everything on the records. Yeah, I'm playing which I like a lot I mean I work hard at my demos and I still get to sort of Use those muscles and try a different instruments, but I'm excited to have the band being So I think that's where a lot of the person of how something should be played even if it's not exactly what I didn't vision I think that's letting that sponsor for rock and roll, you know, I mean if it's all scripted And well, I'm sure it's it's also a trust factor

3:16I mean you've been playing with these guys for what eight nine years now Some of them for for a lot longer you bend as it is now as I think I think you're right There's definitely just the letting go and I think it's important for you know for a songwriter to be able to do that So you're gonna get better songs that way it speaking a songwriters We do something on the show called storytellers I was hoping I can get a couple of clips from you on some of the songs that we play on the station That'd be real cool One exotic locale that sort of crept into the recording process and went down to South Africa

4:03I brought my to my or with my wife and my two daughters to visit my family down there That's where both part of my family still live there. So I got to or a plane ride and having survived that felt Parged up found myself in some really beautiful spots Able to able to think clearly for the first time in a long time They're in many months and and the songs just started came back and you find it easier to write alone

5:07Or do you find it easier when you're bands or two? No, I read alone. I've never been a great Collaborator when this when when the seeds of the song are being so and it's just at the beginning I had to develop this clear, but after that when I bring it to the band That's when it's sort of that's when it's just a breeze And that's when it usually so I'm hoping you can tell us about a couple of tunes. Let's start with the new one I feel you well, I feel you I'm not sure what what your stations can be playing If it's the full version of the song or the or the radio edit of it, but I feel you the

5:54Five minute my original title was the adventures of Candid Falco That felt a little long winded after a while and I could so it went justly effective I feel you so what you're hearing there is is Hopefully the whole thing, but it could just be part two no man. We play the whole thing. All right good Well, I'm glad I'm glad well the gates like five and a half minutes Gates the full length of the gate. Yeah, but again the gate had a radio edit where the beginning oh we play the full version out too

6:43Well, good for you guys man, then you guys are my kind of station man You know I appreciate that I you know short attention to go the full Monty with that one bridge to nowhere bridge to know where in Australia and During those hot summer days where we were trying to finish a record, but pretty sure that I'll let you choose. What's your favorite off?

7:35We were born in a flame off we were born in a flame man out of the big hits that we would play I think my favorite songs Taj Mahal We don't play that though. Oh, I did it hits. Yeah, you can see it's a good song though Taj Mahal. Yeah, Taj Mahal is my favorite song on that record for sure, but I'd have to go with Brother down just because it's the song hopefully forget me something about maybe why people reacted so strongly those are different to those you know was working as a waiter and

8:32An infurniture delivery man. I think the song really is about that Confrontation between you and your life the discrepancy between where you want it to be and it's dragging you and at that point I felt like I think I had less control over all feel like that I think we all feel like that. I think at that point in my life before things Opened up for us making music, you know, and maybe it's the desperation in the song that makes it a good song

9:20It's interesting. Are you out where you want to be now? Have you hit that level? No, you know, I'm things are different obviously How difficult it is to keep a life in music going how hard it is to to hold on to it even when that door opens As unlikely as it was at the beginning, you know once you step through it That's when the real that's on all fronts being able to from the radio to filling up venues When are we gonna see you when he coming through here coming out and hopefully in the summertime I'm hoping and

10:08And Certainly on our tour, you know tour of Canada Hopefully stop stop through for a couple of days Later on this year or early in 2012. So Hopefully not too long. Well, we do something else you'll call five questions five quick questions one more answers I will try my best. It's a part of my brain. That doesn't work very well. I'll do make it easy on you Road or studio road London or McCartney studio I just had a road flash though. I said road and I was like who am I kidding man studio? There's a coffee machine on the go all day in the studio. You'll have that on the road London or McCartney? London most important thing in a song lyrics melody or rhythm melody song you've written you're most proud of

10:55Rich to know where and in one word Sam Roberts foolish

Part 4

0:00Hey, I'm Sam Roberts and you're watching MSN Exclusives. That's the big hit that started off the hockey season. That wasn't the goal behind it necessarily at the beginning. It's a good pun. I didn't know that. Good hockey, okay.

0:45Thank you very much. I learned from Ron McLean the best in the business. We didn't know that it was going to open up the season that way and certainly gave not just the song but this whole record a real kick in the right direction. But when you're sitting there in your basement you don't necessarily think of these grandiose schemes for where your music is going to take you or the context it's going to be listened to and you're just very much focused on trying to write a song. That song was no different. I didn't know that that was going to be the song that would become the first single and sort of start everything up again. It's interesting that they're all five minute singles out of the past three. Because I'm not trying to write singles. That's the truth. I think that there's always that fight, well not fight, but there's the debate

1:34on do you shorten them, do you not shorten them. But when you're sitting there writing there you just write the song until it feels like it's done. And even then five minutes usually means that you've had to cut it off short somewhere. And I'm trying to rein it in. I had this mandate going into this record. I was like okay no songs over three and a half minutes long. That was a few. Yeah. Most of them. I succeeded. So next time I'm going to have to set the target of about a minute and a half. Oh like Beatles pop songs. I'll come in somewhere around four minutes if I set it at a minute. That's not bad. It must be fun to jam out live because that outrode, it must, now you've played the songs, what, a couple of shows here and there, one off, nothing. Well we've already added about a minute and a half to the end of the song. Nice. And that'll just, as our confidence grows, I think maybe just the need to change things up when you're on the road

2:22to reinvent the song on a nightly basis so that it stays new or at least offers you new opportunities to be creative. Then you start finding, you expand the middle section, the bridge becomes twice as long as it was on the record and then certainly the outrode. That's interesting. So what song, I'm trying to think of the last time I saw you it was a few years ago now, but what song has changed the most live from the recorded version? Well we have this song Mind Flood from our second record, Chemical City and it basically is up to about 22 minutes in length now. And the original. It's a five minute song on the record. So it's not a short song on the record but it's nowhere near, it's 17 minutes shorter than the way we play it now. And that one just seems to offer the most opportunity to keep building on it.

3:13But there's certainly others that have undergone some pretty significant transformation. Oh, go ahead. Keeps in touch for you too. Yeah, I mean I think the audience needs to feel that you're sort of engaged in, still engaged in the creative process. And not just going through the motions up there and not just sort of falling back on the muscle memory that comes from hours and hours of repetition and rehearsal. They need to feel that there's a spontaneity and an urgency to your performance and you're playing and thinking off the cuff like that is certainly one of the ways to bring that out. How do you come across on a record then? I mean I know the image is in like 12 days, right? So everything must have been rehearsed, ready to go. You go in the studio, you have the songs finished. So how do you keep that spontaneity?

3:58Well I think recording live off the floor, at least trying to get the basis of the record done live, keeps that energy of the record. That's pretty difficult to come by if you're building up stacking tracks one after another. Eventually you just sort of have this huge collage of takes and tracks and you don't really know where the heart of the song is. But when it's just the five of us set up playing you always feel you're sort of using the energy in the room. And it's a physical energy that comes from sound and watching everybody move, reacting to each other. That energy goes into the recording somehow and that's very much at the heart of this record.

4:44More so than anything we've ever done before. I think for us as a live band that tours we spend our lives touring essentially. It's important to have that spirit in our records and hopefully from now on we have the courage to keep doing it. Because it's more daunting than just tracking. Because when you track something you just redo it or you edit it. But if it's a live performance then if somebody blows a tire then you have to go right back to the beginning. You could be halfway through the song and feel like you're sort of playing it as well as you ever will. And then all of a sudden you're back to square one because your guitar string breaks or whatever it is.

5:33Are there any songs on that where you kept the act? I love those happy accidents. Randy Bachman told me once about I can't remember what guess who song. But one of them they were like we like that chord. I don't care if he had to be minor or something like that. And then it ended up being the one sort of most identifiable part of it. Exactly. So did that happen? That happens all the time. That happens all the time. Something for people to listen to and be like oh there it is. There are two songs on this record in particular that are essentially... A fantasy in stores now. Our accidents. They were barely controlled chaos anyway. Our producer Youth said to go into the live room, take four chords, play them over and over again. And let's see if a song can be born right here and now rather than this again.

6:19What song is that? Two of them made the record. Although we're highly skeptical at the beginning that either of them were going to turn into songs at all because they just feel like these very repetitive sort of amorphous blobs of music that have no shape to them. But sure enough just through that process of playing together they start to build an intensity in certain points and those became the choruses. And then they would sort of come down into more of a sort of steady groove and that would become the verse. And sure enough after about half an hour it had taken shape. It didn't have lyrics, it didn't have words or anything but he was adamant that I go and focus

7:06on writing and coming up with melodies, coming up with lyrics. And even at that point I was still skeptical that these were ever going to be songs of any song and two of them ended up bumping off these other songs that we worked really hard on for a year to sort of polish and put together but they just seemed to capture the spirit of the recording session and this record to a T and answer that. I'm not going to tell you what they are though. No, I'm waiting for the answers. No, no, no. This whole story is leading to this to the cliffhanger. The figure is going to leave. No, you have to guess. Okay. But there's a clue. The chords never change because again they're just born out of just an experimental jam but

7:54the chords never change. Talk about experiments though. So I just got this deluxe edition here and a bunch of every song is remixed. How much input did you have or did you just say go nuts? I said go nuts. I think you can't. You can't try to exercise any kind of creative control over that part of the process. That to me is one of the really interesting things about having electronic remixes of your music done is that you're really handing it over and you never know what you have to be prepared to sort of love or hate whatever comes back but to live with it anyway. And youth and his partners and assistants are very much at home in that world as much as they are in the rock and roll world and they just drift back and forth without sort of putting up buffers or categories and that's one of the things that drew me to him as a

8:44producer was that there was going to be that drift and just having access to that part of his experience and seeing how that could affect what we do in some way because the elements were there in our demos but we needed somebody to sort of go in and grab them and pull them to the forefront. So the remixes were happening basically simultaneously with the tracking of the record. You walk out of the live room with a control room and it's a soundproof door and you open the door and you'd hear you through DJ Eddie Band coming up with a full on rave remix in the next of the same song that you're tracking the rock and roll version of it.

9:29It was a really interesting thing. Didn't any of those things influence the way like did you hear something and go back and be like no we've got to do it that way now? For sure chasing the light on that record is... Is that the drum machine in the sense? Yeah it's what I wrote. It sounds like a... Yeah that we basically just... all the tracks from the sort of rock and roll version of it ended up becoming replaced or being replaced and shoved aside in favor of this. What we felt was a more compelling... It's full arrangement. ...direction and by the end of it it was essentially the fully electronic version of it. I do want to talk about the shows a little bit because every time you add a record songs are going to disappear, songs are going to get added, like where are you at with a setlist now? Well so far it's been easy because we're just playing the record back to front.

10:15Back to front? No it's right front to back. That'd be interesting. You should try that. Back to front. We'll do that next version. So you know we just... for these shows we played New York last night and we played in Toronto and played in Montreal and these are our release shows and we're just playing the record to finish and it's essentially the only time we'll ever do that because like you say after that then it becomes about the challenge of finding what the show for this tour is going to be and like you say there are going to be certain songs that don't make the cut, certain songs that you're less comfortable with, which old material do you pull in because it can be a little jarring especially a record like this going back to the beginning and you have this juxtaposition. It's a collider though. Colliders very... so far the last night we played a few colliders songs and it was pretty seamless

11:05and there's definitely a link but at the same time you don't want to exclude all the stuff that you know we still love to play it but you have to find a way to sort of fit it all together without saying okay well this is going to be the... we were born in a flame segment of the show and this is going to be whatever so I don't know is the answer. We're going to have to wait and see how that... I know you got a US run going on. Well that'll be the test thing. Yeah test it down there so we get the test. We're going to go down there, we're going to polish up our act and then we'll come back when we've got something going on. Tell me about Dave's record. Yeah Dave has a... it's not a side project is it the last son and he went off back to Pembroke Ontario where he's from and made a record with friend Jordan Zadarozni.

11:54It sounds great Dave's a great songwriter and player as anybody who's seen the band play knows that Dave's a Hello guitar player but he also sings things like a bird and he's a great songwriter too so he went and made this record and it was just great to see him do in his thing. You know this band takes up so much of our time and energy and focus that any time somebody can go off and Dave's not the only one you know Eric's been... Eric he works on his own music, James you know does his own thing too and our drummer Josh we know drummers they can't sit still for more than five minutes so they always go and play with different projects too so yeah I'm sure there's a lot more to come.

12:41Okay so last time we spoke I feel you you told me it's called Candid Velcone and Auditory Hallucination in two parts. Yes that's was the original time. You should have stayed with that one. I love that title. Were there any insane working titles for this record? Man I have to think about that. The problem with working titles now is that I just they end up determining the song and what they're about. So I have to be a lot more careful with what I call a song right off the top because it becomes that song. So if I say human heat that was just a word I didn't know what that was going to... there was just a phrase but that was what came...

13:28that was what I was getting back from the music as a human heat all of a sudden it just becomes a song about that. About sort of you know panic and identity crisis in the face of the you know an overwhelming city. So if I call something if I say the word shape shifters all of a sudden I'm writing about shape shifters so I'm trying not to... I'm trying to rein in my working titles because they don't change but I really should have stayed with the kind of youth on the line. So I feel your work too. Human heat good segue into the new single. What are we going to see a video? Well a video for that one we did something with much music recently actually an experimental animated video short of it. And we made a full blown video for shape shifters which is actually coming out in about 10 days from now.

14:20Nice. So not even actually. So yeah we're... you know the records done and the records out now but there's still sort of hopefully a lot of creative outlets that come from it in different directions. Certainly making videos and trying to capture the other aspects of you know of the music are still playing apart. Right so we've done this before I want to see if these answers the same five questions five quick questions one word answers. Road or studio? Studio. London or McCartney? London. When you hear a song what usually hits you first lyrics melody or rhythm? Rhythm. Someone's never heard Sam Roberts band before what song do they start with? Let it in.

15:06Let it in. In one word Sam Roberts band. Alive. Nice. That's great man. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. My answers before I don't... I wrote them down. The studio was the first time. Yeah London every time. He said studio a road. M is melody. I don't know what the hell. Oh Booze because alcohol I mean I want it used to be one of them. Oh right. Bridge nowhere both times. Oh yeah. And foolish and as someone said... Clams.