Sunparlour Players "Dwell On The Positive"

Sunparlour Players released their sophomore album, Wave North, in May.

CHARTattack caught up with frontman Andrew Penner to talk about the record and how growing up in a Mennonite community both did and didn't influence his writing and how he thinks he's a "church tourist."

Wave North has received a lot of great reviews, are you surprised by the love you guys have been receiving?
Always. By no means is it ever complacent thinking, "Of course they should love it." (laughs)

But we do feel a lot of confidence behind it. We are so happy we put out the album we really wanted to put out. We're just glad a lot of people feel the same way. With anything, sometimes you need other people to let you know what the hell you just made. I know what it is, but your objectivity gets fucked at a certain point.

Before recording, did you have an idea of the sound you wanted on it?
We didn't go in with an idea of like five records we wanted it to sound like. We were always talking about certain albums and in the studio we'd be like, "I want the drums to sound like this..."

The only main thing we decided going in to the studio was that we wanted to really rip apart every song, mainly because we've been playing some for a while. We thought, "Lets just destroy these songs for a minute and take the time to see if we've maybe become too rooted in playing it live."

Songs are forged when you play it live — often it's the best way, but sometimes it's not, and a lot of times we decided to change things up.

What did you learn from having to re-record and remix your last album when it was re-released?
I think we had a better idea of what we wanted this time. We were always recording last year, thinking about the new record.

As far as taking our time, we did the exact opposite thing. That was by choice. For this one, it seemed like we really turned in to a band and tried to find the energy we have live. That's always the hard thing — to convey it through a record. But you can do it through the sounds you put on the record, to distort what people are hearing.

But we just wanted to go in there and catch an energy. So the three us set up in a room facing each other to find the core of the song. We took it song-by-song and went deep with every track.

It sounded like you guys had a real brotherhood in the studio.
It felt like it. And that was really spurned on since Hymns For The Happy came out in fall of '07. We've just played a lot live, touring and feeling like we're on the same page.

Both albums have a lot of intricate parts, especially with the added instruments and orchestration on Wave North. Is it possible to translate them live?
(laughs) The subtleties kind of go out the window when playing live. And that's what I mean about approaching it differently on a record. To me, the record is one thing and the show is another. Maybe people do want to go to a show and hear a record played the same way live, but I have no intention of doing that. It's not the same — you're in a room with a whole lot of people, the sound is different... everything is different.

So sometimes some nice 15th note triplet that goes over something is not really heard. It might have happened, but it doesn't really matter so much.
This album is denser with the sounds we're getting. Before we started touring it we took about a month to rehearse — took a step back to get these sounds happening.

Are you guys planning to bring out other musicians on tour?
No, not really. We're just going to be doing it when we're close to Toronto. The three-piece is the band.

Obviously, we're not playing horns and we don't have the string parts, but we've used other things to get that across. To get the cello part, we may use a bowed glockenspiel or a clarinet line to cover something; I have bass pedals that cover a lot of horn, and accordion does that, too.

Wave North touches on themes of family, building and confrontation. How much of this is autobiographical?
Some of it is, for sure. A song like "Nuclear" is about this nuclear power plant close to where I grew up south of Detroit.

"Wood Dress" is about building something for somebody whether they want it or not. It doesn't matter because if they don't want it somebody else might take it. In a ways, it's like, "Fuck it, I've made it. It's out there. If you want it, I want you to have it right now. But if you don't, someone else will take it."

Do you have any hesitations writing about personal stories in your music?
There's always a huge danger with being really nostalgic; you tend to make it always glowing. "Oh, the way I grew up was awesome. Let's talk about the picnics we had..."

I always want to dwell on the positive, my mind just goes there, but you have to have the dark times in order to have good ones.

Almost every article about the band mentions your Mennonite upbringing. Does that even influence your writing and music?
My initial reaction is to say probably not. But sometimes I think it has a lot to do with it, because it's naturally very questioning. Everyone thinks about how they grew up at a certain point, especially if they grew up in a religious community.

I realize it's an interesting thing for people, because they think, "A Mennonite? What the heck is that? Is it Amish? Or Mormon? Is Donny Osmond one?" (laughs)

It really often just seems like a title. We've had amazing press, but I read something that says, "Mennonite blah blah blah." Wow, I say it one time and it just stays there. It's a little... not creative. (laughs)

But I understand words like that in the press gets something and '’m not in any way ashamed.

Is it that you simply happened to grow up somewhere?
That's exactly it — I just grew up somewhere. I grew up going to a United Mennonite church until I was 13 — and that's what it is. I was in a choir that was in a Mennonite area and learned a ton about music. Through that I learned about classical music.

So you never subscribed to the faith?
I definitely did. Initially, why does anybody generally become a part of any religion as kid? Because their parents are, or because that's where you live. And then you start questioning it later.

I'm also very interested in religion in general, though. I'm like a church tourist, I feel. You like to go to concerts and shows, and a really interesting show is a church service. In the States, I've been to tent revivals.

I actually wrote some music for this play that happened in Toronto. I wrote choral music for this play called The Book Of Judith. There was a 16-20 person gospel choir. So I've been talking about this stuff a lot. I went from writing choral music, like classical hymns, to full-on gospel — foot stomping, tambourine shaking stuff.

Anything you want to share that most people probably don't know about the band?
Our love of Les Baxter. We all have a passion for Les Baxter. He was this bandleader/composer in the '60s. He's kind of like a twisted Lawrence Welk. He's given us oodles of fun on the road. (laughs)

They're very strange an orchestration of unchained melodies, and when you're touring it's the perfect thing. Sometimes its like witching into a David Lynch movie.