Breakout 2007: Apostle Of Hustle

Hometown: Toronto, Ontario
Official Site: www.apostleofhustle.com

Sound: Multi-textured indie rock meets Buena Vista Social Club.

Why? Andrew Whiteman's not stupid. He knows why people know about his band, Apostle Of Hustle. The band's singer and guitarist is a core member of the Broken Social Scene family.

"Yeah, I know that's how people got to my first record, but it's a tag that's not a drag," he says after finishing a bowl of rice at a small Toronto restaurant. "The new record is strong though, so that's going to make people focus a little harder on that."

Whiteman's not kidding. National Anthem Of Nowhere, the band's new disc, is one of the strongest records any member of Broken Social Scene has released. It's so well done that this might be the album where Apostle Of Hustle break away from the BSS family tree and come into their own.

While the new record doesn't stray too far from its predecessor, Folkloric Feel, the Apostle have amped up the energy and honed their focus to write a better batch of songs. Whiteman says that this time around the band recorded everything in about three weeks, as opposed to the years it took to piece together the last record.

"There was a lot more cohesion in this record," he says. "With Folkloric Feel, the recording and writing was really spread out. It was a compilation of, like, five years."

Fortunately, Whiteman has still retained one of the characteristics that makes the Apostle albums unique — their Cuban influence. After spending a year in Havana in 2001, the former member of the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir started experimenting with Latin melodies. Folkloric had plenty of Cuban flourishes, but this time around Whiteman sings two songs in Spanish. He points out that there's more flamenco moments than Cuban on National Anthem, in part because his roommate's father in Montreal, where they recorded the disc, plays flamenco guitar.

"We were listening to a fair amount of South American folk music," he says.

There's still plenty of great indie rock on National Anthem, but these world music moments give Apostle a creative edge over their cohorts. In fact, Whiteman says the band are creating their own sub-genre. He's just not sure what that genre is yet.

"The more we play and the more records we make, it'll be more clearly presented," he says." When you first begin to have ideas it's hard to nail it right away."

A conversation with the hyperactive thinker can veer from obscure Cuban musicians to William Burroughs' belief in invisibility in the same sentence. But most interesting of all, he believes in communicating with spirits.

"In the song ‘Chances Are,' that's like me channelling Bobby Darin from the dead," says Whiteman. "I believe in dead people and their energies lurking around. Communicating with dead people and spirits is absolutely a true thing."

So, whether you're into solid indie rock with a flamenco flair, or you just like spending a night with a Ouija board, Apostle Of Hustle are the band for you.

This feature is from the February 2007 issue of Chart Magazine. To purchase the issue, go to the Chart Shop.