Emily Haines Interview Uncut

Haines Across America

As the frontwoman for Canada’s increasingly popular Metric, who opened for the Rolling Stones in March, Emily Haines provides catchy vocals for the danceable Canadian indie rock band. But on her first official solo release, Knives Don’t Have Your Back, Haines’ sullen piano-driven songs deal with her personal demons over the last four years she spent working on the songs. Haines, also a member of Broken Social Scene, recently had her music video for “Doctor Blind” named a top twenty-five video of the year by Pitchfork Media. Haines and her band, the Soft Skeleton, will play the Lakeshore Theater on Friday, January 12th.

D: How has the tour been going?
E: It’s been really great, I’m having a really good time, beautiful theaters, scenic theaters. We got the Tall Firs with us, which is this band I’m totally in love with. You heard them? Psychedelic folk, I’m into it. Were in Boston today, rainy Boston.
D: What’s it been like playing with a different band?
E: It’s been really, really cool. I feel really close to these guys because we spent all the time in the summer playing music. It’s been really interesting to play. I love music and I like playing with different musicians. It keeps you fresh.
D: It seems like over the last year you’ve been on the road all the time, how do you feel about touring?
E: I think Metric played, we figured it out, 250 shows last year. (Laughs). Although James Brown would play 360 so… I took time off over the holidays and I realized this is the life I want. It has its downsides, but it’s a pretty classic way of life for musicians. I didn’t invent it, the age-old troubadour who drifts from place to place playing music. I’m starting to realize that is actually my calling and the way that I feel most comfortable. We’re rollin’ in style too, so that helps.
D: What comes to mind when you think of Chicago?
E: Jim O’Rourke. I think of black-rimmed eyeglasses.
D: How was Lollapalooza?
E: It was incredible! Were you at the Broken Social Scene concert?
D: I was, it was unbelievable.
E: What the fuck, I know! And you know what was cool about that was I had been hanging out with Brendan Canning and his girlfriend Sarah in Toronto and it was just like a ridiculous summer. There was all this other shit going on, we were all really busy, and I said I felt really strongly that we should all be there, and it was really not practical. I had to fly back to Michigan to be at the 50th anniversary of my father’s high school reunion, so I was going Toronto, Chicago, Vassar and then I was going to North Carolina to rehearse with Soft Skeleton. So it was just absurd to come to Chicago for that one day and then I was so glad I did because the audience was just amazing. There was such a true connection between the band and the crowd.
D: Did you have an intention of making a solo album out of the songs?
E: I never had the experience where I was writing an album where I felt like I was writing a soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist. Once I wrote “Our Hell” the whole thing fell in place after that. A couple of songs are songs that I’ve had for a while, like “Mostly Waving,” I wrote a while back, and “Reading in Bed.” But they definitely had their place as a soundtrack, which is pretty much owing to Guy Maddin. I saw The Saddest Music in the World when I was in New York and I’ve never seen anything that was like the visual equivalent of what I wanted to do sonically. I already had it in my mind that this record was something that I needed to do, and when I saw his work it really inspired the process. I ended up tracking him down in Winnipeg at this indie film group and I got him on the phone, he was really accessible. He met me in a laundromat in Toronto and gave me a stack of videotapes to use as part of the live show. Over the past year Todor (Kobakov) and I, the guy who did the string arrangements on the record and he’s on the road with us, He and I went through and constructed this loose narrative, like visual amnion to accompany the music, but it’s a big part of the show. In answer of your question to how the record came together, it had a lot to do with being inspired by Guy Maddin.
D: I think it’s really interesting you compared it to a soundtrack because I picture driving in the snow from listening to the record.
E: Right, like a dark highway on a snowy night. Too bad we got no snow.
D: Yeah, I don’t know what that’s all about.
E: I think we do know unfortunately (laughs).
D: Would you say the new album is therapeutic for you?
E: Well, I have to write, Metric is like that as well, it’s the function of music. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, functional music, like it needs to have a real, for me at least that’s all I’ve been trying to do is really have it really serve a purpose and be like, it’s fuckin’ medicine, you know? I feel that way about Metric stuff in a different direction, like the idea of trying to force yourself not to be so insecure, to not be so analytical, and just fuckin’ play loud music, and force yourself to have a good time and not be so inhibited. And alternatively with this record, it’s like to just let a mood sit and for me to let the songs be what they are without trying to turn them into something else, because that’s usually how it works. Like with Metric I would write songs in a similar way as I wrote Knives and then I’d bring them to the band and we’d change them and do all this stuff to make them into Metric songs. But it’s definitely therapeutic to me because it’s just my favorite thing to do, just play the piano for an hour, and I get to do it every night, play with my friends, it’s good.
D: When you were younger and you were picturing yourself as an artist, did you think you would have more of a piano based sound, or a Metric based sound?
E: Yeah, it’s weird. I don’t know that I ever did. I was just always emersed in doing it which is something I’ve tried to hold on to, not being too results oriented because I realize that’s the recipe for unhappiness. At least for me, I just try to stay emersed in the process of writing or recording, so I didn’t really have a vision of myself.
D: Do you feel like you’re more comfortable with your fame?
E: It’s really weird because I don’t feel legitimately famous at all. It’s really confusing because its not like I’m fuckin’ Jennifer Aniston. Lots of people have not heard of Metric, lots of people have not heard of Broken Social Scene. It happens all the time where I go to these places and the people have no idea, which is fine, and then I’ll turn the corner and it’ll be the opposite. It’s just hard to figure out. I just go with assuming that no one knows what the hell I’m doing. The alternative is conducting yourself in such a way that you think the world gives a shit. I was raised to not really assume that anyone owes you anything. The other thing I try to think about too is there’s lots of ways, there’s celebrity and then there’s being a musician and I find celebrity really fuckin’ annoying for the most part. But I realize I don’t have to have any part of that, like there’s lots of musicians that I love their music, filmmakers, artists, I’m glad that I know them and that’s as far as it goes. I don’t need to see pictures of them in the bathroom or whatever.
D: You do make a couple references to other artists, like John Lennon’s “Love” and Neil Young’s “A Man Needs a Maid,” what made you choose them?
E: I don’t know. I never really know what I’m doing until I’ve totally done it, and even then, I’m not really sure what it is. Those are definitely two of my favorite songwriters. I think as a writer I have this thing where if I’m working on something you recognize that someone else has, what’s the best way to put it, like you could put it in quotes. I think that’s what I’m kind of doing. It’s one thing to be inspired by someone, it’s another thing to copy someone. So I think whenever I’m in my own writing whenever I come up against, you know, like when I was working on “Detective Daughter” and then I found that song kind of working its way in, I usually just acknowledge the reference, instead of trying to pretend, kind of put it in quotes, that the song has veered into that other composition.
D: Who came up with the “Doctor Blind” video idea?
E: The director is this guy Jaron Albertin who lives in England now he works there primarily, but he’s Canadian. He and I had discussed the idea of a very personal experience I’ve had many times where I seriously feel like I’m going to pass out in the giant drug stores or the giant grocery stores and just that surreal or disoriented feeling and then wanting to make it. Generally my approach with videos with Metric has been to try to make them into five minute films, so we took a really cinematic approach to it and kind of gave it this back story in our minds, like the first scene of me running to the car. We had kind of created a character for our own purposes. He came up with the whole thing of everyone falling, that’s just amazing his ability to execute an idea like that.
D: How did the rest of Metric feel about the solo album?
E: It’s been great. I think a lot of bands end up imploding because the sheer repetition of having an identity in one project and having to just everyday reinforce that one part of yourself without being able to develop the rest of your life or identity. I think that’s what I’ve seen undo a lot of people. With Metric, when we all met we all had a lot of other projects on the go and we continued that to keep the band fresh. I know for me when I wanted to make this record, I knew I wanted to make the record and I knew what I wanted it to sound like and I knew it wasn’t a Metric record. Metric’s not a vehicle, it’s not a fuckin’ Emily Haines vehicle. It’s four people, we’ve talked about it, we make music about the four of us and where we’re at, and if anybody at any point has something else they need to do, then they’re going to do it. Josh (Winstead) and Joules (Scott-Key) are recording a record right now, they have a project called Bang Lime, it’s just the two of them with Josh playing guitar and singing. Death From Above 1979 were our label mates on Last Gang, they obviously broke up which is too bad, but Jamie (Shaw) is producing Sebastien Grainger’s record, he’s the other half. The timing really worked out for everybody. Me putting out this record has meant there’s more time for all of us to do stuff. We already went into the studio a couple weeks ago to start writing the next record. Then at the end of the month we go to England to play with Bloc Party for a couple weeks and then we’re going back in (the studio). It’s been really good. That whole idea of going solo, I kind of panicked about it, that thing about not wanting to focus on results, but I knew I really wanted to make this record, and then I was like “Aw fuck, man, I got to explain this.”
D: There are so many negative connotations with going solo.
E: I know! So from the outset I really made a point of being clear with myself and everyone, that this is what it is. Everyone in the band has multiple abilities, it’s not just me. I have to keep up with them as much as they have to keep up with me.
D: Do you think you’ll be doing another solo album?
E: I already talked to Scott (Minor) and told him a lot about going farther with soundtrack instrumentation, like more orchestral stuff, so I’ll see what ideas develop. But my main priority is the next Metric record. I’m so excited about that. So no plans for another solo record yet.
D: Did you ever think about re-releasing Cut in Half and Double?
E: It’s a little funny to me, the whole internet age. In another time no one would have ever found that music. I don’t even think I have a copy, like it wasn’t even released, I made a hundred copies for my friends and family and it’s so amazing that people have found it and are listening to it. I feel like it was so long ago that I don’t think I would re-release it. I’m glad people are digging it, it’s funny. It’s like my little sister or something that made that record.
D: Do you have New Year’s resolutions?
E: Less email (laughs).

An exerpt of this appeared in the January 12th issue of The DePaulia