by Jibril Yassin
To hear Jay Ferguson, guitarist/vocalist of Sloan, describe an album recording process as nerve-inducing is a bit of a shock.
While the esteemed Canadian rock band are currently playing a series of one-off shows across the country, their main focus is working on a new album, the idea being a double album where all four members, who all sing and write songs for the band, get their own side. It’s a switch-up from their usual fare of having an album of twelve or thirteen songs where a band member’s individual compositions are all spread throughout, and Ferguson’s nervous about it.
“I think it’s gonna be interesting and controversial for Sloan fans,” he says. “I really like the compilation aspect as opposed to everybody getting their own side, but I think because our band has four individual singer/songwriters, we’re one of the few bands that could probably do it so we might as well. We’ve made ten albums, why not make something a little bit different this time? I think it’s a fun thing to try.”
After 22 years together and ten albums, what’s left to try but what you think might be fun? Sloan has kept themselves busy in the three years since they released their most recent album Double Cross by indulging in a series of projects including a hardcore 7”, a series of live bootlegs and an album reissue endeavour that started with their 1994 landmark Twice Removed that resulted in a massive box set and the band touring it across the country, playing the entire thing in sequence for the first time.
Ferguson thinks these projects, including the album reissue campaigns, not only provide the band with tasks to do in between albums but also help provide a jumping in point for fans that tuned out a long time ago and have no clue what they’ve been up to since.
While the idea of playing an album from front to back has caught on with many bands playing memorable albums at festivals or concerts, it’s something that not everyone agrees with. James Keast, editor in chief of Exclaim, recently wrote a scathing opinion piece slamming bands for playing their albums from front-to-back on the basis that playing the album was the ultimate act of fan service, a death kneel to contemporary acts. It’s a position that Ferguson disagrees with.
“I really disagreed with what he was saying, ‘don’t be a slave to the fans’. To me, I thought his editorial was completely wrong. It was completely uninformed because he’s not an artist and he’s not playing in a band and he doesn’t make his living from being an artist and playing in a band,” he says. “What Chris and I put together with the TR box set and the tour was new to us. To me, it was not like something we had done before, slugging through it. His whole argument was a band doing a reissue or a tour playing an album would be stagnant but it wasn’t, and it actually brought out a lot more people than we had at a lot of shows for a long time.”
“I thought it was more fun to do it closer to the record and make it really about bringing the record to life,” he adds. “I went to see Paul Simon once and he did a reggae version of ‘Kodachrome’ and I was furious. I wanted to hear ‘Kodachrome’ the way it sounds on the record cause it sounds so awesome.”
--taken from: the griff
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