Wolf Parade - Waves of fire from Canada

Promising young Canadians aged between 22 and 28, Wolf Parade are yet another proof of how that corner of North America has become a genuine factory for new rockers. Their musical journey isn't all that different from countless other indie-rock bands: a few EPs (the first back in 2003), plenty of gigs, and finally a deal with SubPop that materializes with the release of their debut album, "Apologies To The Queen Mary".

We catch up with Arlen Thompson and Dan Boeckner, drummer and guitarist-singer of the Canadian outfit respectively, right in the middle of the soundcheck ahead of their Milan show at Transilvania Live. While they sit on the venue's sofas, the rest of the band keeps playing: because of this, Arlen leaves us after a couple of questions to go back to rehearsing. The roar of the drumming, on top of everything else, prompts us to head backstage with Dan, who clearly wants to spare us a surreal conversation between deaf people. Here's the report of our chat, exclusively for Onda Rock.

I'd like to start the interview talking about Canada... Fantastic things are happening over there, musically speaking...

Arlen: Well, we are Canadian, after all, so... Still, I think I get the point of the question: honestly, we don't feel like we belong to any particular scene, in the sense that we make music without worrying too much about anything else, but it's true that in Canada right now there are a lot of people trying to play good, honest music.

Tell me about your background, what kind of music do you listen to?

Arlen: I grew up on post-hardcore, punk-rock, rock music in general...

With this somewhat hurried answer, Arlen says goodbye, so we carry on the conversation with Dan...

“Apologies To The Queen Mary” has a lot of “wave” sounds to it, don't you think?

Dan: Well, maybe it's down to the fact that our sound features keyboards, and a lot of new wave bands, like Wire, used them a great deal.

Tell me about the album title: it's really unusual. Who's the Queen Mary you're apologizing to?

Dan: We're referring to the Queen Mary cruise ship, a kind of floating mega-hotel, absolutely huge. Last year we played All Tomorrow's Parties in Los Angeles, and the Flaming Lips and a few others were also on the bill. We were actually supposed to sleep on the ship, but after the show we celebrated and drank a lot. Basically, we caused a ton of trouble, so they let us know we were no longer welcome on board. That's why we wanted to apologize to the ship's staff, and to their... "spirit" too.

How did you end up working with Isaac Brock? A lot of producer-musicians tend to get too involved on the creative side too. Do you feel there's something of Modest Mouse in your record, or did Brock let you do your own thing?

Dan: When I was in another band, about six years ago, we worked together a couple of times, and that contact came in handy again for this record.

Actually, you're right, working with him means making compromises, because Isaac, like a lot of musicians, tends to put his own stamp on the work: he has very specific personal ideas about what needs to be done. So, after Isaac produced the album, we went and completely remixed it ourselves! In the end, about 25-30% was produced by him, and the rest by us.

In "Modern World" you sing: "I'm not in love with the modern world". What is it about this world that you don't like? And how would you want the world to be for you to like it?

Dan: You see, I was born in a small village of about 1,000 people, and then my family kept moving to increasingly bigger cities. At a certain point, I started to realize that life in a North American metropolis can be really tough, in some ways destructive, even psychologically. But then again, thinking about it, it's the same elsewhere too, for instance in China and a lot of other countries, where there's no way out, and existence is always the same. Every day you do the same things, you go to work, you come home, and then the next day it starts all over again...

True. But a musician's life is a bit different, don't you think? You change places all the time, meet new people...

Dan: Yeah, that's true, but this song dates back a few years, to when I was working for a pharmaceutical company that, like a lot of multinationals, makes shameless cynicism its business policy, even selling medicines that are in some ways dangerous to people's health. It's this kind of situation that makes me say "I'm not in love with the modern world"!

I read the review on Pitchfork. They gave your album an enthusiastic 9.2. Last year, a similar rating brought a lot of luck to Arcade Fire, who became the indie band of the year. Is the same thing happening for you?

Dan: People really are going crazy for that band, but I don't think Wolf Parade want to follow the same path. We've played with them, Arlen played drums on "Funeral", but I don't think any of us wants that kind of career, for instance rushing out a new record right on the wave of the acclaim we've gotten...

Do you want to take it easier, maybe?

Dan: Yeah, actually, we'd like to avoid becoming an MTV band, we'd like to take it slow, at least for a while... becoming the next "big thing" and then vanishing into thin air isn't for us, we'd really rather do without that. Like those new bands that are fucking famous for six months and then fucking disappear! Whoever gets huge, instant success often owes it to being signed to a major, whereas we want to grow more organically: I think, for instance, that the internet can help us build a following, get our name out there, the way fanzines used to work back in the day. But the web is a lot faster, in some ways instantaneous.

Speaking of the internet, what do you think about the possibilities offered by technology, like peer to peer?

Dan: It doesn't worry me, I honestly don't care, because we make our money from touring, not from records. It can be a problem for certain kinds of artists, or for bigger labels that invest heavily in promotion and videos. But as far as I'm concerned, if people want to share our songs' files online, be my guest! Also because there's no way to stop it anyway.

(Milan, Transilvania Live, December 3, 2005)

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