Plants And Animals: Greenland Or Bust

10/24/07 4:30pm

by Evan Dickson (CHARTattack)

Montreal band Plants And Animals are totally the next big thing. Or at least they might be. Like, next year maybe. In the meantime, we caught up with drummer/vocalist Matthew Woodley to ask him how the ride has been so far.

ChartAttack: You're going to Iceland. Have you toured internationally before?
Matthew Woodley: No, we haven't. Well, unless you count the United States. But up until quite recently we would just play in Montreal once or twice a month and the odd thing in Toronto. Now that there's a full-length on the way and we've signed this deal with Secret City, things have picked up quite a bit. We played with Wolf Parade in August in the U.S. It was fucking fantastic. They packed the houses and we just had to show up and play to a room full of people. Fortunately, the chances came our way. You know, give 110 per cent, put the puck at the net and things worked out.

So how'd the Iceland thing come up? Was that Secret City's doing?
It was Secret City's doing, yeah. Although we've always had a certain aspiration to play there.

Specifically in Iceland?
Yeah I mean, why not? Hopefully Greenland will follow.

I don't know if there's much of an indie music scene in Greenland.
No. Well, apparently there is in Iceland. They've got a few exports. I've actually been there before, just for a few days, and it's a pretty amazing place.

Are you going to get a little extra time to see the sites?
We're playing something like four times and we're there for six days, so I imagine we'll get a chance to check out the country a little bit. And the festival sounds great. Friends of ours in Patrick Watson's band were there last year and told us lots of great stories.

So what's going on there?
Well, I guess it's all because of the Iceland Airwaves festival which brings in scores of bands from all over the place and tons of Icelandic bands. I know that people go there to play otherwise. I don't think we would have been able to hook that up so easily.

You're releasing the new LP soon. Do you know what it's called?
We're releasing an EP. We're selling it off stage now and I think the actual release date is the 23rd of October or something like that. It's around, but it's not officially out. The EP is called With/Avec, which, I don't know if you've spent much time in Quebec, but that's something you often see in translation. It's a bilingualism. You know, "pizza with/avec frites." We're releasing a full-length in early 2008. It's finished. It was a long time coming, but it's done. I'm looking forward to getting it out there. It's going to be called Parc Avenue.

Wasn't there a campaign to change the name of Parc Avenue in Montreal?
Yeah, that actually doesn't have anything to do with it. Two of us live on Parc. I don't know, maybe it sort of worked its way in subliminally, but there's nothing political about the name. In fact, at the end of the day when all of city hall voted on it being changed, Bourassa's family — it was supposed to be named after the late Premier Bourassa — his family stepped in and said don't change it.

I think you guys have a really special sound. I was reading this quote in Matrix Music magazine and it said, "There's something to be said about musical bravery these days. It's easy to be clever, it's even easier to be cute." I read that and I thought it had a real point. If you're clever it implies this intellectual distance, like you're not really committed to the material. But you guys don't have that cleverness, you're very upfront and committed to your sound. I think it takes some guts to not have a concept to hide behind.
Yeah, I don't think that was ever a question. I don't think we're hiding behind anything. When we play live it's usually pretty straight-up and I'd like to hope that that grabs people. I think that it does. It all goes back to putting the puck at the net, giving 110 per cent. We've been playing together for a long time and I think we know how to listen to each other. And that doesn't mean it isn't smart or interesting, it just means we're not hiding behind a couple levels of ideas or irony.

I think that new bands or inexperienced musicians do that because they aren't confident in their straight-up abilities to sing and play and write songs.
And everybody goes through that. Maybe not everybody. I think there's this trend where bands seem to be a little bit older now. If you look back, a lot of the bands that we all like and listen to are from the early '60s and '70s, and they were really young when they got going. A lot of bands now who I think are doing well are in their late twenties or early thirties even. Maybe that comes from experience.

How old are you guys?
We're in our late-twenties. Is that too old? When I go see shows — and this isn't a recent thing, I've always been like this — I want to see people who can play, who can really fucking play. It doesn't mean complicated. It can be incredibly simple. That's even more difficult, but I want to see people who can play their instruments well and look you in the eye with their music.

It seems like there's way less emphasis on musicianship these days. When I think about the '70s, there was an emphasis on musicianship, but then electronic music started to phase in and punk and now there's much less interest in hearing good musicians.
Maybe that even comes across as too intellectual for people, which is another weird, twisted irony where cleverness is OK and you can hide behind a certain guise and devices, but if you pull out licks people lose interest. But it really is fun playing in a band where we have what we have and do what we do and can just communicate that way because that's the way we've all been playing all our lives.

Do you think of yourselves as being consciously classic rock-influenced?
It depends. I don't know what classic rock is. If it's The Guess Who, then I guess in a way. I listen to a lot more older music than new music. In that way I don't even keep up on who's doing what all the time. It's kind of a rat race. I just come across things that I really like and listen to those records a lot. But I'm not up in the blogs all day figuring out what the new thing is.

I want to read you this quote from www.iheartmusic.net. They saw Pop Montreal and had this Thanksgiving list of music things to be thankful for. And number five was "Seeing Plants And Animals, Amos The Transparent and The Paper Cranes now, before they're huge at this time next year." So are you going to be huge?
Totally. Greenland. When we get to Greenland then I'll know that we've made it.