--taken from:
New Glasgow News
by Amanda Jess
Q & A with Jay Ferguson
The music of Toronto-based, but Nova Scotia-bred rock band Sloan spans more than 20 years, garnering a long discography, including 11 original full-length albums.
Their latest – Commonwealth – came out in September 2014. They toured the United States and Western Canada, and are headed to the Maritimes this week starting at Glasgow Square March 4. Tickets are $35 + fees for the 8 p.m. show. Arts reporter Amanda Jess caught up with Jay Ferguson.
This Q&A has been edited for clarity and condensed for length.
Q: Your new album takes a different approach. What made you want to go in that direction?
A: The approach this time was making a real, double LP, where everybody sings and writes, and everybody takes turns. First off, we’ve been a band for so long; sometimes it’s fun to come up with different approaches for making a new record.
A normal Sloan record, there’d be a Chris song, then an Andrew song, then a Patrick, then one of mine, spread out democratically. This time, we did it less of a democratic record, or maybe it’s the ultimate democratic record, I don’t know.
Everybody kind of has a mini solo album on the record, except that it’s available as a double record, or a double vinyl.
It was a natural extension for our band to do because we could do it. I don’t think there’s a lot of bands that could do an album like this because not a lot of bands are made up of four singer/songwriters. And we thought it would be fun to do. Just this far into our career. It’s not like you need a gimmick. I don’t mean to sound we’re just trying to sell ourselves, but sometimes it’s nice to have an angle. So many people have written about our band, or talked about our band, it’s nice to have a fresh angle to talk about.
Q: Because you referred to your democratic approach, how do you think that affects your music and your dynamic as a band?
A: I think the way our process affects the music is that anybody can do whatever they want. If you had a song that was just vocals and piano, it could be a Sloan song. If you had a total hard rock song, it could be a Sloan song.
When we make our records, we’re not necessarily the same four of us playing on a song. Sometimes when Andrew records, who plays drums, he’ll often go in and play every instrument himself and layer the track. Other songs, we all play on the tracks. It’s rare for all of us to be playing our normal instruments on a song.
Because anybody who wrote the song is the boss of the song. It’s a bit of a mix-up and very piecemeal. For me personally, I think that makes for better records. It allows for records with more variety, which I would gravitate towards.
Q: Is Nova Scotia still home?
A: I’ve been living in Toronto since 1997, or 1998. The home where I grew up in, in Halifax, is no longer there. I don’t have any relatives left in Halifax. Or direct relatives, I should say.
I went there in May – my girlfriend and I went down just to drive around, and visited. My dad lives in Chester, so went there for a couple of days. Just driving around Nova Scotia, I realized how much I miss it. It’s so beautiful, in May, especially.
I often think, ‘oh my gosh, what am I doing living in Toronto?’ It’s so much nicer in Nova Scotia. Even though, Toronto is fine.
Is it home? I’m not sure. Part of me feels like it is home, in a way. I still feel like a bit of an interloper here in Toronto, like I’m just here temporarily. The longer I’m here, the more I feel like I’m here for a while. I don’t know. I love Nova Scotia, and I really miss it, for sure.
Q: I know you guys have made a couple of attempts to break into that United States market. Was that ever successful for you?
A: We were successful on a certain level. In the early to mid-90s, we were lucky enough to have videos played on MTV, or get a little airplay on commercial alternative radio.
We have good success down the East Coast from Boston to North Carolina, in the Midwest: Ohio, Chicago, and the West Coast.
There’s still enough of an audience interested that it’s always worthwhile.
Q: Why do you think you resonate more with the Canadian audience? Is it because we tend to claim our own?
A: You mean, the audience claiming us as their own? I think there’s a little bit of that with a lot of Canadian bands. I would find it the most with The Tragically Hip, who are, to me, the ultimate Canadian band.
I think sometimes with our band, or we noticed in early days, our band was a bit of an underdog band. Especially after our second album, and we left our American label, we thought our band might break up. Then we came back with our third album called One Chord to Another, and it was our best selling record.
The fact that we’ve stuck around this long, and kept at it with the same four members, maybe there’s a bit of a cheering the underdog situation.
Q: Canada in itself is an underdog, in a way, or underrated.
A: I’ve always felt that. The joke behind our second album, which is called Twice Removed, was that even the Maritimes was an underdog to the rest of Canada at times.
Q: What’s next for you?
A: The next project that we’re working on: a couple years ago, we reissued Twice Removed. We reissued it on vinyl in a box set with two extra LPs – one was full of demo recordings, and one had a bunch of outtakes. There was a 32-page book, and a 45. We made this deluxe edition for the fans, then we went on tour, playing the album Twice Removed, front to back. It did well; we sold out of them. It really resonated with the fans, so we’re going to do that again in 2016 for our third album, One Chord To Another.
--taken from:
New Glasgow News
