Metric Grow Up And Live It Out

A few days before Metric released their second LP, Live It Out, they played to a packed Phoenix Theatre in Toronto. It was their second of two sold out nights and the crowd was eating it up. Frontwoman Emily Haines' maniacal arm movements, James Shaw's frantic guitar, Josh Winstead's thundering bass and Joules Scott-Key's rapid disco beats were all on display, despite their lengthy six-hour day, which consisted of interviews and a photo shoot. With the audience screaming at full volume, it was clear that Metric — Chart's November cover artists — are full fledged Canadian rock stars. To get here though, the band have endured some major setbacks.

Back in 2002, Metric — who only consisted of Haines and Shaw then — recorded Grow Up And Blow Away in the U.K., but because of troubles with their label, Restless Records, the disc has never seen an official release (it's all over the internet now). A frustration like this is enough to send many bands packing, but Metric became more determined to succeed.

"Right around the time we got back from England we realized what we had to do," Haines says at the Steamwhistle Brewery during Metric's Chart photo shoot. "We had to put a real band together and do it for real even if it meant we had only 30 people who liked it."

Metric (L-R): Josh Winstead, Joules Scott-Key, Emily Haines, James "Jimmy" Shaw (Photo By Anita Zvonar)

While Haines came to the realization they needed a proper band, Shaw's epiphany was about the music industry."When we were making [Grow Up] we were being toted around to all these record labels and it became apparent to us that unless you have your own connection with the band, the record industry will completely control your career," he says. "A record company will tell you they can bring you fans and if they do they can take the fans away from you. If you bring the fans to the record industry they'll be loyal and they'll stay with you. We felt that the best thing we could do was get a band together and just play."

When Haines looks back to 2002 she's not angry and she's not complaining. "I'm kinda happy to be able to give [Grow Up] to people for free and maybe one day it'll be released properly," she says. "It's been a very steady road for this band. It was difficult back then, but I feel some musicians whine about their plight and nobody owes you a job as musicians, no one owes you anything. You can work really hard for it but it doesn't mean you're entitled to it. I think that's what gets lost in people's ideas of what they're put on earth to do. In our case it was definitely difficult to work on Grow Up. We didn't know what was happening because it was our first record deal so we thought, 'Is this how it's supposed to be?' It seemed really strange that nothing was going on."

Eventually Metric were released from their contract with Restless and the band picked up Scott-Key and Winstead and moved to L.A. to record their official debut, Old World Underground. New wave beats coupled with Haines' aggressive and passionate vocals made OWU a huge hit and Metric a campus favourite. Because of their prior experience in the industry, Shaw says he was surprised at how well they were received.

"It was like we made music without ever knowing what would happen," he explains. "So when the music was finally released and people had the opportunity to listen to it on their own free will it was kind of shocking. All the sudden clubs started filling up. We could never understand why we didn't fill these clubs before.

"I remember standing in the kitchen of the guy who was running our label in L.A. thinking, how the hell are we ever going to sell 5,000 records? At the time we were playing this place, the Silver Lake Lounge, and to like, 100 people. Those were our hardcore fans. I thought, 'What do we have to do to sell 5,000 records?'

Metric eventually sold more than 5,000 copies, but Shaw is still wondering how that happened, considering they had no marketing plan.

"The only thing I can reason is people just talked about it. There's been no marketing push, even still. The biggest poster we ever had was someone actually painted the cover of Old World on a wall in Vancouver. I don't even think they were hired to do that, they just did. It wasn't ever shoved down people's throats. One person tells one person and then it's four and then it's eight, so it just moved around an caught on."

On October 4, Metric released Live It Out, another ass-shaking disc of intense new wave that will keep the band in the Can-rock consciousness for a while. Despite how well their new disc has been received, or the fact that they're selling out concerts across the country, Haines makes it clear that she's not a rock star and never will be. "There are all sort of expectations made for musicians, you're a rock star or something, you could be greedy arrogant and have no concern for anybody but yourself and be blindly consumerist and treat people horribly and people will actually congratulate you for it and encourage you to do that," she says. "I'm really not interested in having my life go down that road cause that's what people want to live vicariously through is watching someone stomp on people and basically go insane in their own giant ego."

Metric's Canadian tour dates:
October 28 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite
October 30 Vancouver, BC @ The Commodore (two shows)