Words by Nicholas Fox Ricciardi

Only a few months after the Arcade Fire sell out the Mercury Lounge during CMJ, fellow Montreal-based band, Stars, follow suit. Coming out of months of seclusion and songwriting in the remote woods of North Hatley in Quebec, they have emerged with their new album, Set Yourself on Fire, and that infinitely varied word “buzz.” The new record and the supporting tour reflect changes in the band in terms of songwriting, rotating members, and the ambitions of the individual members in the future. Only a couple hours before Stars are to go on stage, keyboardist and one of the band’s principle songwriters, Chris Seligman, and new guitarist, Steve Ramsay, lie on beds at the nearby Howard Johnson, completely engrossed in an episode of American Idol. They seem to be watching out of a desire to not be stimulated; yet simultaneously, they appear to be stupefied by the grossly American phenomenon. With American Idol on mute, I learn that the uncanny relationship between the Canadian band and their identification as such – either by the media or themselves – and their American audience factors into their individual contributions to Stars, as well as into what they communicate as a band. This sentiment would be reiterated the next day by Torquil Campbell, vocalist and songwriter, as he traveled with the band across the American-Canadian border.

How was writing the new album different from your past experiences?
Chris: [Before this album], I would just work by myself, kinda write out a whole song and come up with the use of samples and loops and that kind of stuff – keyboard-based stuff – and I would lay it out for [Torq], and he would come and write a song around it. At that point, I worked a little with James from Metric; that was how we wrote originally. On the second record, Evan took over on bass. We were still kind of writing [and] arranging on a computer. It was still the same kind of vibe, done in my home studio.
The second record took two years. [On the new album], it was more in-the-moment writing. Instead of going to the computer to arrange, we had Patty on the drums, and it was freeing in a way. We went up to North Hatley, and that was like a month. We had a pretty good idea structurally how the songs were sounding. We laid down live drums and bass and keyboards. After months of that, we went on tour and came back to record the album. I think we’re really growing a lot right now; very emotional individually. I think it’ll be a very interesting six months: we’re gonna be playing a lot and on the road a lot. I think the band is kind of going through a metamorphosis. Peoples’ relationships are changing [...] people sort of shifted around where they’re living. Now for more than one member of the band, there are two big music projects. It’s a lot about handling changes.

How do you feel the lyrics reflect the music?
Chris: The music happens first, but somehow it kind of makes sense. They fit, it just happens naturally.

A lot of the lyrics involve recounting past relationships or having an encounter with someone from the past. Are these imagined experiences?
Torq: It’s all imaginings; these things come from elements of life. The lyrics are these things that happen to people every day; they aren’t about me personally. I think if I were to think about things like that, I’m not sure I could do it properly, because one person seems mundane, but to make it universal you start to work with archetypes, and it somehow grows in meaning to me. It makes it easier to write a song if you think more universally about it.

I find in listening to your record, and in listening to the recent Arcade Fire [also from Montreal and friends of the band] record, there is this rehashing of the past in the lyrics, often painfully, which is then transformed into a present experience of that past, in an effort to make that past less painful, and maybe even beautiful. Although reversion to childlike re-enchantment isn’t possible, it often seems like your music is an effort to undo the disenchantment of past experiences by redefining and re-imagining these experiences in the present.
Chris: I think that is a great way of describing it. You’re infusing your present with your past, so you deconstruct that linear way of thinking.
Torq: I think that’s something that people do when they get to our age; you know, in their late 20s and early 30s. There is a kind of romantic haze over youth, and instead of being a painful recent memory, it becomes a kind of hazy time in your mind when things seemed hard, but somehow were beautiful and were constantly very meaningful. There was constant revelation and constant change. And as you grow older, things-changing-around-you and you-staying-the-same starts to increase, and I think the lyrics in some sense attempted to address that feeling and that sense of nostalgia for your own life. The things that made us feel awkward in the past turn out to be these moments of beauty.
Chris: I always find it tough to articulate what it is that I’m doing, cause it seems it has its own energy at this point. Prospectively, you wonder why you are doing it. It is disenchantment of the world and life and trying to find the beauty in it, and expressing that through art is such a heavy thing to be able to do, you know? To create bodies of work that affect people. That it is helping people get by on a day-to-day.
Steve: [Also, Torq and Chris] are childhood friends, and this is a project that reflects an idea they started when they were 10.

Do you think these efforts are particular to Canadian artists at the moment, in a way?
Steve: Not necessarily. The Flaming Lips might be the greatest example of a band that’s doing that. One of things Wayne Coyne says when he comes out is “I know you probably think this is like an adult kids’ birthday party.”
Chris: There is definitely this focus on Canadian artists right now. I think its based on the honesty of it. There’s not a lot of phoniness about it – it’s really emotionally pure. In a way, Canadians have a little more freedom to do that. Back in the ’80s, there was a lot of funding for music schools–for our generation, it was a pretty good time. There was just a lot of base and money for kids to learn about music and feel safe, to facilitate that part of them.
Steve: In Montreal, bands can develop in relative obscurity without needing the support. I mean, I can’t imagine being a poor band in New York.
Chris: The way of life in Montreal is just really conducive; you can get by on very little. There is a community that is supporting each other. I guess that life isn’t just about money, making a buck in Montreal. I mean, you’ve gotta make money, but it’s not the focus. I think everywhere you live will affect your sound. That’s the fascinating thing about creating music: where does it come from and how does it develop. If we didn’t do the record in North Hatley, would the record be completely different? I think that’s just a natural circumstance of where you live, and who you are as people and the relationships you have, and it’s all gonna affect the sound.
Steve: I certainly grew up listening to live radio things, but I listened to British music growing up. It could be influences are really different; it might have been a little more of a British influence. We all listened to romantic pop growing up. It’s like guys who grew up in Toronto, lived in New York, influenced by British music, making it in French-Canadian woods – it’s all that mashed together.

At the same time, I also think it is hard for people to sometimes identify their own disenchantment, as might be the case in America’s current sociopolitical environment. It just seems like the American audience is looking to Canadian bands–
Torq: [interrupting] We’re in Canada – PHEW! I feel better already. Now I can smoke weed and not fear life imprisonment. Speaking of which–I think that America very often in times of change and division seems to go outside and look for things from the outside. There is a desire to reinvent themselves in America–it tends to be a very solipsistic country [yet] it also has that sense of real wonder. There is that element of it.