The Dears Enlist Patrick Krief To Co-Write New Album

After Patrick Krief left The Dears to form the very excellent Black Diamond Bay (and release a stellar album), it seemed unlikely the singer/guitarist would return.

But now, he's coming back to his first band in a big way — co-writing The Dears' forthcoming fifth disc with Murray Lightburn. This, gentle reader, is a big deal.

It's a big deal because another Dears album didn't feel like a sure thing after their most recent, Missiles, was unjustly skipped over by many.

It's also a big deal because the last Dears lineup (save Lightburn and keyboardist/singer Natalia Yanchak) imploded over some unpleasantness, and many assumed there would be no reunion with any of the previous players.

So what happened? How did Krief convince Lightburn, who has a reputation for being possessive about his songs, to let him co-write?

He didn't. It was the other way around.

When Krief left The Dears to pursue his own muse, there was never any bad blood. In fact, he contributed a few solos to Missiles and stayed close with Lightburn.

"Two years ago, Murray and I were out for drinks and he asked if I would tour Missiles and I said no," Krief explains, on the phone from Montreal.

"From that moment on, every time we talked, he would ask when I was coming back to The Dears. And he was getting epic: ‘You have time for both bands!'

"Finally, one night in his basement, he played me a new song and I started suggesting things — cut that part, make that the ending instead. I didn't think anything of it, but three months later, we were really wasted and he said I should co-write an album with him," he continues.

"I figured he was drunk-talking. Honestly, I was nervous — what if it didn't work? We're both control freaks who like to dominate, how were we supposed to write together?"

It turned out Krief needn't have fretted.

"He'd play me a song that needed a chorus. I'd yell, 'I have the chorus!' I'd bust out my laptop and play him something I was working on — it was almost the same music. It's strange how much we think alike," he explains.

"For me, as a writer, I've never experienced something like this. The songs are going somewhere else. [Ex-Dear guitarist and reformed Thrush Hermit Rob] Benvie's also back and I think it's the same for him."

With this newly revitalized songwriting process underway, Krief expects recording to be completed in May. He stresses the work will be "un-fucking-stoppable."

"I don't think The Dears ever disappeared," he says, "but I think this is the record that will remind people exactly what this band is."

Of course, Krief also has his other group in mind — a brilliant classic-rock-meets-Brit-pop outfit he shares with ex-Dear drummer George Donoso III, bassist Alexandre Lapointe, and keyboardist Roberto Piccioni.

"Originally, the next Black Diamond Bay album was going to be this full-on prog epic," he explains. "But I couldn't sit down and say to myself, 'Let's write a rocker.' It just doesn't happen like that."

Instead, he found himself and his compatriots putting together a wide range of material — hard jam-outs and mellower "super-soundscapey" stuff. Some songs are now begging to be recorded old school and live-from-the-floor, while others cry out for 60 or 70 layers of studio-perfect sonic textures. Of course, the common denominator for these new tracks is as much guitar as possible — an unsurprising assertion for a Fender Strat acolyte of Krief's stature.

"This music is better than anything I've ever written," he says with conviction. "And I mean that."

Black Diamond Bay fans can catch the during a quartet of monthly shows designed to keep them fresh during recording:

April 29 Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe
May 28 Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe
June 25 Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe
July 30 Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe

In the meantime, The Dears have posted a teaser video about their new album on their newly redesigned website.

We've got two words: "space rock."