--taken from: New Glasgow News
by Amy MacKenzie
NEW GLASGOW – A rock band that started its success in Nova Scotia in the early 1990s is returning to the East Coast with a series of shows that kick off at Glasgow Square Friday.
Sloan, the Toronto-based band with Halifax roots, reissued its 1994 album “Twice Removed” in September in a triple vinyl, box set edition that includes additional songs and information for fans. The band has been playing the album from beginning to end at the shows in this tour.
Sloan’s Chris Murphy said the band decided to reissue “Twice Removed” because it is one of the band’s most acclaimed albums.
“There’s been a trend that I feel like we haven’t been the vanguard of, simply these career bands do one of their albums in its entirety, albums that people cared about,” he said. “’Twice Removed’ is the record that people continue to comment on.”
Murphy said he isn’t sure why ‘Twice Removed’ consistently proves to be their most well received album with fans and critics. He said the recording was an about-face to their first release, Smeared, which he described as guitar heavy.
“The record was kind of a subdued pop record in the time of grunge and we benefited from the timing of Nirvana changing the music industry, and we got a big break because of it and we were signed to Geffen which was big, exciting news,” he said.
“But we thought that grunge had a limited shelf-life and we were thankful to have it help us get signed to that label, but we turned our backs on that and in doing so, kind of created a huge commercial flop, but also I think that we reached the sensitive kids who maybe didn’t dislike Nirvana, because we definitely loved them too, but wanted to hear pop music or something a little more delicate.”
Murphy said of all of the albums they’ve recorded in their more than 20 years together, ‘Twice Removed’ is the most subdued. At the concert Friday, the band will play the album from beginning to end, an experience he says fans who love the album will appreciate hearing in a live environment.
“For the people who really love it, it’s moving to someone who is like, ‘I heard them play “Coax Me” before but it’s fun to hear it between “People of the Sky” and “Bells On,” where it belongs in someone’s mind who knows the record well,” he said. “I know what that’s like as a fan. It’s fun to see things in a context like that, see the record played out in its entirety.”
Murphy said following the first set of “Twice Removed” played in the order the songs appear on the album, the band will finish the concert with a second set of songs selected from the rest of the band’s catalogue.
Sloan has been together for more than 20 years now, and Murphy said the band has stuck together for this long because it was “founded in fairness.”
“We all get a chance to contribute creatively and we all share the money equally and in that way we’re all the same. That’s basically the reason that we’re still together at all, is because we value everyone’s contribution,” he said.
“In a superficial way, we’re kind of like a boy band in that I always want all of our faces to be on the cover of records to show off the fact that we’re the same four people, because it’s a rarity to have four people stay on the same page for so long,” he said.
Murphy said the band will likely reissue more of their albums in the future.
--taken from: New Glasgow News
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