Broken Solo Scene
Source: By Joshua Ostroff
Posted: 09/20/07 5:20PM
Filed Under: Music
A video is looping incessantly. In it, Kevin Drew, scruffy ringleader of Toronto's internationally renowned indie rockers Broken Social Scene, sits at a kitchen table blankly eating cereal. His hair is shaggy, beard unkempt, eyes tired. A phone rings and goes unanswered. There's also the sound of sex, creaking springs and rhythmic gasps, maybe playing on a TV somewhere out of eyeshot. Drew looks off to the side disinterestedly, perhaps at the porn or just out the window.
Up until last week, it was this video that greeted visitors to Drew's website promoting his first (sort of) solo album 'Spirit If...'
"It really did describe that moment. That was February for me," he says, currently downing a pint on a Queen Street West patio, looking tired but terrifically more relaxed. "I was burnt out. It sounds weird that I have to glamourize it and talk about it in interviews but I was not myself anymore. I didn't have a balance or any boundaries. I kept trying to make decisions to make things better and nothing was working."
Until recently, Drew lived in Toronto's west end where he could be found regularly attending shows or hanging about local bars and restaurants when not on the road with Broken Social Scene—which, admittedly was most of the time since late 2001 when their breakthrough debut, 'You Forgot It In People,' turned a bunch of little-known musician friends into the Wu-Tang Clan of indie rock. But for the past while Drew has seemed on edge. The more successful BSS got, the less happy he became.
"If you want to get personal in this interview you've got to state that you do know me and then you can say that every time you see me I am stressed out or drunk," Drew says. "It's because that's what I've been the last couple years of Social Scene. It took my drinking to a whole incredible new level and it took my stress to a whole incredible new level.
"I did get stuck in a pattern of screaming to celebrate life onstage and then getting off and not being able to live up to my words. That was the other thing, I got tired of my voice saying these things that I couldn't quite accomplish day-to-day. That makes you feel like a f--king fool."
So in the fall of 2006, Broken Social Scene went on hiatus. Amy Milan focused on her solo album and the recently-released Stars record. Emily Haines did the same with two solo efforts and the upcoming Metric album. There were new CDs from Apostle of Hustle, Raising the Fawn and Do Make Say Think, too. And, of course, Drew's famous girlfriend-slash-collaborator Feist released 'The Reminder.'
But Drew decided to chill out and recuperate from road weariness. This would turn out to be a bad idea. "I put pressure on myself to take time off and put things in order again and it just didn't happen. If you've got it, you got to keep working on it. Don't walk away from it and that's what I did. I didn't need to take that break, I should have kept working."
Eventually he did get back to work, reuniting with longtime collaborators Ohad Benchetrit and Charles Spearin (of Do Make Say Think and BSS) to focus on his long-gestating solo album, which they had been working on casually for the past two years during tour breaks.
But Spirit If... is not really a solo album. First off, the title is preceded by "Broken Social Scene presents Kevin Drew." Then, of course, nearly every BSS member, from drummer Justin Peroff to Leslie Feist, Emily Haines and Amy Milan, make cameo appearances. The sound itself is BSS' familiar mix of rough and ragged, sad and celebratory. It is prone to psychedelic swells, acoustic jangles and features a cast of friends and associates (including Dinosaur Jr's J. Mascis and CanCon icon Tom Cochrane) playing and singing and handclapping along.
Drew actually considered coming up with a new band name before Feist convinced him to be unafraid of his own name ("She was good, she helped me with the idea of being comfortable with things.")
"I'm not trying to veer away from my sound. Social Scene is the sound that I like. It's the sound that I've always liked. It's how I write music," Drew explains. "But even though it sounded like Social Scene and everyone played on it, they weren't present for the mastermind."
Mostly, though, he didn't want to be the kind of bandleader who remakes the group in their own image—especially since co-founder Brendan Canning was off working on his own solo album. So it was decided that both would put out their projects under the "BSS Presents" banner using the goodwill they've built up over the past seven years to expand the brand.
"I don't look at it like a brand," says Drew. "When you say is it a brand, obviously it is, but it's a brand of music not some calculated manoeuvre. I know that our fans will like this album. I don't know if they'll love everything about it but they will find things that they like about it because of the past and what we've given them before."
What is different is the lyrics, which Drew says he largely made-up on the spot and feel a little more personal than they have previously, delving into much of the sadness and confusion that has plagued him in recent years.
"The funny thing is that with this record is now I'm much happier, but I've got to sing about all this stuff onstage. If I could just get this stuff in synch—wow, it would be grand."
Oh, and as for that depressing cereal/porn video, well, it's since been replaced with a pencil drawing of a love-struck couple, arms linked and flowers in their hands.
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