The Dears Celebrate Twenty Years On ‘Times Infinity Volume One’ – Conversation With Murray Lightburn (INTERVIEW)

To the unknowing observer, the Dear’s music sometimes seems to be somewhat ominous, thanks in no small part to a sweeping orchestral approach that reflects a certain degree of both pomp and posturing. Some have described it as a modern incarnation of the classic prog rock sensibility, given its frequent dark and dramatic designs. It’s a sound that’s won the band frequent comparisons to early Genesis, Radiohead, the Smiths and even Jethro Tull, even though it’s evident that their’s is a singular sound borne from internal inspiration. “We’re a rock band,” Dears’ erstwhile front man Murray Lightburn declares. “We make a lot of noise. That’s the banner we have, that of being a rock ‘n’ roll band, because ultimately that’s what we do.”

In truth, Lightbur may be selling them short, especially considering the fact that not one, but two, of their albums, 2006’s Gang of Losers and its follow-up, 2011’s Degeneration Street, were both shortlisted for the prestigious Polaris Prize. Indeed Lightburn and his longtime co-conspirator Natalia Yanchak never seem at a loss when it comes to maintaining their muse. Based in Montreal, the group’s seen some shift in personnel over the course of their 20 year career, but these days, it’s Lightburn (vocals, guitar), Yanchak (keyboards, vocals), Patrick Krief (guitars, keyboards, vocals), Roberto Arguilla (bass) and Jeff Luciani drums) that are the arbiters of that highly sophisticated sound.

The Dears are currently celebrating the recent release of a new album, Times Infinity Volume One, a typically heady offering filled with both brooding rumination and a sprawling synthesis of  both art and ambition. As for their plans to mark their auspicious anniversary, well, perhaps it’s best left to Lightburn to share what the band have in store.

You’re marking a twenty year anniversary.

We’re not making a big deal of it but we did get some 20th anniversary pins made, which was fun. And we had a little wingding in our home town of Montreal a few weeks ago, a show and that was that.

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You also have a new album.

That was the point. To look forward while looking back. The album has a nostalgic feel, but I’m not really into repackaging our past. As a band, our past is on the shelf to be discovered by anyone who wants to. I’d rather focus on new work and look forward than to obsess about the past. We did produce a TV documentary for the CBC centered around some shows we did in Mexico and it kind of showed where we came from and how we got to where we are now. But it didn’t go too deep into minutiae. It just showed how the pieces came together.

The Dears have seen several personnel shifts over the years, has it not?

Yes and no. There have been a few bodies passing through, but a lot of times it’s this situation where we have a lot of music and it’s like we have to tour and some people aren’t necessarily available. There was this one big transformation that took place around Missiles, and we had six additional new people to help tour the album. But they weren’t technically in the Dears at that moment. They were only in the band for a brief period. It’s mostly me and Natalia, but the people that played on this album are the same people who have played on the last three or four records. So when you look at it from that perspective, it’s not that much of a transformation.

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Nevertheless, when you look at the band and think about whose vision it appears to be, it really seems centered on you and Natalia.

It’s not really. More accurately, it’s like we’re the caretakers. The vision of the band is whoever’s in the band during a given album period. It’s still a band project. I did a solo project that was completely 100 percent my vision. So that’s an example of what I would do on my own, whereas the Dears have always been band-based and it’s always been about putting together a team to do a job. Yes, I definitely have a hand in picking who those people are, but so do the other members of the band, so it’s very much a group effort, a group project… But it’s fairly democratic depending on who’s in the group. So you have to assimilate very quickly sometimes, but in this case, it’s been the same crew for the last three or four records, and before that, we had the same crew for two or three records. Where it gets dicey is when it comes to talking to the press and doing this kind of shit, promoting the record and going out on tour.  A common misconception is that there’s this guy, this girl and a bunch of people. It’s always a bunch of people, but it’s that bunch of people that make what the band is at a given time.

But who writes the material?

It’s very much a group effort. On this record, Krief wrote maybe 30 percent, but instrumental wise it’s very much an argument all the way down. Every one has equal say. It’s easy for people to think otherwise, based on the facade or whatever, but the way it actually works in the studio and in the rehearsal hall and onstage, it’s very much a group effort. It’s never one guy saying, “Let’s play this.” It’s never like that. You want people to contribute to what will be coming out of them. You don’t want a bunch of robots. That’s why, when I did my solo album, I used a bunch of machines and just programmed everything. It’s so much more fun to be part of a team and have everyone contribute, rather than to be in a band where it’s a bunch of robots.

Many people refer to the Dears as a prog rock outfit. Is that how you see yourselves?

(Chuckles) I always look at it this way. Whenever you’re crossing the border and talking to the border guards, you tell them things about yourself whenever they want to go deep about it and they’re a bit more lighthearted during the encounter. “What kind of music do you play?” You just have to say rock ‘n’ roll. Maybe we splinter off what rock ‘n’ roll is. It’s angry. It’s rebellious. It’s sexy, it’s all these things that it is.  Is it progressive? Absolutely. Is it orchestral? Totally. Does it involve synthesisers and that kind of stuff? Totally. But in that case, it’s like rock ‘n’ roll plus.  We’re just making a big racket.

Still, there’s a grandiosity and flourish in your sound where that progressive element does seem to come into play. There’s a heightened sense of drama that’s present throughout.

We’ve heard that before, so absolutely, but what it is to me is just music. Our scope and our approach is pretty broad. There’s no stone left unturned in our process, and we just pull references every which way. So where we come into play is to make something that’s hopefully such a mishmash that it becomes its own singular noise

Looking at the titles on the new album, there seems to be a lot of inherent drama here. “We Lost Everything.” “Here’s to the Death of all the Romance.” “Face of Horrors.” It seems like pretty heady stuff. It’s a bit bleak, no?

It’s bleak if you don’t see the humor in those titles. The thing we have always had is a sense of humor about the darkness of the universe. If you can kind of laugh about it it doesn’t feel so dramatic in a way, and it doesn’t feel so bad. As you were reciting those titles, I had to stop myself from laughing because they do sound funny to me when you say them out loud (laughs). People that have followed the band seem to get it. There’s a statement in there that’s definitely half serious, but the manner in which we deliver it is meant to have a little bit of humor and levity and positivity as well. There’s a twist in each song that will hopefully help you feel like you’re not alone. If a song speaks to somebody and leaves them feeling like someone has listened to their thoughts, then we’ve succeeded. I know what you’re thinking and her’s what I’m going to say about what you’re thinking so you don’t feel like it’s so tough.

The title of the album itself seems to be part of a joke. Times Infinity Volume One.

The title stems from a playful sort of thing. When our daughter figured out what infinity meant she started using the word all the time, She’d say things like “I love you times infinity.” So it just seemed to be the perfect fit for the project. We did two records, Times Infinity Volumes One and Times Infinity Volume Two. It also refers to the twentieth anniversary of the band, where instead of doing some sort of retrospective, why don’t we look forward instead, so that when we explain it to guys like you it would make sense. The intention was to explain what the record is about, and how they can internalize it in their own world is to make them question what they think about when they think about forever. How do you want that to roll out? Even after you die you’re still leaving something behind, so what is that? It’s about legacy and what that means and who is important to you, so that’s how it’s funnelled into this project because it’s really about that kind of bond, who you promise yourself to forever and that sort of romantic kind of ideal. It might sound kind of cheesy but at the same time it does exist in people’s lives, having somebody important in your life. I don’t think anyone really wants to be alone. I think people who say they want to be alone, maybe have been hurt. It’s not necessarily true but they haven’t found that bond. It’s like these cats in our backyard. They’re alley cats and so far, we’ve seen two litters come out of the mother. They seem to have this bond. So I kind of relate it to how these cats tend to stick together. I’m actually building a cat condo as we speak. It’s on a really primal level to want to not be alone. It’s human nature to want to be part of a pack. This album kind of addresses the pack in that way and what that means to one. That’s the idea.

Do you come up with a concept before the songs are written, or are the songs there and then you fit them into the concept.

It was kind of a mix of both. At first, you throw everything against the wall. Sometimes we get together with our computers out and we’ll play each other music. Or we’ll email each other music. Sometimes we’ll just get into a space and just throw around ideas and then it starts to take shape. And when it does start to take shape, no one’s really discussing the concept at that point. The concept is the last thing to come in. I write all the words because I’m the singer in the band. That’s my job, but there are different a lot of times where people will say, “I don’t like that line” and I’ll have to argue for it, or someone will suggest changes. I’m never going to not listen to that because it’s valid. Because I sing most of the stuff, that’s where some of that conceptual thing will happen and then it will become a discussion where we’ll talk about it. As we continue to layer, it will begin to feed off each element and hopefully become this harmonious noise. That’s what you hope for. So it’s a mix that shifts depending on what we’re working on.

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So do you have to give your band mates a lot of explanation about the songs you’ve written. There’s a lot of ambition present it seems, but the consequences of that are that some people might be left behind. Is that ever the case?

Not really, because we’re all kind of in the hole together a lot of the times. We do these really intensive periods in the studio where it’s all consuming. When we were recording this album, we were all staying in the same house and then we would be in the studio for twelve hours a day and then going home at night to be in this house together. It’s almost like being int he army or some shit.  So it’s pretty easy to synch up. Even when we’re apart for a while, we still have that connection, so it’s not hard to synch up even then. After all the shows we’ve played together, there’s a telepathy attached to doing that. It’s a very deep connection that only comes with spending a lot of time with somebody. If I was way off lyrically, someone would say something. And they do say it (laughs). Even when when we were choosing the songs, it was a special wind-up to the record, because we were picking the songs that would go on Volume One and which would go on Volume Two. That was difficult because you have to weigh in sonic and content and try to get the right combination of tunes together. That’s way too big a task for one man to bear.

So Volume Two is well along towards completion?

Yes, it’s finished. It was finished months ago. We finished Volume One and then immediately went in and finished Volume Two because they were basically recorded in the same sessions. It was a matter of booking more studio time and finishing off what was left to do. Mostly post production stuff. Filling in a few of the blanks that were left. There was only a couple of weeks worth of work left to do. We had enough of the picture to know what was Volume One and what was Volume Two. So once we knew what Volume One was, we could go about the process of finishing it. They were back to back and simultaneous all at once, which was the most ambitious effort ever. It broke the bank spiritually and financially. It was a huge wave of relief but at the same time, it left us in shambles. But what did we do? We picked up our instruments and rehearsed.

So when will Volume Two appear?

We’re hoping early next year. We’re really pushing for that. You always want it to come out earlier. Volume One was supposed to come out in February, but I’m glad we waited. It kind of gave the team on the other side of things time to get their shit together. But now that it’s all together, there’s no excuse for waiting for Volume Two at all.

Your early albums, No Cities Left and Gang of Losers received all kinds of critical kudos. Did that put additional pressure on you to try to match that bar?

No. That’s not part of our DNA. We only think how we can improve and better and better communicate what we’re trying to do. You’re always going to want to improve and make it more efficient and make it more grand, but at the same time you’re adhering to the music that’s coming in. Each album is a beta test in a way. And you never stop beta testing what you’re doing. It’s not like the stuff is created from hours of noodling on the guitar. It comes from a very strange place. It’s like lightening. It’s a strange experience that literally wakes you up. Some of the music from this album literally woke me up from a dead sleep. Like a loud racket in my brain that forces me to go downstairs and exorcise it. That’s fairly common in our world, and these ideas happen like a bolt of lightening and then you have to deal with it. For me, those are the songs that wind up being my favorites. The song “Here’s to the Death of Romance” was like that. When I got the basics of that song down, it was like I was hearing something and I didn’t know what it was. Then when our drummer laid down the beat, it was exactly what I could have hoped for. It just made complete sense. He heard it the same way I heard it in this very weird way. It had this kid of “whoaa” effect and that’s what we hoped for.

 

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