Sloan returns to New Glasgow

--taken from: New Glasgow News

NEW GLASGOW - Canadian rock and roll icons, Sloan, are returning to New Glasgow in 2015. The Nova Scotia pop pioneers, now based in Toronto, released their 11th album, Commonwealth, in September, and bring their latest tracks to Glasgow Square on March 4.

“Their influence on the music scene in Nova Scotia can still be felt today, 22 years after their first record,” says Carlton Munroe, New Glasgow’s Programs and Events Manager. “Commonwealth once again reaffirms Sloan’s place in the top drawer of Canadian rock and roll, and we’re very excited to have them return to the Glasgow Square stage.”

Each member of the group - Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, and Andrew Scott - all contribute original compositions to each record, equal partners with equal say over every aspect of their work. Where in the past creative lines have been blurred to create the multifaceted Sloan sound, Commonwealth sees the four bandmates disassociating ever so slightly to create an old-school double album sequenced with each member staking out a single side as their own artistic dominion.

Commonwealth follows 2011’s The Double Cross, which earned Sloan some of the most glowing notices of their acclaimed career.

Pitchfork summed it up best: “Twenty years in, they’ve made one of their best albums…That (Sloan) sound this creatively fresh this deep into their career is a real treat for people who’ve stuck with them through the years. If you’ve never given them a chance before, this is a great time to get to know them.”

--taken from: New Glasgow News

Proudly Canadian: Sloan

--taken from: Cashbox Magazine Canada

Sloan is a Canadian, Toronto-based rock/power pop quartet, from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Throughout their 20+ year tenure, Sloan has released 11LPs, two EPs, a live album, a Greatest hits album and more than thirtysingles. The band has received nine Juno Award nominations, winning one. The band is known for their sharing of songwriting from each member of the group and their unaltered line-up throughout their career.

Sloan was formed in 1991 when Chris Murphy and Andrew Scott met at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) in Halifax; Patrick Pentland and Jay Ferguson joined soon after. According to Sloan's official website, the band is named after the nickname of their friend, Jason Larsen. Larsen was originally called Slow One by his French-speaking boss which, with the French accent, sounded more like "Sloan". The original agreement was that they could name the band after Larsen as long as he was on the cover of their first album. As a result, it is Larsen who appears on the cover of the Peppermint EP, which was released on the band's own label, Murderecords.

Later in 1992, Sloan released their full-length album Smeared on Geffen Records. In 1994 Geffen did not promote their second album, Twice Removed, due to artistic disputes, although it sold well in Canada. Spin named it one of the "Best Albums You Didn't Hear" in 1994. A 1996 reader poll by Canadian music magazine Chart! ranked it as the best Canadian album of all time, only two years after its release. The same poll in 2000 ranked the album third, behind Joni Mitchell's Blue and Neil Young's Harvest. However, the 2005 poll once again ranked the album first.

After the release of Twice Removed, the band went on hiatus and were rumoured to have broken up, as they had rejected Geffen's offer for their next album. In 1996, however, they released the widely praised One Chord to Another on their own Murderecords label. Following 1998's Navy Blues album, Sloan released their first live album 4 Nights at the Palais Royale in 1999. Those albums were followed by Between the Bridges in 1999, and Pretty Together in 2001.

Sloan made a concerted effort to break into the US market on their 2003 release Action Pact. Songs were recorded in L.A. with Tom Rothrock producing. The glossier, radio-ready sound failed to raise Sloan's profile in the US, though they continued to be highly popular in Canada. Sloan's first compilation album A Sides Win: Singles 1992-2005, included two new songs, "All Used Up" and "Try to Make It". The Japanese release included two additional new tracks.

Now signed to Yep Roc Records for their US releases, they put out their eighth disc, Never Hear the End of It in 2006. The album contained 30 tracks with all the members of the band contributing new songs. It was met with widespread critical acclaim and became the highest charting Sloan album in the US up to that point. In 2008, Sloan followed up their longest album with their shortest release, Parallel Play.

In November 2009 Sloan added a digital music store to their website. The band released an online-only EP called Hit & Run to promote the store. The EP featured two songs by Chris Murphy, and one by each of the other band members. Murphy's Take It Upon Yourself was released as a free single. In February 2010, the band released another online exclusive, the compilation album B-Sides Win: Extras, Bonus Tracks and B-Sides 1992 – 2008.

Sloan announced plans to release a 10th album in 2011, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of their first show. On February 22, 2011, Sloan announced that their new album would be released on May 10, 2011. The album, entitledThe Double Cross, is a nod to their 20th (or XX) anniversary. The album is preceded by the first single, "Unkind".

With the release of The Double Cross, Sloan has now released a catalogue of around 175 different songs.

In promotion of the new album, a special video series produced and directed by Catherine Stockhausen has been launched on YouTube to commemorate the illustrious success of the band. Interviewed in these videos are several musicians and celebrities such as Jason Schwartzman, Joel Plaskett, Stefan Brogren, Dave Foley, Kevin Drew, Buck 65, Sebastien Grainger, The Dears, Ian D'Sa and Benjamin Kowalewicz from Billy Talent, K-OS, and Dave Hamlin. Following the completion of touring for The Double Cross, Sloan reissued and toured behind Twice Removed as a three-record vinyl box set containing the original album, rarities, and demos.

On April 24, 2013, Sloan announced the release of a hardcore punk single, Jenny b/w It's In You, It's In Me. With it comes a digital download of a hardcore covers album, as well as a T-shirt portraying the band members circa 1985. In 2013, the band revealed plans for a double album, with each of the four sides featuring a solo suite by a different band member. In May 2014, it was announced that the new album would be titled Commonwealth and would be released in September 2014. On July 14, 2014, the band announced the official release date for the album (September 9, which turned out to be accurate) and the release of the album's first single, "Keep Swinging (Downtown)".

--taken from: Cashbox Magazine Canada

Sloan to play Halifax’s Marquee March 7

--taken from: The Chronicle Herald

Sloan plays the Marquee Ballroom in Halifax on March 7, the band's first hometown show since the release of its 11th album, the double LP Commonwealth. (TIM McCREADY)

Canadian pop rock quartet Sloan returns to its hometown to play its first Halifax show since 2011 at the Marquee Ballroom on Sat., March 7.

The show comes after extensive touring in Canada and the U.S. for its latest album, Commonwealth, released on Sept. 9.

The double record, the band’s 11th collection of all-new material, was preceded by the single Keep Swinging (Downtown) and is unique in the way it divides up the songwriting duties with each member — Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland and Andrew Scott — taking a side each over the two-LP set.

--taken from: The Chronicle Herald

Catch your Sloan snow date Wednesday at Music Hall

--taken from: The London Free Press

by James Reaney

Despite the snow, Sloan still gets to rock downtown London in November.

The Canadian rock band is now to play the London Music Hall on Wednesday, promoters announced on social media this week.

Sloan was to play earlier this week at the venue before weather and other issues postponed the event.

“Due to weather and mechanical issues . . . (the) Sloan show will be postponed,” SummerCamp Productions said on Facebook this week, apologizing for the switch.

“All tickets will be honoured for next Wednesday’s show. If you are unable to make it, you may request a refund at the place of ticket purchase,” the statement said.

Touring to support its 11th studio release, Commonwealth, Sloan has turned the band’s long-standing democratic songwriting philosophy into individual realities.

Each of its four members has his own side of the double disc titled after playing card suit names like Diamond (singer-rhythm guitarist Jay Ferguson), Heart (singer-bassist Chris Murphy), Shamrock (singer-lead guitarist Patrick Pentland) and Spade (singer-drummer Andrew Scott).

--taken from: The London Free Press

Sloan makes the Back Room feel major

--taken from: Indy Week

by David Klein

I’d heard the odd record geek sing the praises of Sloan, but it was only two years ago, at the Yep Roc 15th anniversary show at the Cat's Cradle, that I fell for this Toronto-based quartet—hard. In the middle of a lineup of bands similarly indebted to 1960s Anglo pop, Sloan wowed the big room in an impassioned set with no skimping on the power part of the power pop equation. I’ve been poring over their immense catalog ever since—trying to figure out what took me so long.

Yet there’s a good reason why even passionate rock people are ignorant of Sloan: Despite 20 years of turning out smart, hooky songs, with everything from slamming indie rock with huge choruses to stripped-down garage stylings to immaculately constructed pop ear worms, Sloan is not a big name in these parts. In a recent visit to a local record shop, I found no Sloan vinyl and only dated CD copies of their records, promising online extras that are no longer available. When I inquired, the proprietor said he just doesn’t move a whole lot of Sloan. In Canada, it’s a different story. They play big halls and are widely revered, but here, on their own, the band is relegated to the 250-person capacity Cat’s Cradle Back Room. Their loss was our gain.

With four songwriters, all of whom sing and three of whom are multi-instrumentalists, Sloan is versatile to the extreme. Along with very few others (Moby Grape and Teenage Fanclub come to mind), Sloan has been able to make this talent-heavy configuration work. Two competing songwriting egos is more than enough to break up a band. Somehow Sloan not only to balances its profusion of talent but blends the disparate sensibilities into a vibrant whole.

While Sloan can play to a huge room, there was some welcome latitude in the intimate setting. The band played two sets, with no opener and liberties happily taken, starting with the first song. Song is really a loose term for “Forty-Eight Portraits”—which is not available as a single $1.00 download on iTunes, just as its inspiration, Side 2 of Abbey Road, isn’t. To be sure, this almost 18-minute suite written by drummer Andrew Scott, which closes Sloan’s latest, Commonwealth, seems an odd choice for an opening number. But it was Scott’s birthday, so there he was, leather-clad and looking like some unholy amalgam of Billy Boy in A Clockwork Orange and 1980s-era Julian Cope, playing guitar and leading the band through his complex creation, which takes its title from his interest in printmaking and painting. The band handled the shifting components with total panache, from tremulous psych-pop to a section sung on record by a children’s choir to a climactic “She’s So Heavy”-chord cycle. It was something of a feat, but there was no hint of strain.

Afterward, Scott took his place behind the drum set, and Chris Murphy, the ostensible frontman, put down the sticks he’d been bashing with Keith Moon-like flourishes, picked up his bass guitar and took his place at center stage. The first set concentrated on Commonwealth, a particularly egalitarian showcase in which each member wrote songs for one “side” of a traditional double record. These tracks are as engaging as any of the band’s great singles: Lead guitarist Patrick Pentland’s “Keep Swinging (Downtown),” Murphy’s “Carried Away,” with its bittersweet echoes of Fleetwood Mac, and the sweet-voiced Ferguson’s “You’ve Got a Lot On Your Mind” were given vibrant treatment. The set culminated in the stirring, waltz-time “Marquee and the Moon,” which nods to clubs where the band cut its teeth in its native Halifax.

The generous second set picked and chose from among Sloan’s 11 albums. Throughout, the band never wasted a note or lost cohesion, with Pentland adding stinging leads, Scott becoming a demon on the drums, Murphy accompanying himself with limber bass lines, and Ferguson, a bit enigmatic behind the bill of his cap, playing rhythm guitar and sounding like heaven every time he opened his mouth. Credit also goes to longtime keyboardist Gregory Macdonald, who added harmony vocals and even played some bass.

For an encore, Scott was back in front, with birthday privileges. After a ripping cover of the Descendents’ “Catalina,” the group paid tribute to the recently broken-up Guided By Voices, who had been scheduled to play the main space that night. The volume and fuzz went up a notch, and rousing takes on the less familiar “Some Drilling Implied” and “Tractor Rape Chain” followed. The latter became a sing-along for an audience that didn’t see anything odd about howling out the nonsensical title phrase as if it were the national anthem. Finally, the band launched into the perennial set-closing “Money City Maniacs,” which involves huge, Cheap Trick-reminiscent chords, lusty clapping of hands and a shout-along chorus that rhymes “The joke is” with “Coke fizz” to glorious effect.

Despite a few audience members conspicuously singing along to every single lyric, the garrulous and charming Murphy acknowledged that Sloan might be new to some and even thanked those who dragged their spouses with them. With their regular-guy personae and gale-force performance, it’s a sure bet that Sloan made a few more converts last night.

--taken from: Indy Week

Canadian alternative ‘niche band’ Sloan come to Boot & Saddle

--taken from: Philly.com

by Allie Volpe

Despite releasing 11 albums over two decades, Sloan's music features a timelessness where you're not really sure what year it came out in. Although their methods have skewed more independent than collaborative, they've managed to keep a good thing going since the early '90s. Though when it came to their latest effort, the four members of the Canadian alt-rock outfit — Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland and Andrew Scott — each decided to do their own thing.

“I don’t think the goal was to be cohesive,” said Patrick Pentland, one-fourth of the multi-instrumentalist, songwriter extraordinaire group playing Boot and Saddle on Sunday, Nov. 16, said of Commonwealth, released on Sept. 9. “I think the goal was to have four people present what they want. It sort of defeats the purpose of doing four separate EPs or records.”

Commonwealth is an impressive double album designed to give each member a moment in the spotlight, each song on the respective member’s portion of the album effortlessly bleeding into one another. The release is essentially a series of four EPs in which each guy has independently written and recorded his quarter of the album, over its 15 songs and 58 minutes (the last track being an impressive near 18 minutes).

Aimed ideally for vinyl with no apparent listening order for each EP, Commonwealth assigns each member of the band a card suit (Ferguson with diamonds, Murphy on hearts, Pentland taking over clubs, and Scott’s spade) and lets the listener decide which way they’d like to tackle the records.

“The initial intention was for it to be listened to as almost four separate releases in that it was supposed to be four solo EPs supposed to be released at the same time,” Pentland continues.

Shorter than KISS’s 1978 release of four solo albums, in which each member essentially recorded a full album, Sloan wrote Commonwealth in essentially the same manor as they always have: each guy penning his own tunes, almost independently records them, save for drums and keyboards, and they get put on an album. Only this time the sequence makes a whole lot of difference — and the amount of airtime, so to speak, each member gets is equal.

However, they’ve never been one to collectively sit down as a group and write an album together. It almost seems like that would be too easy. Individually writing and recording their own respective songs, then deciding which ones would make the cut has been common practice.

“The overall idea was for each member to present what they wanted to present musically at the time,” Pentland said.

Revealing that Sloan “don’t always get along as a band,” there seldom comes a time when other members speak out or “veto” each other’s work when compiling an album, resulting in very little compromising in each individual’s artistic presentation. “Rarely does anyone speak up and say to somebody else ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’” he said. “We usually know individually what’s working and what’s not working.”

And it’s been working for over two decades. Working through rocky times in the past and never considering a personnel change, Sloan has simply existed in the music sphere, emerging in the grunge era and withstanding the digital revolution.

“Any band is just the sum of all of its parts, so if someone’s not happy or weak in their playing, there’s a multitude of reasons where bands’ lineups change,” Pentland explains. “There’s four principal songwriters in Sloan. Because we all sing and produce in the band, we have more invested in the band.”

Coming up in the early 1990s, when a lot was happening musically (the Beastie Boys, R.E.M. and Alice in Chains all put out albums in 1992, when Sloan’s debut Smeared was released), Sloan — the-not-really-punk, too-clean-to-be-grunge, straightforward, melodic rock — was just trying to find their way. “I think that for awhile, especially at the beginning, we were interested in what was going on with our peers and bands who were kind of like us but more successful. We were obviously looking to be as successful as say, Weezer, or something like that.”

But as time went on and the musical landscape shifted, it became less about what the competition was doing and how they can adequately maintain artistic integrity while still earning a paycheck — which comes down to first having their accessible and withstanding tunes listened to. “I wouldn’t say we’re a household name in Canada, but we’re much more known. In the U.S., we’re seen as a niche band or a boutique band,” Pentland notes.

Credit it to the “hipster mentality” of listeners holding a band close simply out of fear of them getting “too cool,” or what Pentland calls the “underdog status.”

“I feel like we’re kind of trapped as that,” he continues. “We’re in our mid-40s and its not like were going to be on posters on teenagers’ walls.”

Though Pentland was quick to follow up with, “We’re comfortable where we are. There are bands as successful or unsuccessful as we are.”

And that seems to be enough, still “selling out” enough to play festivals and make videos, Pentland declares that it’s still their job to make music, art form or not: “Integrity is great, but you don’t have to go crazy with it,” following up with “Don’t be too precious about it, nothing will be cool enough.”

Generally playing larger shows and festivals in their native Canada and appealing to more “general audiences,” claims Pentland, Sloan tours in the U.S. typically have the band coming through smaller venues like Philly’s Boot and Saddle. However, given their large repertoire, they eliminate the need for an opening act.

Breaking down “An Evening with Sloan” into two sets, the first portion of the performance focuses heavily on Commonwealth while, after an intermission, the latter half features singles, and more recently, deeper cuts — all while switching singing duties, playing frontman for his own songs.

However, sometimes transforming recorded versions of the songs into something adaptable in a live condition, can get a little tricky, particularly with Commonwealth’s nearly 18-minute suite “Fourty-Eight Portraits,” which, yes — they’re playing live. “It took us about two weeks to get it proper.”

Beyond 2014, Pentland is excited for what lays ahead. They’ll finish touring, he’ll welcome a new baby to the brood and Sloan will look to prepping a re-release for 2016, the second time they’ve done so after giving 1994’s Twice Removed the same treatment in 2012.

“Who knows what the record industry is going to be like by then?” he wondered.  “We’ve seen the industry change many times. We’ve lasted through the whole mp3/Napster thing and now there’s the whole vinyl thing. I think the way people consume music is changing again. The way music is delivered is changing, but people still want to listen to it.”

--taken from: Philly.com

Sloan shows off the sum of its parts at Great Scott

--taken from: Boston Globe

by Maura Johnston

In certain rock circles, the term pop often refers to bands that are just a bit too good at crafting memorable hooks and surrounding them with rich harmonies, incisive lyrics, and intuitive yet surprising instrumental twists. The Canadian quartet Sloan probably sums up the rock purist’s platonic pop ideal: Over two-plus decades together, the band has consistently released smart, hooky rock, from “Underwhelmed,” an early-career ode to romantic and linguistic misunderstandings, to “Unkind,” a stripped-down 2011 take on big-tent AOR.

Sloan’s 11th album, “Commonwealth,” is a double disc with a twist: Each of four LP sides is themed after a card deck’s suit, and given over to one band member’s creative vision. Sloan has moved as a unit so fluidly over its career, with members switching off on instrumental and vocal duties, that the pick-a-side proposal is utterly appealing, showing just how each part of the band contributes to its precision-grade whole.


Thursday night’s two-set show at Great Scott opened with “Forty Eight Portraits,” the sprawling suite that serves as Commonwealth’s closing statement. The brainchild of Andrew Scott, it has moments of Stones swagger and ELO pomp, topped off by a shout-out to Lou Reed. Drawing a crowd in with a nearly 20-minute shapeshifter would be a risky opening gambit for nearly anyone, but here, the room was drawn right in, shimmying and clapping along.

Set One was heavy on “Commonwealth” tracks. Patrick Pentland took the spotlight for the swaggering “Keep Swinging (Downtown)” and “13 (Under a Bad Sign),” his husky rasp giving the harmonies behind him a slightly sinister edge. Next was Jay Ferguson, whose “Commonwealth” contributions might be the album’s most candy-coated; the gooey “You’ve Got A Lot On Your Mind” showcased Sloan’s ability to play feather-light love songs. And Chris Murphy’s “You Don’t Need Excuses to Be Good,” which closed out the opening half, served the same role as synthesis as on the record: It’s sweet and sour, crisp and loose, compressing decades of radio-ready rock into three minutes and change.

The rest of the night was given over, for the most part, to Sloan’s vast catalog. The siren call of “Money City Maniacs,” the chiming urgency of “500 Up,” the resigned gloominess of “The Other Man”: Each has different stylistic appeal, but all contributed to a night that could have lasted for another two hours without exhausting Sloan’s many hits or the out-past-midnight crowd.

--taken from: Boston Globe

Sloan goes solo, sort of, on new record Commonwealth

--taken from: Metro News

by Trevor Greenway

Members of the Canadian rock band Sloan are literally getting their own 15 minutes of fame.

On their new album Commonwealth, each of the quartet’s members  got a side of the double vinyl record to use as an open canvas  – Canadian democracy at its finest.

It’s a way for the band to put out that inevitable solo record that aging rockers usually venture into without going on a hiatus or breaking up.

“Our band is probably one of the few bands where everybody could actually make a solo record if they chose to, because everybody sings and writes and plays different instruments,” said Jay Ferguson, who is typically the band’s rhythm guitarist.

On Commonwealth, he sings, shreds and hammers on the drums – skills he will put on display during the band’s Ottawa stop Nov. 28 at Mavericks.

“We thought we would do it all under the guise of Sloan and make a double album where everybody gets their own 15 minutes of real estate to do exactly what they want,” he said.

For guitarist Andrew Scott, he takes a bit more time, occupying his side with one epic track worth 17 minutes. Much of the album still sounds like classic Sloan, but each side has its distinct flavour – from the heavy, catchy riffs that made the band popular in the 90s to the more melodic tones that made 2001’s Pretty Together so fluid.

The beauty of releasing a solo album together as a band for Ferguson is that he gets to hear three-quarters of the record as a fan – something he hasn’t really experienced in the band’s 23-year career.

“I am a fan of the other people in the band, so almost reacting to it as a fan, it’s fun to listen to what I would imagine a Chris (Murphy) solo record to sound like,” said Ferguson.

“From a fan perspective, I like the record and I hope other people do to.”

--taken from: Metro News

Farrell Four: Pick hits for weekend club shows

--taken from: Buffalo News

by Michael Farrell

Notes on the confoundedly cult (in America) quartet’s show have already lined this publication’s Gusto pages and website. But when there’s the chance to see a band of Sloan’s ilk tour through two decades of clap-happy pop gems, harmonious staples and Gibson-driven greats within a cozy joint like the Tralf, that chance needs to be mentioned twice. Or three times, just to shake you into coherence of the fact that, yes, you need to see Halifax’s finest knife through “Twice Removed” and “Never Hear The End Of It,” classics amid examples of Sloan’s endurance via last month’s excellent “Commonwealth.” Conclusion: Get to the Theater District on Sunday night.

--taken from: Buffalo News

Sloan’s commonwealth approach to music breeds success

--taken from: The Detroit News

Canadian rock group Sloan evenly splits its money, songwriting duties as it nears 25 years of making music.

by Adam Graham

It’s not easy to keep a band together for nearly 25 years. Just ask the members of Sloan.

The Canadian rockers — Chris Murphy, Jay Ferguson, Andrew Scott and Patrick Pentland, all of whom trade off singing and instrumental duties within the band — have weathered all sorts of storms since forming in 1991 and are now 11 albums deep into a career that has been a model of consistency and longevity.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been bumps in the road. Ask Murphy how he and his bandmates are getting along these days. “It’s like, well, how are the Baldwin brothers these days? They all hate each other, but they’re brothers,” he says. “It’s the exact same dynamic we have going.”

Sloan has nearly broken up twice — in 1994 and 2006 — but has stuck it out and continues to play on, and will perform at Saint Andrew’s Hall Saturday. Just like the Baldwin Brothers aren’t breaking up, neither is Sloan.

The band’s commercial success over the years has been moderate — “we play the same venues we played in 1993,” Murphy notes — which has helped keep them both level-headed and hungry. (Because of Detroit’s proximity to Canada — and its airplay on CIMX-FM (88.7), especially in the ’90s — Sloan has always enjoyed a healthy fanbase in the Motor City.)

“We’ve never been insanely successful, but we’ve never been so unsuccessful that we can’t continue,” says Ferguson, who, like all four members of the band, contributes equally to the group’s songwriting. “If we were so successful, if we were all billionaires, it would be like, ‘Hey, we don’t have to make any albums anymore!’ And we’ve never made so little money that we can’t continue to do it. We’re kind of in that middle mode where it’s almost like a small business: We have to keep releasing music or reissues or keep playing shows in order to keep paying ourselves. It’s the best job in the world, but it is our job, and we have to keep working in order to make ends meet.”

One of the ways they’ve been able to make ends meet is by evenly splitting all the band’s revenues four ways. “We’re the ultimate mutual fund,” Ferguson says. That democracy spills over into the group’s shared songwriting duties, and means if one member does well, everyone benefits: “If somebody doesn’t have a lot of songs, someone else does,” says Ferguson. “And if somebody hasn’t written any hits, someone else has a song that will do well at radio.”

Those business practices have kept the band members happy, but they haven’t been able to fix all the day-to-day issues of being a band. The closest Sloan ever came to breaking up was in 1994: The band had just split from Geffen Records, which released the band’s second album, “Twice Removed,” and the rigors of touring and big label shenanigans had taken their toll.

The band members decided to go their separate ways in December of that year, but they still had a number of tour dates scheduled into summer 1995, which they decided to play for the paychecks.

“A lot of those were cynical, (poor) shows that I didn’t want to play, but we needed the money,” says Murphy. “Jay and I were running (the band’s label) Murderecords. That’s how we spent all our time, promoting bands that didn’t make any money, but it was fun to do. And I was touring that year in a band called the Super Friendz. But we gradually got back together. It was like, ‘Let’s make one more record, let’s make a record to support Murderecords, it will be our last record.’ And gradually through 1996 it got to be more and more, and we figured more and more that we were going to continue to be a band.”

They soldiered on, but the band went through a period of self-examination around 2006 when a lot of what Scott refers to as “petty resentment” with his bandmates boiled over and needed to be addressed. Through a series of sit-downs, they were able to get past them and move forward.

“We all came to the realization that we are all very different human beings with different wants and expectations. But we have built something we can’t explain; at some base chemical level it works, and a lot of people really enjoy it,” says Scott. “So why let the little things cloud the meat of the matter?”

Some things still bother Scott, but he doesn’t let them derail the band.

“In some ways we’re operating better than we ever have, on all pistons.” he says. “We’ve got a lot of water under our bridges and a lot of time with one another, and it’s literally like another family. It’s got all the dysfunctionality of any family, but once you wade through all that petty surface (nonsense), you focus on what matters.”

Sloan’s latest album, “Commonwealth,” was released in September and is the band’s first since 2011’s “The Double Cross.”

“This time it was like, what should we do next?” says Pentland. “We could just turn out another record, or we could try to do something a little different.”

They decided on the latter, splitting up the album four ways and giving each member about 15 minutes to play with however he saw fit. Everyone came up with a handful of songs, save for Scott, who put together a nearly 18-minute suite titled “Forty-Eight Portraits.”

“It didn’t end up being that much different than what we would normally do, in terms of the types of songs,” Pentland says. “It’s just they’re in a row.”

The album is sequenced like four solo EPs: Ferguson’s set opens the record, followed by Murphy and Pentland, while Scott’s section closes the album. In the album artwork, each member is assigned a suit like a deck of cards: Ferguson is the Diamond, Murphy the Heart, Pentland the Club and Scott the Spade.

Pentland’s approach was originally much different, but he let practicality take over: “After a while, I just said, ‘I’ll put out songs that I want to be playing live for the next year.’ ”

That’s where Sloan is these days: Musically ambitious and creatively restless but mindful of the task at hand.

Looking back at the band’s lengthy career, Scott says if there was one song to sum up Sloan, it would be the opening song off of 1996’s “One Chord to Another.” It was one of the first songs the guys recorded after nearly calling it quits, and it wound up becoming the biggest single of the band’s career.

It’s title? “The Good in Everyone.”

--taken from: The Detroit News

Power Pop Purists: After 25 Years, Sloan is Still Going Strong

--taken from: Cleveland Scene

by Jeff Niesel

When the power pop group Sloan formed in Halifax in 1991, there was a thriving indie rock scene. Hard to believe that such a remote part of Canada would have such a vibrant scene, but Sloan singer-drummer Andrew Scott says the environment helped bring the members of Sloan together.

“There was a very fertile music scene there long before we came around,” says Scott. “It was a very art-rock and punk-rock scene. It was huge and hugely influential on all of us. We all had bands prior to this band too. Halifax was a small enough town that everyone knew everybody because the scene was so insular.”

By what Scott calls a “weird stroke of luck,” the band signed to Geffen Records shortly after forming. The label released the band’s acclaimed studio debut, Smeared, in 1993. But it quickly became apparent things weren’t going to work out so well with Geffen.

“We played a show in L.A. and had Weezer open for us,” says Scott. “Our record was thrown against the wall and Weezer’s was thrown against the wall. Which one stuck? It’s a total random lottery. The major labels were going through this huge upheaval and everyone was going through this uncertainty. No one knew if they were going to have a job in the morning. Our band was this weird band from Canada. It’s like the people at the label thought, ‘They have four songwriters. How do you market that?’ The mentality was lazy and risk averse.”

Scott says there was even some talk of ditching the four singer-songwriter concept and having bassist Chris Murphy handle all the vocals, something that went against the band’s nature.

“That defeats the aim of what we set out to do,” says Scott. “At that point, they buried us. The learning curve was pretty vertical for us. We were pretty young and right out of the gate we were on this massive American label. We put out two records with them. Looking back, we don’t have any regrets. It was all as it should have been. Had we been super successful as a result of that, we probably wouldn’t be around today.”

The band hasn’t just survived. It’s thrived. Its latest release, Commonwealth, is a double album with each member staking out a single side. It commences with punchy, Beatles-like “We’ve Come This Far” and then concludes with “Forty-Eight Portraits,” an 18-minute pop suite. The album embraces a wide range of musical styles as each of Sloan’s four members draws from a different set of influences.

“We’ve always been a band that’s boasted four singers and songwriters,” says Scott. “We’ve always tried to dissuade anyone from putting out a solo record. No one has ever felt that desire because they get to do whatever the fuck you want in the context of the band. We had talked about the notion [of making an album divided into four sides] over the years. This was the time where it made sense for us. We just said, ‘Fuck it. Let’s do it. Everybody gets a side of wax. Everyone can curate their own real estate and do whatever the hell we want.’ It’s not different from how we’ve made records in the past. People can make decisions but it comes down to he who is working on his stuff. That’s always the case with our records but this is one is laid out a little more clearly.”

And yet the album still sound cohesive — not that that’s something Scott says is intentional.

“I can’t see it or hear it objectively,” he says. “I’m too inside the glass box. I know what you mean and that term ‘cohesive’ has been bandied about for so many years. Or not cohesive. I don’t give a shit. It just comes out the way it comes out and you can take it or leave it.”

So, what has been the key to keeping the band going for so long with no line-up changes?


“I think it’s many fold,” says Scott. “We appreciate the line of work. We don’t make a lot of money, but we all own homes in downtown Toronto. We’re making a living but it’s not high on the hog. That’s not what it was about anyway. It was never intended as a get rich quick scheme. We wanted to make art and share it with whoever was into it. We’re fortunate to still be doing it 25 years down the road. I think we make relevant, quality work, which is the most important thing because the records we leave behind will remain in the history books so to speak. In my opinion, if our most recent record isn’t as good as or better than the last one, then that’s when my red flag goes up. It’s the personal quality control that you have to constantly monitor.”

--taken from: Cleveland Scene

Sloan performs Sunday in the Tralf

--taken from: The Buffalo News

by Jeff Miers

Taking a page from the Beatles’ “White Album,” Sloan has taken the “separate but together” concept to its ultimate zenith with “Commonwealth,” an album that grants each of the Canadian band’s four members a full “album side” to use as they wish. It helps that all four musicians in the storied alt-pop outfit are excellent songwriters, singers and multi-instrumentalists. Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Andrew Scott and Patrick Pentland have long presented distinct personalities as composers, and it is the commingling of these idiosyncratic musical personae that conjures the band’s magic.

Giving each other space, respect and equal time at bat is an awfully smart way to keep a band together for 20 years, particularly when cult-level stardom is the order of the day. This has always worked for Sloan, with each member aiding in the creation of alt-pop masterpieces like “One Chord To Another,” “Navy Blues” and “Pretty Together.” Interestingly, though “Commonwealth” finds each member working in isolation from his band mates, the result is still an album that sounds hopelessly like Sloan. Hook-heavy, far from stingy with the killer guitar riffs and stuffed with the left-of-center power-pop that always has been the band’s stock in trade, it’s another high point in a career now entering its third decade.

--taken from: The Buffalo News

The Four Equal Sides Of Canadian Quartet Sloan

--taken from: Hartford Courant

by Michael Hamad

Most rock bands, even ones who claim to be democratic, have one, maybe two members who do most of the band-fronting and songwriting.

Canadian rock quartet Sloan makes consistently great records that equally represent each guy, more or less, and they've done so from around the time they started releasing albums in the early '90s. Sloan isn't paying lip service to the idea of democracy; every album has at least one song written and sung by Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland and Andrew Scott (listed here in alphabetical order). They all sing. They switch instruments.

This is not news. Writers who've covered Sloan over the years often lead with the band's democratic arrangement and enviable longevity. The band knows it.

"At this point in our music-making," Murphy, who usually plays bass or drums, said, "when we go to make a record, we ask ourselves: 'What is the hook of the album?' If you want to get written about, what do you do? We don't have that sexy a story. We have a moderate success. None of us have dated celebrities. No one is in rehab. We're not a very sexy story. The story for the past 10 years, if anybody has written anything about us, it's usually, 'How do they do it? I can't believe they're still together.'"

Another thing writers often point out: Sloan can sound like the Beatles, or Big Star, or any of the better power-pop acts with roots in the '60s or '70s. They're all, consistently, pretty great. "For better or worse, I think of my songs as being interchangeably appropriate for any record that we've done since our second record," Murphy said. "Our first record was very of-the-times: 1991, 1992. Everything from then on, we strived to make essentially timeless."

There have been other hooks in recent years. Sloan's last album, "The Double Cross," celebrated their twentieth (XX) anniversary; before that, in 2006, they released "Never Hear the End of It," with a whopping 30 songs. Sloan's latest release, the double-wide "Commonwealth," released this past September, gives a full album side to each band member, to do with as they will. "We just thought it would be a fun thing, and if any band could do it, we have positioned ourselves to be that band," Murphy said. "The number of bands that could really pull off a record where everyone is given an equal platform is small. Not that the whole world is listening, but those who are listening are prepared for this kind of thing from us… It's the culmination of us taking great pains to invest in each of us as songwriters, a celebration of the fact that we can do it. It's sort of a show-off move."

Ferguson, usually a guitarist, turned his side into a song cycle, with segues and connective tissue: the melody of "You Got a Lot on Your Mind," the second song, returns during "Cleopatra," his fourth song. The first of Murphy's three songs fit well together; arguably, so does the fourth, but not the fifth. Guitarist Pentland's statement is one of non-compliance: he doesn't connect the dots, but rather turns in characteristically strong individual songs. Scott, a virtuoso drummer and an excellent guitar player, created an 18-minute suite out of short fragments, with no individual markings along the way. On vinyl, "Commonwealth" doesn't have a Side One, Side Two, and so on, and digitally, they're arranged by alphabetical order by writer. Everyone gets paid equally. The sides aren't available for individual purchase. "We thought that might be our undoing," Murphy said.

Sloan arrives in Connecticut — possibly for the first time ever — on Nov. 10, when they play the Ballroom at the Outer Space in Hamden. Touring, Murphy said, happens every 18 months or so, for a few weeks at a time. "It's not like Metallica, where we're like, 'Where are we, Istanbul?' We're either in the Northeastern states, four cities in the Western States or Canada. That's basically our world at this point. We could go abroad and play nice shows in, like, Sydney, Australia or Tokyo, but it doesn't make financial sense for us." The band makes most of its money playing shows in Canada. Their profile is higher at home than here, but still fairly modest.

"Sometimes I hear people talk about us like we're massive stars in Canada, which is not true," Murphy said. "But we have been on T.V. or on the radio, so we have a band that people have heard of. We enjoy bigger shows up here and also more moneymaking opportunities... We're a band that has been on the radio for the past 20 years. But in the states: I always joke that as we travel south and our powers diminish, we're more and more of a credibility band, so if you know about us, you'll fight for us."

--taken from: Hartford Courant