Kevin Drew: Sunny Side Up

02/13/09 12:58pm

Broken Social Scene's divisive frontman hasn't really left his band behind, just the name that made all its members famous

We knew it was going to rain, just not when. It just so happened that the moment I turned on my recorder in Toronto's Trinity Bellwoods Park that the sky opened up.

"We'll be fine," assures Kevin Drew as we find one of the biggest trees in the park for shelter.

The first time I interviewed Broken Social Scene's frontman was at Toronto's Kool Haus in January 2006. Aggravated by the photo shoot for what would become the cover of Chart's March 2006 issue and distracted by the atmosphere and anticipation for the band's homecoming gigs showcasing their self-titled album, the interview lasted a scant 11 minutes. On this afternoon, however, Drew is a different person.

"I'm very, very happy right now," he admits.

There are a number of things contributing to his current state. His steady relationship with Arts & Crafts wunderkind Feist is definitely a factor. But the other is the impending release of Spirit If…, Drew's first solo album, a major shift in protocol given Social Scene's groupthink mentality and family-first attitude.

But, as is usually the case with BSS and its ever-expanding cast, what appears on the surface to be simple is actually a lot more complicated underneath.

Superconnected
Yes, the new record may seem like a lateral step away from BSS, but that's deceptive. In fact, the whole band are there. Tearing a page from the Buena Vista Social Club book, the full title of the LP is Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew: Spirit If…

"Brendan [Canning] and I talked about it and we wanted to keep all our efforts and our work together," Drew says. "I mean, everyone else needed to do their own band. We didn't. It just happened that we were making these records. We just wanted to keep it all under the umbrella that we've worked at for the last eight years, you know? It started with Canning and I, and we wanted to keep it going that way. And nobody had a problem with it. Everybody was all for it. It's a way to tell our fans, 'Look, it's not this record, but it is! Everyone is there, everybody is accounted for.'"

He's not understating in the least. Canning and drummer Justin Peroff are prominently featured along with Charles Spearin and Ohad Benchetrit, who produced the album with Drew. There are contributions from Feist, Amy Millan, Emily Haines, James Shaw, Jason Collett, Evan Cranley, Dave Newfeld, Andrew Whiteman and Bill Priddle.

And then there are the special guests, including Dinosaur Jr.'s J. Mascis, Pavement's Scott Kannberg, and piano/ production wunderkind Gonzales and Tom Cochrane(!).

"That's the other thing about this record, I got to invite all these people in," Drew says. "There's no room with Social Scene. And I got to invite them in and play with them and it was tons of fun. Having Tom Cochrane come over and lay some vocal tracks down, we had so much fun together."

The sound of this record, too, is somewhat different than Social Scene's. Dropping the band's moniker freed him up to record whatever he wanted.

"It was sort of the opportunity to make the pop/adult contemporary record that would never be made with Social Scene," he explains. "We never limited ourselves in that band, but this was the ability to do whatever you wanted. It was the ability to not have a committee. It was the ability to sing way more personally about things and not have it tied to this huge movement. It could actually really reflect on my own life.

"And I was uncomfortable with that idea for a while. But, at the end of the day, songs are universal and everyone listens to them and reflects on their own lives. It's just the way it is. You're doing the 'you and I' songs, which most songwriters do, and I enjoyed them. This day and age, I was listening to people talking about relationships, seeing things come and go. I felt comfortable in the end."

But he didn't feel very comfortable while recording Spirit If... As the rain pounds the tree above us harder and harder, the singer-songwriter casually talks about how depressed he used to be. It's unusual to hear a person so happily discuss being miserable.

The saving grace of early 2005 — when recording of the last BSS record was at its most intense, his marriage was collapsing and Arts & Crafts was starting to turn into more of a serious business than a label for friends — was that Drew had Benchetrit's home studio as an outlet for his increasing stress. It helped shape what would become, by far, Drew's most personal effort.

"I just adored making music at Ohad's place," he recalls. "I adored his wife and his kid and him and just the whole attitude towards things, and it made for a very, very lovely atmosphere. And I was not in the best place half the time. And in that frame of mind, it was nice to be somewhere really safe, where I could just go and speak my mind.

"And lyrically, the record, except for a few songs, everything else was just one take and that's it. You can't fuck with feeling, and Ohad really tried to stress that to me. I tried to go back and sing some songs. He said, 'You just don't need to. It doesn't matter, no one can hear what you're saying anyway. Just go and let it flow, let it be the sound.' And Newf [BSS in-house producer Dave Newfeld] was the same way. He was like, 'Lyrics aren't important when you've got 29 sounds behind you.' [laughs] As long as the melodies are there.

"So at the end of the day, I'm very repetitive on this record because I've been a broken record in my brain for the last couple of years. So I just went in and took things from the rotation, this circle that was going on in my life."

At this point, thunder claps noisily overhead and the rain comes down so hard that the tree is dropping heavy, cold splashes of water on Drew's leather jacket and my T-shirt. My apartment is across the street, but Drew makes it clear we're going to stick it out.

"You can't leave. You'll just get more soaked."

Underneath The Skin
Drew only seems overtly aggravated about a couple of things at the moment. He smarts a little at the mention of two fairly well known Canadian acts whose recently released records he would have liked to have seen under the Arts & Crafts banner.

Since forming in 2002, the label has established itself as one of North America's more successful indies. But, in a way, its success means that Drew can't use the label the way he wanted to in the first place.

"The thing that I find very defeating about Arts & Crafts is I can't help my friends anymore 'cause it's too big. It's too big of a system that you have to go through now," he laments. "There's all these people whose records deserve to be heard, but you cannot take them on because of the whole system and rigmarole that you have to go through. Literally every time you put a record out, you have to load up your gun, pull out your sword or put on a fuckin' G-string. Something has to happen here to get this stuff heard.

"It's a fight for radio. You gotta do this for radio, you gotta do that for radio. More and more, it's getting this urgency where it's like, 'If you're not gonna do this, we're not gonna do that.' It's such a system that's been put into effect. And there's so much fear that surrounds all that, that everyone's just frightened. So all these bands are like, 'Ah, alright, I'll do this TV commercial. I'll do this, I'll do that. It's really fuckin' important.' Stars — we gotta put [their new record] online early. My record, it leaked last night. It's out online right now. I'm not on iTunes. I wanted to. I don't know if I can. I've got friends in retail. I've got friends calling me up saying, 'What the fuck's this?' I find it very confusing."

The other thing rattling his cage is the fallout from his feud with the Canadian Idol camp, which started in early 2006 at CTV's other flagship music event, the Juno Awards.

In press room interviews and during the acceptance speech that followed their win for best alternative album, Drew and the rest of Broken Social Scene pleaded for music listeners to increase the quality of their collections and cited the Idol phenomenon as one of the major problems with the industry. When the subject comes up, Drew's not as vitriolic as he once was, but it may not just be time that's softened his stance.

"Two million viewers a week, you can't stop something that works," he shrugs. "And everybody knows what they're getting into. A lot of people, if you give them the opportunity, they'll take it. They won't question it. And then afterwards you have to question it, and that's all I was really trying to say. Like, as long as these kids understand what they're getting into, it's fine. I'm not gonna win the Juno again and I haven't gotten VideoFACT since. I pissed off some people and I'm paying for it. I'm working on a filter because I've gotten myself into a lot of trouble."

All My Friends
Minor quibbles aside, Drew seems upbeat about his future in the sometimes tumultuous music industry. Where before it may have seemed like the walls were caving in a bit, the older and wiser singer-songwriter is now better equipped to handle the challenges that his various musical endeavours have thrown at him.

"You know," he concedes, "you have to surrender. There is something to be said for realizing that control is really no different than jealousy. It can destroy you. So you just have to make sure you're OK with it. I had a really hard time."

The only lingering question now, with Brendan Canning releasing his own solo record next year, is wither Broken Social Scene? Fans of the band will be relieved to know that they're not going anywhere. After finally taking a break from the road, Drew seems more excited about the group and their consistently changing dynamics.

"I want to put a record out next year," he reveals. "Whether that happens or not is up to the powers that be. I'm really looking forward to getting back in the room with Whitey [Andrew Whiteman] and Charles and Justin and Jimmy and everyone. It's really gonna decide on what happens with people's careers.

"Because I think everybody wanted to really distinctly separate themselves from Social Scene, not musically and emotionally, but just establish that they have their own fucking sound and their own band and they're doing it. And that's happened now. So some people, their attitudes may change. They may say, 'If I'm coming back I'm gonna need this or need that.' And that's just not gonna fly. It'll be like, 'Look, this is how it is. Yes, you might help us sell way more records, but back in the day, everybody helped everybody sell records and got people out to the shows. If it doesn't remain a community, there's no point.' But there's no way it can't remain a community. This next year's gonna be beautiful. It's gonna be tense. People are doing better than others. There's gonna be some fall-outs and some fall-back-ins, but that's just the nature of life when you're creating.

"I can't avoid my friends. They're incredible people and they are fucking incredible musicians. And these are the people I want to make music with. You know, I'm always excited to play with new people, but these are the people that we started it together with, and you never forget your first love."

Appropriately, I run out of questions as the sky runs out of rain. My interview notes and all of our clothes are drenched. It doesn't bother Drew in the least.

"We beat it out!" Drew exclaims with the enthusiasm of a person finally ready to embrace whatever comes his way.

bonus sidebar
Broken Social Scene, Act IV

Talking to Drew last winter for our Artist Of The Year issue, he joked that anyone who missed BSS in 2007 could take the albums released by him, Feist, Apostle Of Hustle, Emily Haines, Stars and Do Make Say Think, "make a mix [and] call it a Social Scene record, I'm fine with it."

So, using Spirit If… as a base, we took him up on it.

Here's your playlist for Broken Social Scene's never-released fourth album:

1. Do Make Say Think "Bound To Be That Way"
2. Kevin Drew "Tbtf"
3. Kevin Drew "Lucky Ones"
4. Feist "1234"
5. Kevin Drew "Broke Me Up"
6. Apostle Of Hustle "National Anthem Of Nowhere"
7. Kevin Drew "Gang Bang Suicide"
8. Kevin Drew "Frightening Lives"
9. Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton "Dr. Blind"
10. Feist "My Moon My Man"
11. Stars "Midnight Coward"
12. Kevin Drew "Big Love"
13. Kevin Drew "Back Out On The..."
14. Kevin Drew "Bohdi Sappy Weekend"

This is the cover story from Chart Magazine's October 2007 issue. You can purchase the issue at the Chart Shop.