Sebastien Grainger's New Sound

09/25/08 12:57pm

by Noah Love (CHARTattack)

Jesse Keeler got a major head start in the coming back fromDeath From Above 1979's break-up department with MSTRKRFT. But if Sebastien Grainger's new material is any indication, he's going to catch up quickly.

Grainger made a low-key comeback at the end of 2006 that quickly escalated when he was asked to open a leg of Bloc Party's tour in early 2007. He formed a new band, The Mountains, and spent the next year-and-a-half writing and recording his solo LP.

The bulk of the recording was done in a Toronto house Grainger co-owns with Metric's Jimmy Shaw. The two put together a studio that Grainger was entrenched in for most of this year, and he was up all hours of the night creating a new sound that was first revealed on the American Names EP.

ChartAttack caught up with Grainger early in the summer to discuss his return to the spotlight.

ChartAttack: So the studio is finished and working?
Sebastien Grainger: It works and it flooded the other day. Metric tracked their record in there and I did my record in there. I did a little bit of it in Montreal.

How long did it take to get it up and running?
When Jimmy and I decided to buy the house and build a studio, I was looking for a house and I couldn't afford anything on this [west] side of the city. I found some stuff on the other side, some little houses I was really into. Anyway, Jimmy had just come off tour and we were sitting at [Toronto bar] Sweaty Betty's and he just said, "Let's buy a house together and build a studio. And let's do it on this street." And within five weeks, we'd done it. We found the place and did it. And the whole thing was, "Let's build the studio and I want to make your record." And I said, "Great, I want you to make my record," because he's an awesome producer.

Shortly after the studio was built, they started doing demos for their record in there, and then I went in after and we worked for a few weeks together, but it just wasn't working. I just have a very specific idea of what I want and I have no idea how to express it. I can't express myself about creative things. I work very well alone. I like to work on something and massage it and not have that feeling of imposing on anyone. I don't want to have anyone waiting for me to get a vocal take or get the drum part right. I just want to do it and not have anyone sitting there.

Did you have any say in the DFA production, or was that all Jesse and Al-P?
I had very little involvement. I mean, I had an executive involvement and a creative involvement, but as far as the studio stuff, I don't like to compete with personalities, so I was pretty hands-off. I did have power, but also I had never been in a studio before. And before I built this studio, I had never recorded. I didn't have the experience. And so this whole record has been a major learning experience. It's kind of like an experiment in a way. Like, can I make a massive pop record on my own, working through the night?

So it must have been a major learning experience.
It's been a year of learning, but in the past few weeks I've really refined the way I'm editing and mixing and tracking in a way that's creating this unified. I can see the record, which is crazy because I've been working on it for so long and there's been no end to it. It's been going in every direction and now I can see what it sounds like. I can listen to every song and say, "OK, this is an album." There's a cohesiveness to it.

Can you talk about coming back into the public eye after the year off when DFA 1979 split?
I had a zero presence on the internet or anything, and I felt like I was ready to "come out" and be present again. So I started posting stuff I'd been working on, dance stuff and demo stuff, and I'd been friendly with Bloc Party's manager through mutual friends. He heard the stuff on the internet and asked me if I would want to open up for them for two weeks. It ended up being a goal.

I think we had the Trinity Bellwoods record release show, and that was the first thing I thought we'd do as a band, was that. But really, that for me felt like a test for what I already had slated, which was the Bloc Party and Albert Hammond, which is a pretty crazy first thing to do as a band. Like, our fifth show was for 3,000 people.

That must have been a bit intense.
It was totally different because I think with the old band, because of the natural trajectory of it, everything felt like it was supposed to happen because it happened in a series of progressions. But yeah, I had shows planned and I didn't want to go out and play acoustic shows. I was weighing my options and I thought that was the least exciting thing I could do is go out and play acoustic. I like doing that, but I would choose that as a band concept. You have to be a really special person to do that, like an Elliott Smith, to tour as an acoustic guy.

Did you work hard to find a different sound for your solo stuff?
I think yes. The real sound of what I'm doing hasn't been exposed yet. That's what's on the record. And I'm working pretty intensely on it because I have a deadline. It's not intentional. I deliberately avoid certain things, but I'm not trying to do something. I refuse to be a boots and pants band, which is "Boot-and-pants-and-boots-and-pants," I refuse to do that, and I scorn [drummer] Leon [Taheny] when he does it live. There's maybe 10 seconds of that beat in one song, but I think it's tastefully used in sort of a reclamation.

A lot of the songs, you've been playing them for quite a while now. A lot of them have had different lives and incarnations, right?
I'm still writing the songs. The songs on the record, I've been playing for a long time and I wrote them a long time ago. But all of a sudden I'll add a bridge to a song, and that would have never happened six months ago. To me, all of those things have such gravity that it was meant to be that way. The song was meant to be that way. It's funny, the idea of posting demos. I was just doing it to fill a demand, but it's such a weird thing. I get messages all the time, like, "I liked the demo to this better." I understand that idea, because I hear Metric demos that I think are better, and I hear live versions of songs that I think are better.

It happens with everything. You hear a song in one form and then when you hear a song later and it doesn't have a part from before, you miss it. It's not that one of them is better or worse. Obviously, I think the new ones are way better because I've been working on them. But it's funny, every time I get a message like that, I'm like, "Shut the fuck up!" I get so angry! I'm like, "Why would you even bother telling me that?" It's such a weird time to live in, where everyone has the means to let you know about how they feel. Everyone's always had an opinion, but now you know what it is and it sucks.

Do you think you've managed to bring some of your old fans into the fold with the new band?
I think so. I didn't want them at first because I didn't want them to be disappointed if they were expecting something. I know what it was, and it's kind of fucked up. You're gonna see a different thing. Tighter pants and more falling down and trying to sing better, that's all I can say.