Who: Sloan
When: Monday, Dec. 14, 9 p.m.
Where: GLC
Cost: $25 advance tickets at GLC, Billabong, Katmandu & Whistler Children's Centre
Sloan is one of the classically Canadian rock bands, particularly popular on the East Coast of Canada. There, if you tune into just about any radio station, you're bound to hear one of their tracks at some point during the day. The power pop rock anthems, All Used Up and Money City Maniacs are Sloan classics, in case you didn't know.
Andrew Scott is the drummer for the band, which also features Chris Murphy, Jay Ferguson and Patrick Pentland. The group has been making music together for almost 18 years now and doesn't show any signs of getting ready to pack it in. In fact, they just released a brand new EP, Hit & Run, at the end of November. It features five new tracks, Scott's Where Are You Now? and Take It Upon Yourself, as well as Oh Dear Diary by Murphy, Midnight Mass by Ferguson and It Is Never by Pentland.
It's clear from listening to the new material that it wasn't actually inspired by Murphy's near-death experience. Upbeat and catchy, with Scott's track, Where Are You Now? even heralding back to the band's rougher rock roots from their earliest days.
"For me, I was just doing what I always do," Scott said before doing a sound check for a show in Chicago on Monday. "I just sort of have these little parts... I don't really work from inspiration, personally, I just sort of do the work and if it seems to be making sense to me then I continue, and if it's not I just sort of throw it away and start over, which I did a couple of times on this thing," he said with a laugh.
It's Sloan's first album since the Parallel Play LP was released in 2008 and it shows a promising level of renewed energy.
But this upbeat effort actually came from an incredibly trying time for one of their members, Murphy, who was the victim of a hit and run accident during the summer and spent much of the fall cooped up and recovering from a broken collarbone and serious back and neck injuries.
"From the sound of it, it was a near-death experience... I spoke to him the day after and he was just kind of giddy with a second chance at life," Scott said.
The band decided to take advantage of the forced downtime and make some new music for their fans.
"He was in a pretty horrific bike accident, but it wasn't really inspired by that, outside of simply the title of it, which came long after the fact," Scott explained. "We were mentally in the process of making this thing before he almost died in June."
All songwriters in their own rights, these musicians don't do a whole lot of collaboration on the studio projects. In fact, each goes off and works independently, writing tracks and bringing in members to play in the studio. Then, after the album is finished, they teach one another how to play their songs in a live show, before taking it all on the road.
"It can be both fun and frustrating. It's nice to hear it being done, but it can be like pulling teeth depending on who is doing what," Scott added.
This time around, the band has also opted to take a somewhat unconventional approach with the distribution of their music, going a strictly digital route and only releasing the tracks for sale on their website, www.sloanmusic.com , and iTunes; effectively cutting out the middle man between the artist and the music lover.
"The middle man is falling apart altogether in terms of the big record stores and the big record labels," Scott stated.
"I think it was more just a way to test some new waters, you know? The conventional approach of making physical CDs and albums and so forth is obviously not as reliable as it used to be in terms of breaking even on the money you spend to produce that stuff."
But fear not, old-school music collectors: that isn't to say that their new tunes won't ever be turned into a physical product.
"Like anything, as soon as it's out there in any way, shape or form, it's available for free to anybody if they want it," Scott pointed out. "There's nothing one can do about that. You just sort of go on blind faith that your fans - if they're your true fans - will support you."
Sloan hit the road in late November with a three-piece female band, Magneta Lane, making stops across North America to promote the new album.
"Everybody seems to really like the new stuff and we're playing a fairly unusual, broader set in terms of pulling out some oldies," Scott said. "...Kind of semi-obscure older songs, which is fun!"
Next up, they're playing a show here in Whistler on Monday, Dec. 14. A portion of proceeds from ticket sales is going towards the Whistler Children's Centre.
