Eight years ago, a little-known Toronto band moved from New York City to the snowy land of Montreal. Since that day, the band has exploded in popularity across the continent. Yet Stars continues to emphasize that they are, above all, a Montreal band.
During their show at Metropolis last Friday, lead singer Torquil Campbell stressed how genuinely touched he was by what he referred to as the "hometown welcome" they received from the ecstatic crowd. There was barely room to move in the 2,300 capacity venue, and members of the audience sang the words of each song like a prayer. Clearly, Montreal and Stars were made for each other.
"We wanted to be in Canada, and did not want to be in Toronto," says Stars drummer, Patrick McGee. "For a bunch of poor people, it was the cheapest and most luxurious place to live in the entire continent. And it's a beautiful city, I think [the rest of the band] found it inspiring. Amy [Millan] had lived here before, she had gone to school here and knew about it, and it was close to New York and it was close to Toronto, so it just seemed like a really good idea. Sort of an affordable, decadent, kind of beautiful place to live."
Excelling in harmonic, elegant, dark-yet-energetic indie-pop, Stars have seen their star rise since their 2004 release Set Yourself on Fire. This was when Canadians first caught on to Stars' lush symphonies and endearing young-love vocals. Listeners were blown away by the intimate lyrics and singer Amy Millan's unique, ethereal voice.
Originally formed by Campbell and keyboardist Chris Seligman, Stars has stayed with their current lineup since moving to Montreal. The group's chemistry is such that everyone brings thier own unique flavour to the table.
"Evan is the interior decorator, and aesthetician perhaps," says McGee. "I'm-I don't want to say I'm the muscle, I'm a skinny guy-but I end up driving vans all over the place. Amy is our passionate accountant, she's the Viper. She keeps track of all the coming and goings of our money . . . Torq and Chris, I mean God, where do I begin? Those are the two guys who started the whole thing. They're kind of CEO, commander-in-chief. They are comic relief, mouth, and then the yin and the yang. … They're very much opposites and they're exactly the same. That's pretty amazing. They've been friends since they were eight years old, despite themselves. They love each other and hate each other, all in the same breath."
It's this intimate group dynamic that allows the band to work so well together and create such ambitious albums. Their last album, In Our Bedroom After the War, was celebrated by fans and critics alike. This record picked up where Set Yourself on Fire left off, yet with more energy and cohesion and a little less of their former melancholic vibe.
"I think it's a hopeful record … I think lyrically it's as depressing as the rest of Stars' records. But I guess the way it sounds, it does have a big hopeful sound to it," McGee says. "I think we wanted to do something bigger than we'd done before."
In Our Bedroom After the War tells of the turmoil of two lovers who cannot let go. The band worked on the album for over a year, working and re-working the music to get it right, trying to exceed Set Yourself On Fire while adding in a unifying narrative throughout the album. The process for their recent EP Sad Robots was significantly different.
"[That was a] completely different animal altogether. [With] Sad Robots we went into the studio with nothing, which is really uncharacteristic for us," says McGee. "I think we wanted to make something that went backwards a little bit, that harkened back to earlier days when things were a little rough-n-tumble and we didn't have any money to do stuff. … We were trying to keep it tight."
The six-song EP is noticeably darker and less upbeat than their previous albums, yet it still has the same electro-symphonic sound and soul-stirring vocals that you can depend on from Stars.
"There was kind of a feeling I had when we went in, I was feeling sort of melancholy at the time, I don't why, I wasn't depressed or anything, but … we wanted to go in and play music like sad machines … but give them a human feel, a human emotion," says McGee.
Yet onstage at Metropolis, despite a few robotic dance moves, the band looked and sounded as far from mechanical as possible. Beaming with delight at the enthusiastic crowd, the band threw roses from the stage, a stark reversal from the traditional act of fans throwing roses at performers. Clearly Stars wanted to give back to their fans and to the city that they've adopted as their own.
"I live just around the corner," Campbell proudly declared to the screaming fans, and both the audience and the performers seemed genuinely humbled that this was the case.
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