--taken from: The News (New Glasgow)
by Ray Burns
NEW GLASGOW – Most people change their schedules during the summer and Sloan is no different.
"We're not really touring. In the summer we usually do festivals," Patrick Pentland, one of the band's two guitarists, said recently.
One of those festivals is the New Glasgow Riverfront Music Jubilee where they headline Saturday's playbill.
Sloan played here back in 2007, and although Pentland doesn't remember the gig – "I've been told we played there" – he's said they're looking forward to dropping into their hometown of Halifax and visiting family.
It's been nearly two decades since Sloan formed in Halifax in the early 1990s and Pentland said there's no secret to the longevity.
"It's tough to be in a band, to do anything, for 20 years. We've had our ups and downs with our career. I think at the end of the day we all enjoy what we're doing. We try to solve our problems instead of turning our backs on them.… The weird thing is, even after 20 years, there's always something new coming up. It's not like we're having long dry spells. We love doing it, but we kind of need to do it too."
Over those 20 years Sloan has been stuck with labels ranging from grunge to punk to power pop to pop to rock.
That mystifies Pentland who said they're just a "rock band." All four members of the band write and sing, and, at times, switch instruments.
"I think that because there's four songwriters and we each have sort of our own style, our own interests, it's kind of hard (to categorize). I know people said we're power pop, I don't know what that is.… We feel that we're free to do whatever we want, on one record, you have a variety of styles. We're not really trying to appeal to a certain audience. We're just sort of putting music out."
One thing you likely won't hear from Sloan is a 'boy-band' type song – their songwriting styles can spring anything upon the public but not that, said Pentland.
"We tend to write what we want to write and we look at what everybody else in the band has written. I don't think any of us feel limited, therefore I don't think we need to break out of anything."
He deflects the mantle of East Coast music trailblazers pointing to bands such as April Wine that led the way.
"The one thing we sort of tried to do was talk a lot about East Coast in the press. We were fortunate that we had bands to talk about that were actually good."
Pentland said they were happy to be from the East Coast but didn't want to get labelled as just an East Coast band.
"I think a lot of bands from the East Coast think that way. I do think that there's a certain pride in it, but at the same time it's not like people from the East Coast are handicapped, they're just as capable as anybody else. The main thing to do is to get out and play out of your area."
Sloan is now based in Toronto but looking at the Atlantic music scene Pentland likes what he sees. He pointed to strong infrastructure of venues, festivals and studios along with capable managers and promoters.
"It's good to see, there's no reason why bands from the East Coast can't do as well as bands from anyplace else."
Sloan has just started working on their 10th studio album, he said, and are planning an anniversary tour. Pentland expects the as-yet-unnamed album to be out in the fall.
--taken from: The News (New Glasgow)
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