Live Lounge with Sloan

--taken from: inMusic

Watch the video here at inMusic.

Sloan Revive Twice Removed, The Album That Almost Killed The Band

--taken from: Chicagoist

by Tankboy

The year was 1994 and Halifax, New Scotia's Sloan was primed for huge success. Their debut, Smeared was released two years before on the hugely popular Geffen Records and rode high on the noisy waves of grunge that was quickly dominating that label's roster. It was commercial enough that Geffen saw fit to promote the band along the likes of Nirvana, Weezer, Hole and Counting Crows on a popular compilation released in the midst of the "alternative" explosion. While the band's music was noisy and, yes, sonically smeared, what differentiated them from the rest album was a healthy serving of jangling hummability buried under all those guitars.

The band's sophomore album, Twice Removed, brought those melodies to the fore and dialed back the guitars to create a work that was leaner and cripser but no less powerful. Unfortunately this new approach didn't sit well with the airwaves at the time and Geffen offered the band almost no support, causing an album that was once picked as the #1 Canadian album of all time to slip by almost completely unnoticed in the U.S., sending the band into a nosedive. In fact Sloan was believed to have been broken up until 1996 when they self-released One Chord To Another, a surprisingly successful and insanely catchy rebirth for the band lauded by the CMJ set (think of it as an old man's Pitchfork) and reinvigorating the band's career. Twenty-four years later Sloan is still going strong and releasing album after album of solid material.

This year the band released an expanded and lavish deluxe edition of Twice Removed to properly celebrate both the album and the band's success in turning that low point of popularity but high point of creativity into the genesis of one of the longest and most successful second acts we've ever witnessed. The group is in the midst of a tour, stopping at Subterranean Sept. 22, playing Twice Removed in its entirety along with a second set of music from their entire career. We've been peeking through the band's setlists over the last month or so and it looks like fans of the band are in for some real treats including both "the hits" and a couple unburied treasures. Whether you're a longtime follower or brand new to Sloan's music, we can't highly recommend seeing this show enough.

--taken from: Chicagoist

Sloan rocks Louis’: Toronto band exceeds every expectation live in concert

--taken from: The Sheaf

by Leif Carlson

Don’t forget to check out our full photo gallery from Sloan’s Sept. 19 show at Louis’.

Oh, Sloan. I’ve loved their albums since I was a zitty-faced teen and I still love them now, as a 29-year-old scumbag.

I’ve always been more in love with Twice Removed than any other album of theirs, mostly due, at first, to its accessibility. One song after another is pop perfection. Luckily for me, they played that classic album in its entirety at their Sept. 19 show at Louis.

I should mention at this point that I had never seen them live before. I’ve attempted to, and lost out, but this time I finally made it. There was no opening band, much to my pleasure. Over two hours of Sloan.

About an hour past the estimated time, Sloan hit the stage. They started with “Penpals,” the first track from Twice Removed.

As they continued to play the album, I had a horrible grin on stuck on my face while I awkwardly mouthed the words the entire time. I had more and more beer, and duck out for a cigarette when they played the last song.

The second set was a mix of old favorites and songs from their new album, The Double Cross. The new songs sounded great and I wish I had known more about them prior to them playing.

The encore began with “Motor City Maniacs” and ended with songs that were less familia to me. While I have not been following them closely for the past 10 years or so, I definitely wished I had been when I got to the show.

As I said, I have never seen them live before. At the first chords of “Penpals,” and further through one of the greatest Can-Rock albums ever released, I found myself exactly where I wanted to be in life.

Frontman Chris Murphy is a beautiful man who led a chorus of 1990′s innocence all the way to the root of my heart. Later in the night I attempted to talk to Chris, rather unsuccessfully. It came out something like, “Hurr duur good shoooow.”

If you don’t trust my admittedly biased review of this great Canadian band, and listen to any one of their albums before submitting yourself to one of the most satisfying live experiences of your life.

--taken from: The Sheaf

Sloan to revisit album live in Regina

--taken from: Metro News Regina

by Carrie-May Siggins


Halifax-raised band Sloan is playing in Regina tonight as part of their Twice Removed Tour.

The tour is celebrating the 18th anniversary of the release of the album, which they’ll be playing in its entirety.

It’s now the stuff of Canadian music legend- “Twice Removed” was at first rejected by Geffen, the band’s label at the time. The album was bright and pop-y and melodic, nothing like Sloan’s first grungy album or the grinding noise of hit-makers Nirvana at the time. Geffen asked the band to re-record the LP, which they refused to do. As a result, Geffen didn’t promote it when it was released in 1994, and then dropped the band.

But over time the album built up a strong critical response in Canada. Single “Coax Me” spent 12 weeks in the Top 10o. In 1996, it was voted best Canadian album of all time by readers of the music magazine Chart (now online and called ChartAttack), and in 1998, it went gold. The album ranked 14th in Bob Mersereau’s book The top 100 Canadian Albums.

Alan Cross is a music writer based in Toronto. He says that, along with Geffen, Canadian fans were surprised by the change in direction from Sloan’s first album to their second.

“But there was something charming in this Beatle-esque left turn,” says Cross. “Maybe Sloan wasn’t a bunch of grunge copycats after all. The fresh pop sensibilities of the songs won people over rather quickly. And it’s this Canadian support that prevented the band from flying apart completely.”

--taken from: Metro News Regina

Sloan takes Twice Removed on the road

--taken from: the projector

by Matt Williams

Band’s original lineup still going strong and coming to Winnipeg

For over 20 years, Sloan has been one of Canada’s most consistent and hardest working bands. Their critically acclaimed 1994 album, Twice Removed, was voted Chart Magazine’s best Canadian album of all time. It’s now getting a tour in celebration of its legacy and a deluxe vinyl reissue, complete with outtakes, demos, a seven-inch single and a 32-page booklet.

“It’s not like a reunion per se where I haven’t seen these guys in years or we’re out of playing shape. We’re just a touring band… You’re okay, go play in the mud!”, singer and bassist Chris Murphy said in a phone interview while watching his youngest son at a park in downtown Toronto. Although they’ve been around for longer than most young bands can fathom, Sloan shows no signs of slowing down.

“I don’t feel like we’re, you know, just a greatest hits act or whatever,” Murphy says. “We still make new records, but you’re competing with yourself when you put out a new record. People are like, ‘I like your old stuff. I don’t want to hear any of your new shit!’ But you know people are nice to us and they give the new stuff a chance.”

Giving new stuff a chance might be exactly what set off the success of Twice Removed. In 1994, the music world was obsessed with grunge, and Halifax was supposed to be the new Seattle. Sloan’s label, Geffen Records, wasn’t interested in doing much to promote such a poppy and melodic album. Although they released it, the label’s relationship with the band ended there. The album went on to be a massive hit in Canada.

“By the time we made Twice Removed, the writing was probably on the wall that we weren’t gonna break, we weren’t gonna become a big band,” Murphy says. “After that we became, I guess, more independent. We were independent the whole time, sort of, in that we were able to do a lot of that stuff ourselves, but it was kind of fun to be courted by the major labels and think that maybe everybody would know all our songs. But it wasn’t to be.”

While a blow like that is often a death sentence for an up-and-coming band, Sloan has continued to put out albums at a consistent pace. And what’s better is that they’re consistently good. Their latest, The Double Cross, was a nod to their 20 years together.

“I’ve often joked that bands that’ve been doing it a long time, like The Rolling Stones, they think their new record is good, and everyone knows it sucks,” says Murphy. “But I’m still delusional enough to think that our new record actually is good. So maybe I’m just as delusional as they are.”

Murphy says he’s, “into group chemistry,” and that might be the reason Sloan is still together. In their 20-plus years of being a band, their original lineup – Jay Ferguson, Andrew Scott, Patrick Pentland, and Murphy – has never changed.

“I think that’s basically the best thing we have, our strongest suit. I feel like all that stuff sort of sets us apart. But I don’t know if the fact that we lasted for 20 years means we can last forever, because I always feel that we’re one bad conversation from the fistfight that ends the band,” Murphy laughs. “But hopefully it doesn’t happen.”

--taken from: the projector

Japandroids, Sloan, Kathleen Edwards, Dan Mangan and John K. Samson Nominated for SOCAN ECHO Songwriting Prize

--taken from: Exclaim!

by Josiah Hughes

Every year, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, better known as SOCAN, attempts to highlight "the most creative and artistic songs" via their ECHO Songwriting Prize.

The winning song, which is voted on by the public between September 10 and October 10, will receive a grand prize of $5,000. Today, organizers have unveiled the nominees.

The nominees for the 2012 English SOCAN ECHO Songwriting Prize are "House that Heaven Built" by Japandroids, "Post-War Blues" by Dan Mangan, "Soft Place to Land" by Kathleen Edwards, "Unkind" by Sloan and "When I Write My Master's Thesis" by John K. Samson.

There's also a French language prize in the same contest. The nominees for that section are "Dans la prairie" by Salomé Leclerc, "Intuition #1" by Avec pas d'casque, "Lignes d'Hydro" by Lisa LeBlanc, "Si tu savais" by Marie-Pierre Arthur and "St-Eustache" by Koriass.

The winner of the ECHO Songwriting Prize will be unveiled on October 19. To vote for your favourite song, go here. One voter will win an iPad for his or her efforts.

--taken from: Exclaim!

Sloan's NSCAD roots

--taken from: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design

Arguably the best band ever to come out of Halifax got its start right here at NSCAD.

Let’s start that sentence over: The best band ever to come out of Halifax got its start right here at NSCAD.

Sloan—Andrew Scott (drums/vocals), Chris Murphy (bass/vocals), Jay Ferguson (guitar/vocals) and Patrick Pentland (guitar/vocals)—had its first gig on February 11, 1991 in the NSCAD cafeteria.  After the noisy debut (Chris recalls an “extremely long noise freak-out with strobe lights”), things happened fast. Within 18 months, the band toured Canada, released an EP (Peppermint), recorded an album (Smeared), and signed a deal with a major label. Halifax was being hailed as the “Seattle of the North,” and other Halifax bands—Jale, The Super FriendZ and Thrust Hermit—were on their way too.

Unfortunately (for us), Sloan has a gig in Chicago at the same time as The Back to School Special, taking place September 22 at the ol’ alma mater. But band members will be there in spirit and have sent along some video clips of their first performance which will be screened during the concert. See if you can spot a classic Chris Murphy scissor kick.

The band has just embarked on a tour in celebration of an earlier album—Twice Removed. A fan favorite and critical darling, Twice Removed actually got the band dropped from its record label Geffen because it didn’t sound quite like its more-grungy predecessor Smeared. As well as the cross-country tour, there’s a deluxe vinyl reissue.  More dates in the Eastern U.S. and Canada are expected to be announced soon.

As they got ready for the tour, NSCAD alumni Andrew Scott and Chris Murphy took the time to reminisce about their NSCAD days.

Andrew Scott

I attended NSCAD from 1986 to 1991. I entered directly after graduating high school and still maintain that these were the most formative, eye-opening years of my life thus far.

I initially enrolled thinking I would become a graphic designer. This was just prior to computers being the centre of this discipline and I understood that a firm hand and a focused eye were essential and I felt that I had possessed both. Ludwig Scharfe was my professor for introductory GD and I recall his initial introduction to the class as something like, (briefcase slammed on desk ) ... “Okay, my name is Ludwig. My wife has left me. I am an insomniac.” He flicked his hair back and continued...  “Anyway, our first assignment is going to be drawing the most excruciatingly precise lines with pen and ink and I will look them over under a microscope to point out the most molecular inconsistencies...” I followed through for the intro semester and quickly realized perhaps graphic design was not my calling after all.

I tried many other areas. Choices were all around, and smart, thoughtful instruction was always there too. Bruce Barber, the intermedia prof, introduced me to Dada and how to see things for what they really are. Dennis Gill was my sculpture instructor and quickly asserted himself as one of my most valuable mentors during my stay. Sandy Graham in the metal shop was a terrific educator. I tried and loved printmaking under the wonderful tutelage of Bob Rogers in lithography and Ed Porter in intaglio. A year or two into this area, I was hired as a technician in the printmaking department. Aside from the inevitable late night acid experiments Marcus Jones and I performed on various surfaces (we were both ‘technicians’ so we knew what we were doing—ha!), I  learned so much about the varying ways of transferring images and manipulating surfaces to do what I wanted them to do. Happy accidents were so much a part of the process and I thrived. I had heard that painting held these qualities too but I had no interest.

It was at this time that Gerald Ferguson approached me to re-etch a zinc plate with an image of an anonymous skull from a series of his earlier prints. I did the job to his satisfaction and then he said to me, “What the hell are you doing this stuff for? Do you plan to have a five tonne press and some giant slabs of limestone and a forklift available to work with after you graduate?”

I never really considered the reality in his statement because the facilities were so well established and appointed that, lost in the flow where I was in the school I just thought of it as my world. It was my whole world, plain and simple. I never thought about leaving or what came after NSCAD.

He convinced me to come and do his intro painting class the next year and I cannot believe I didn't enter it much sooner. We quickly became quite close—I was good friends with his son in high school so there were multiple connections. His way of teaching, as many knew, could be very confrontational and acerbic. Not for everyone. I gravitated to his expertise and learned so much from him, both about painting and life. I, along with many others, was deeply affected by his suicide a few years ago.

I lived in the studio until I left the college. I had worked with Alex Livingston and Gary Kennedy although Jerry was a true mentor figure for me. My band Sloan came together during my last couple of years at the school.  Chris Murphy and I were both at the college for a year or so.

Music and painting were very different pursuits for me for a long time. Music was this; painting was that. Collaborative here; solo there. It is only recently that I've given in to the fact that they're both basically the same thing. The band quickly became the main focus and I chose to go along for the ride willingly. Jerry was very supportive and always reminded me that “Painting is something you can do until the day you drop dead! Rock ‘n’ roll has a best before date attached to it. Go for it.”

When I left to pursue touring with the band, a few art history credits were still outstanding toward my BFA and Jerry wondered if there were a way for me to send him postcards from wherever I was that could somehow be construed as a NSCAD credit worthy bit of “art potential.” It never did happen but the band still continues as well as it ever has today as does my practice of painting and art making in general. Both could never have been possible without the school.

Upon entering the school in '86, my instructor told the class that “...maybe, maybe, one of us would be able to make a living as an artist.” This has stayed with me and continues to bang around in my head as I write. I knew that it was what I wanted to do and to this day I'm still trying to figure out how to do it. I couldn’t be happier with the choices I've made along the way, most of all, with my decision to go to NSCAD.

To see Andrew Scott’s work, please see his website: www.andrewscottwork.com

Chris Murphy

I “earned” an English degree from Dalhousie in 1990 but I didn’t have the marks or the interest to do post graduate work so it was another undergrad for me! My NSCAD experience was better for having gone to Dal though. It meant I had all of my academics and electives out of the way so I just had to do the fun stuff and a lot of what I used for my portfolio for NSCAD was drawn while not contributing in class at Dal.

My good friend, Andrew Scott had gone straight from high school into NSCAD so he was a lot further along in his studies and art practice than I. He was encouraging of me applying and he was part of the reason I wanted to go. I had hung out at his painting studio with him and was jealous of how friggin’ cool it was in there surrounded by art and artists listening to music on radios that were covered in paint. I felt so square when I was in there.

Andrew was away for my first term when I did the Foundation program, which was merciful because everything I made would have been such an eye roll to him. He was back at NSCAD in January 1991 and we quickly formed a band that we called Sloan and played our first show Feb 8th, 1991 in the NSCAD cafeteria. We went on after a band whose name really says 1991: Wolfblitzer’s Gas Mask. They did some rolling around on the ground but we upped the ante with an extremely long noise freak-out with strobe lights and interestingly a Bert doll of Bert and Ernie fame.

No thanks to us, the last band of the night, Coffee In Madrid weren’t able to start until late so they ended up getting the “wrap it up” signal before they were done. When they refused to stop, they had the plug pulled on them and there was a huge kerfuffle about it being an art school and how dare the school interrupt their art. It was a huge fight. People were yelling! I was sorry to be the cause of the fight but it was exciting that there was a fight. These people took art seriously. Incidentally, one of my best puns ever was from the end of that night when I referred to Coffee In Madrid as Cut Off In Mid Riff.

I went to NSCAD thinking I could draw but was shown what real talent was when I got there. I hadn’t taken art courses in eight years so I was out of practice. I ended up loving the TV studio and (linear) video editing. I learned history from Ancient to Medieval Art History. I had had no timeline in my head before that. Were cave paintings before the Renaissance? Turns out – yes. Alright, I would have known that but I really knew very little. I loved my sculpture instructor, Dennis Gill and my photography instructor, Gary Wilson. I loved David Clark for passing me even when I had to leave school before it was over in order to do Sloan’s first tour.

I’m no great artist but it was during my NSCAD days that Andrew and I put together a band that is still recording and touring (with the same line-up 20+ years later. We always make the album art ourselves. We usually direct and often shoot and edit our music videos ourselves. Thanks for the tools and high concept, NSCAD.


--taken from: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design

Sloan Talk 'Twice Removed' Tour, Future Reissues

--taken from: Exclaim!

by Cam Lindsay

Tonight (September 7) Sloan kick off their tour celebrating the reissue of their seminal 1994 album, Twice Removed, whose box set was released earlier this week.

Speaking with Exclaim!, guitarist/vocalist Jay Ferguson gave us an idea of what to expect when they cross Western Canada over the next few weeks.

"We're going to try and play two sets, which is sort of unusual for us," he explains. "We'll play Twice Removed all the way through then take a ten-minute break, and then come back and play a normal Sloan set for about an hour."

Ferguson says having played the album in its entirety before made them realize that they could in fact do a proper tour looking back on their most cherished album, even though they are a bit rusty with a few of the songs.

"We've done it a couple times, at Halifax Pop Explosion two years ago and then at SappyFest unannounced, and the crowd loved it," he says. "It was fun to do. But I hope for Patrick [Pentland] it won't bring back some weird feelings he felt while we were recording it.

"Twice Removed definitely has a lot more slower, weird ones we don't play in our set on a regular basis. It has a couple more downer moments, like 'Loosens,' but I love the whole record."

As for whether they will follow this up with another reissue and tour, Ferguson says if Twice Removed meets their expectations, they hope to begin a cycle of releasing a new album, then putting out another reissue, both with tours.

"I would love to tour One Chord to Another," he says. "Some would be difficult, though. Navy Blues, I would have a lot of bass homework because I don't remember how to play some of those songs. I could see us doing Between the Bridges, and I think that could be fun. I'm game to do all of them, depending on who wants to come see us. I'm game for the long haul."

--taken from: Exclaim!

Sloan celebrate 'Twice Removed,' a beloved album once considered a failure

--taken from: The Canadian Press

Jay Ferguson, left, and Chris Murphy, right, of rock band Sloan pose for a photo in their Toronto rehearsal space on August 16, 2012. Now that it's a fixture on lists of the greatest Canadian rock albums of all time, it's easy to forget that Sloan's "Twice Removed" was once reviled. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Michelle Siu

by Nick Patch


TORONTO - Now that it's a fixture on lists of the greatest Canadian rock albums of all time, it's easy to forget that Sloan's "Twice Removed" was once reviled.

Or at least it was by the behemoth of alt-rock record labels, Geffen, when the Halifax quartet delivered the glimmering LP, a thoughtful collection of brightly lit guitar-pop.

"Twice Removed" was an admitted left-turn from the group's distortion-contorted debut "Smeared," and at a time when the modern-rock charts were dominated by sludge-slinging Nirvana imitators, their sophomore album was not what the label wanted to hear. It was clean, back when "clean" was a dirty word.

The album killed the golden goose. It broke up the band. But now they're celebrating it, in the form of a deluxe vinyl re-issue and a cross-country tour during which Sloan will play the record in its entirety.

Back when Geffen first rejected it, when they asked the band to re-record the entire thing, the band certainly never imagined they would one day warm to the album.

"Self-doubt is my default setting — but I was the most torn up about it," said bassist and co-frontman Chris Murphy in a recent interview from their cluttered Toronto rehearsal space.

"I probably would have done anything, I was so excited to be on Geffen.... 'Oh, they're asking us to record the whole thing again? I guess that's what you do. I guess that's what we should do.'

"I'm glad that we didn't."

So are the album's legions of fans.

But they didn't really exist back in 1994. Sure, Sloan did have fans. A couple years prior, they had inked a deal with Geffen — the home of Nirvana, Beck and Sonic Youth — on the strength of their 1992 "Peppermint EP," and followed it with their messy but charming full-length "Smeared" later that year.

That debut was a moderate chart success in Canada, but was most notable for the seemingly rosy future it forecasted. In truth, "Smeared" was a dissonant pastiche of various indie-rock influences, one which both belied the band's inexperience and hinted at real songwriting skill submerged under the layers of fashionable fuzz.

That album, of course, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. But the band didn't really savour the idea of playing "Smeared" front-to-back every night.

"There'd be a bunch of songs where we'd be like: 'Ugh. Skip that one,'" laughed Murphy.

But to rich record labels eager to mine the continent's underground for grunge gold, "Smeared" indicated a band with the potential to combine pop prowess (check the wit of single "Underwhelmed") with the noisy rage that was all the rage on the charts in the grimy wake of Nirvana's success.

So, it was a natural decision for Geffen to pay for Sloan's sophomore record up front. But for a band in the midst of an adolescent transformation, the cash seemed to just make the task ahead even more daunting.

"I think I was probably the most nervous about it," Murphy said. "I think a lot of times when we tell the story it's the David and Goliath story. 'Geffen was mean to us' or something like that. But for the most part, what I was feeling was ... they paid us up front, and it was like: 'Hope you like this one.'

"So I was kind of dying inside like, 'Oh, I hope they like it,' wanting to please."

The band demoed roughly 70 songs for "Twice Removed." Then as they do now, the band had four songwriters and all were contributing, swapping instruments as they went. Geffen thought this democratic breakdown of duties was a marketing challenge.

Well, the music was apparently moreso. Sloan dug deeper into their influences — including the Velvet Underground, Slint, '80s hardcore and, of course, some classic British pop — while penning the songs that would form "Twice Removed." There was certainly a degree of defiance as they rejected the direction most of the rock world was drifting.

"We were kind of running from grunge and this sort of house of cards that it seemed to be — all that 'poor man's Nirvana' (stuff)," Murphy said.

Added guitarist Jay Ferguson: "It was a reaction to not wanting to jump the bandwagon. There were so many bands out there playing melodic pop songs with distorted guitars. It kind of got a little played out."

It's not as though they were making the album in secret — the A&R rep who signed them, Todd Sullivan, was present for the sessions and was generally supportive of the direction the band was pursuing.

Looking back, it's difficult to understand how such an accessible album could ever have been considered somehow radical.

The record simply brims with giddy hooks. There's the unexpectedly gorgeous chorus carved like a skylight into Ferguson's "I Hate My Generation," the "ba-ba-bada-ba" chanting in drummer Andrew Scott's transcendent "People of the Sky," or the delicate boy-girl harmonies buoying Patrick Pentland's "I Can Feel It." (Also worth mentioning is Murphy's brilliant "Coax Me," which features what he says is their most celebrated lyric of all time: "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans." It was inspired by a pretentious Kate Bush fan Ferguson knew in high-school.)

"We were like, 'Let's make the Plastic Ono Band record, or Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' — what's wrong with those records?'" Murphy recalled.

"It's ironic that we were referencing ... a record that sold 25 million copies, and then it's like: 'What is THIS? My ears!'" he said, mimicking the response of the label. "It wasn't like we were referencing Can or (Einsturzende) Neubauten or whatever."

But there weren't many bands making polished, intelligent guitar pop at the time. The band agrees that the closest comparison in 1994 was Pavement's masterful "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain," which provided the beloved California quintet their most successful record (although it came out on indie imprint Matador).

Geffen, certainly, was less interested in swimming against the current. To hear Murphy and Ferguson tell it, the label was primarily frustrated because they had promoted Sloan one way and now the band had made a drastic change, thus undoing whatever gains they had made.

"They heard it and it was like: 'We can't work with this,'" Ferguson said. "It seemed like to them it wasn't of the time."

Geffen asked Sloan to record the album again. The band refused. So the label put the record out without promotional support, essentially hiding it in plain view.

Sloan wasn't the only band to endure a process like this. Washington power-pop outfit the Posies were also asked by Geffen to re-record the album that became "Frosting on the Beater," and they consented (the well-reviewed album still wasn't a hit). And Weezer, who were coincidentally also signed to Geffen by Sullivan, saw their now-classic "Blue Album" released with similarly non-existent fanfare by the label until radio stations and MTV sensed a hit and lifted the record up.

With the benefit of hindsight, Sloan feels they made the right choice refusing to remake "Twice Removed."

"I'm grateful that we didn't go and re-do the record because it might not have made any difference anyhow — even if we had turned up the guitars, they might have still been like, 'Well, whatever,'" Ferguson said.

"Our manager, Chip Sutherland, was very ballsy too," added Murphy. "He was just like, 'They're contractually obligated to release it. Let's just do it. You can't guess what they want. Just do what you do and maybe you can show them and it'll be a success.'

"Cut to: it was not a success."

The fallout was swift. Sloan essentially broke up. And Scott relocated from Halifax to Toronto, a move that Murphy felt amounted to turning his back on the band.

Murphy says he couldn't persuade the label to give the band $2,000 for a video — especially galling after he watched the revolutionary "Buddy Holly" clip Spike Jonze directed for Weezer — and he could sense those on the business side were losing whatever little interest in Sloan they had left.

Murphy and Ferguson continued running their Murder Records imprint in Halifax, but with one member gone, Murphy considered the band dead.

"It was so depressing," he said.

Gradually, the situation improved. The foursome was still writing songs, and they eventually got the idea to record a post-humous Sloan album to help their label. Then came gigs, and then the decision to make a video.

By the time "One Chord to Another" came out in 1996, Sloan was back together (and for the record, Murphy ranks that album as his favourite, above "Twice Removed").

Other factors had changed during their hiatus. While "Twice Removed" had quickly sunk into clearance-bin irrelevance Stateside, the record had found an audience in Canada thanks to support from college radio and MuchMusic.

The newfound love for the album first resonated with Murphy when Chart magazine ran a reader poll to determine the best Canadian album of all time, and "Twice Removed" took the top spot. It remained in top spot nine years later when the magazine ran the same poll.

And when music writer Bob Mersereau polled 500 musicians, producers and journalists for his book, "The Top 100 Canadian Albums," "Twice Removed" took 14th place.

The band struggles to understand why the album, shunned in its time, is so beloved now.

"I think there's an underdog element in that," Ferguson said. "But I also think there's a lot of good melodic songs. I think it's nice that it does sort of stand out in that era as sounding different than other things."

Beyond that, "Twice Removed" charted the rest of Sloan's musical path: the Beatles-bred pop precision, the always-coherent blending of four unique songwriting voices, and songs that were drenched in wit, not feedback.

But maybe just as importantly, the lessons learned through failure pushed Sloan toward musical independence. Since the mid-90s, the members of Sloan have run their own label, never needing to submit to the scrutiny of industry overlords thousands of miles away.

In a way, missing their big break brought Sloan together.

"We're the same four people, we have a giant body of work, it's exactly the way I want it," Murphy said. "We make enough money to have houses and we all pay mortgages — so it's perfect for me, because I don't want to make so much money that we don't want to work, and I don't want to be broke.

"I think that we're still a credible band," he added. "And someday, maybe that record and our career in general will be discovered and recognized — I don't know for quality, but quantity anyway. There's a lot of stuff!"

--taken from: The Canadian Press

Sloan return to their roots for Nelson show

--taken from: Nelson Star

by Sam Van Schie

Toronto alt rockers Sloan are taking their fans back in time with the re-release of their 1994 break-out album Twice Removed.

When the quartet stops in Nelson this Sunday, they'll perform every songs from that album in the order they appear. It's a new experiment for the band and something they've been wanting to do for years.

"It's a comeback tour for us, except we never went away," jokes guitarist Jay Ferguson, speaking with the Star from his home in Toronto before the band set out on a month-and-a-half long tour through North America.

Sloan has been together 21 years and released 10 full-length albums in that time, as well as a couple EPs, a live album, and a best of collection.

With so much material to draw from for their live shows, there's songs from Twice Removed that haven't been on a Sloan set list for more than a decade. Ferguson admits there's a couple tracks — like "Loosens" and "Before I do" — that he had to relearn how to play.

"It's a funny thing having to sit down with your own albums to learn how to play something you knew 18 years ago," he said. "Even songs we still play a lot, when I go back to listen to how they were recorded, I notice there's parts I've been missing."

The goal of the tour will be to play the songs meticulously, exactly how they sound on the album. Then, once they've run through the songs from Twice Removed, the band will take an intermission and return with a second set that draws from more recent material.

"All of this — playing two sets, playing a record the way it was recorded – it's totally new for us, so we don't know how it will go over with the fans," Ferguson said. "It's something we've wanted do for a long time, and because we didn't have a new album coming out this year, it seemed like a good time to try it."

Ferguson and bandmate Chris Murphy spent the first half of this year immersed in Sloan memorabilia, sifting through material for new deluxe box set of Twice Removed.

"Since Sloan started, Chris and I kinda had a competition going to see who could build up the largest Sloan museum in our basements because we're nerds like that," Ferguson said. "We kept all our old recordings and demo recordings, and all the old articles and photos and things like that."

The collection came in handy. They had enough previously recorded material to include three vinyl records, one 7" vinyl and 32 page colour booklet in the box set.

They digitized old demo tapes (yes, that's tape, as in cassette tape) of song demos recorded at their jam space before the final versions were produced in studio — or, in a few cases, before deciding to scrap the song all together. They scanned negatives of old photographs and artwork that didn't make it into liner notes. They even copied the original hand written letter that inspired the lyrics for "Penpals," the lead track on Twice Removed.

"It's something for the hardcore Sloan fan," Ferguson said.

If the current box set and tour are well received, there's talk of them doing the same thing for One Chord to Another in a couple of years.

"I think it could become a good pattern for us to alternate between releasing new albums and releasing deluxe editions of our older stuff," Ferguson said, noting the band will be back in studio recording a new album this winter. "It all depends on how this on goes over with the fans."

--taken from: Nelson Star

Homeless in the Hammer

--taken from: The Spectator (read the rest here)

Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland maintain an emotional base in Hamilton while touring the world

Doucet, a master guitarist who performs regularly with Sarah McLachlan, handled most of the instrumentation — guitar, bass and keyboards. He brought in five percussionists including Andrew Scott of Sloan and Paul Brennan, formerly of The Odds, to add heft. Michael Chambers of Catharine North did the sound engineering and eventually mastered the record. In the end, all but one of the songs was completed in the Hamilton studio.

--taken from: The Spectator (read the rest here)