Broken Social Scene
by Adam Baidawi
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This story first appeared in PAPER.
Brendan Canning is wrecked. He’s sitting on a velvet couch backstage at Splendour in the Grass, and he’s wrecked.
But, damn it, this is Australia’s Sunshine Coast, it’s nearly 80 degrees out and Canning’s ever-morphing musical collective, Broken Social Scene — whose ranks have been infiltrated by the high profile likes of Feist, k-os and Metric — are playing festival’s closing night.
Forgiveness Rock Record (the band’s fifth LP) is the ever-ambitious, ever-emotive catalyst behind the group’s exhaustive globetrotting — and it’s taken them to all ends. Canning, who with songwriting partner-in-crime Kevin Drew founded the group in 1999, has been in transit for over a day after playing Japan’s iconic Fuji Rock Festival. Frankly, with his decidedly Christmas-y cream wool sweater and fitted chinos, the guy looks like he’s still on Mount Naeba.
“What’s today?” he grins behind wispy blonde locks. “This is crazy.”
Canning looks to the sky and tries to recount his itinerary on one hand.
“Well, we played Fuji on Friday, before that it was Singapore, before that it was Taipei. When we come over here, those are sort of our stops.”
“To get here from Japan…we left Fuji Rock, which is five hours drive from the airport — then it’s nine hours to Sydney, then racing to make sure you get your bags on the next flight to Brisbane, then the drive here and…”
Thankfully, the mood surrounding him is equally as weary. The sun is setting on day three of the merriment, and the festival is utterly hung over (Julian Casablancas and his Strokes made sure of this the evening before).
This international tour has proven one of their most demanding yet, an apt response to the much-loved latest Broken Social offering. Following up their previous album’s critically acclaimed art-rock soundscapes was always going to prove a tough ask, but Forgiveness Rock Record stood tall.
The collective’s once loose, dreamy song structures were masterfully tailored into a grand sonic narrative of huge post-rock peaks, melancholic lows and pristine atmospheric pop. It’s as satisfying as they’ve ever sounded — and with the legs of their back catalogue, that’s no mean feat.
“The songs are sounding good live — that’s our barometer,” Canning nods. “Are the songs working live? Do we like playing them? Are we getting good responses? It’s starting fresh with this record. We’re pleased with how it’s going. We’re looking to get the next record out of the gate at some point next year, too.”
Remarkably, it’s been more than a decade since Canning and Drew formed the group. In the years since, the band’s elders have had more than enough time (and evidently, transits) to reflect on their journey.
“Especially when you watch The Story of Anvil — it was this documentary I watched on the plane over here. It’s about a band from the suburbs of Toronto that has been at it since the ‘80s and is still slogging away. No real “peak” since 1983. Fucking intense.”
Canning leans in, explaining himself.
“You take stock: if the plane went down today — God forbid — I would be able say that I’m relatively satisfied with my life achievements to this point. There’s lots of stuff I’d still like to do. But, so far I think we’re doing okay! Don’t want to do too much patting on the back after a decade.”
Suddenly, traffic around our couch picks up, crashing Canning’s train of thought — the festival is persisting forward. Broken Social Scene are on stage in two hours. Not much time for rituals, then.
“I got two hours? Eating, and coffee, that’ll take up an hour. A little warm up, a little stretching of the muscles,” he shrugs. “In a perfect world I would have four more hours sleep, throw down a yoga mat and stretch out for a half hour.”
Canning squints his eyes at the afternoon sun and stretches across the couch. He’s a weathered soldier, no doubt: aged as whimsically as his band. The decade has changed him.
It may be for the better.
“My throat’s pretty sore, I probably shouldn’t smoke any weed. And not before a gig, either — I think those days are over,” he grins, sitting up.
“My guitar parts are starting to get a little tricky.”