What initially brought all of you
together as a band?
Phil:
I was fresh out of finance studies, and I strongly felt like I had to escape
that world. I was drawn to the arts, and enrolled in film school. Shortly after
that, it became clear that music was a better path to explore for me so I
formed a band with a couple friends, but it didn’t work out. Nadim came to our
only show (in a basement) and asked me if I wanted to jam. And that’s pretty
much how it started. We then looked for other musicians in university jazz
combos where Nadim was playing, got Derek and Jon on board and started writing
tunes together. Last year, Jon left the band to pursue his studies and was
replaced by Evan.
Corporations usually operate from the
foundation of a mission statement. If your band has a mission statement how
would you describe it? In other words what do the members of your band believe
to be the purpose of the music you create?
Phil: We don’t have a mission statement per se. There is no grand purpose
to the music we are making, but we tend to create music that aims at taking
people outside of their listening comfort zone. This comes mainly from the fact
that we believe strongly in making music that we like as a group and we just
happen to enjoy more complex pop music. We’re not too worried about reactions
on the outside: we figured if all of us can agree on something, it must be
universal enough given how different we are from each other.
Nadim: Perhaps the most important purpose of our music is
to move people. I feel like our goal is to share feelings, thoughts and concerns
amongst each other (the band) and amongst our listeners. I believe that the
world is filled with bright, good intentioned people who feel same
discontentment with modern life as we do; I sense a universal dissatisfaction
all around. Since music is a powerful communication tool, I believe that our goal
is to use it as a weapon to scream out loud on the top of our lungs: We are not
alone, we’re all together in this and we all feel the same.
On your group’s bio, you mentioned the
synthesis of multiple cultural backgrounds from various band members that
results in the creation of your music. Do you find that music, more-so than any
other art-form, helps cultivate this type of unification amongst people of
different backgrounds or do you feel that art in general often serves as a
nexus for this sort of interaction?
Derek:
There are other art forms that allow for just as much teamwork and cultural
collaboration as music, so I wouldn't say music is alone in that respect. But
where music is unique is that it can, at times, be the most abstract art form.
There's an implicit mystery between what we hear and how it makes us feel, and
mostly through centuries of trial and error did we begin formalizing an
approach to harness that power. While our thoughts and opinions are things that
we discuss and try to convey through our lyrics, music, and engagement with the
public, I think they existed in the music even before we ever discussed or
wrote the band's first lyrics. Musical creation allows us to first discover our
feelings, and then through discussion and introspection we're able to
understand them.
Phil:
Rock Music is very interesting in that sense because it’s truly a universal
language. Being of multiple cultural backgrounds, we often find each other lacking
words to express ourselves, to resolve conflicts, and we often misinterpret
each other. When we play, all this goes away and we just switch to a whole
other mode of discussion. Musically, our differences are more manageable and
malleable. We are learning a new language together, and getting better at it
together. So naturally we start developing kinships and a strong common base on
which we each build our individual styles. This is one of the greater joys of
being in a band: collectively trying to figure out the complexities and
subtleties of playing music, to better communicate with each other and with our
audience.
Your band is based on Montreal Canada.
What, if any, are the differences between the American rock scene and the
Canadian rock scene, in your opinion?
Phil:
In Montreal’s rock scene there’s a very healthy competition between bands.
We’re not fighting for the spotlight. There’s a great sense of community to
varying degrees, and bands feed from each other. In our case, we have very high
respect for bands in our scene, we follow their work very closely and get
inspired by them big time, but we don’t get really close though because we are
quite intimidated sometimes. It’s a tricky thing to approach your inspirations
as buddies.
Derek: Having grown up in Massachusetts, the
impression I get from the American scene is that it's immensely diverse. There
are so many musical nexuses that foster very unique sounds. The New York sound
is distinct from the Portland sound that is distinct from the Austin sound,
etc. It's very cool to be able to hear common traits that link bands from one
specific area. This exists in Canada too, but if I were to generalize, there
are fewer distinct musical centers – Montréal, Toronto, Vancouver, etc. – and
there's a lot more in common between bands from these different cities. In a
way what's cool is this allows us to talk about the "Canadian sound",
whereas the "American sound" is so diverse that the term is almost
meaningless.
Coming from Montreal, are any of the
lyrics of your songs ever performed in French?
Phil:
I write lyrics in English, despite French being my first language. People
always ask me why, and I have no answer for it. If you push me, I might try to
figure it out and say that maybe French makes me feel a bit too vulnerable,
since it’s the language I think in. I also really like English as the language
of rock. It needs to be universal. If only more people spoke Esperanto!
The studio in which you recorded,
Fairytales from the Island, houses recording equipment used to record parts of
the album, Physical Graffiti. In recording your album there, did you
feel the "spirit" of Led Zeppelin or do you feel any influence from
bands such as Led Zeppelin, the Stones, etc in your music, or do your
influences derive from more obscure rock and roll bands?
Nadim: I
don’t specifically feel the spirit of Led Zeppelin at Breakglass but I do feel
a sort of timelessness there. There’s a nice contrast of old meets new that
makes us feel like we’re making music in modern times that is in continuum with
what the pioneers have started decades ago. Jace Lasek who recorded and
produced the record is also an interesting character, sometimes we feel like he
stopped ageing in 1975 until he pulls out his iphone to play scrabble with us.
In terms of influences however I’d say that ours are derived largely from
movies, comic books and novels. Musically tough, we’re influenced by very
diverse genres that go from jazz to rock, Arabic, French singer songwriters and
classical music; in general music that is very soulful.
Derek: While I
don't think the Neve Console itself had any influence on our mindset when
recording Fairytales, it was interesting to record that album onto tape
rather than straight to digital. That gave us a limitation of how many
instrument tracks we could have per song, and pressured us to get our
performances correct the first time through. We find that good art often arises
when the artist is faced with limitations. So while I wouldn't say we were
directly influenced by former rock gods during the recording, I think by using
some of the same equipment and facing some of the same limitations, our music
was influenced in the same way that theirs was.
Your music has a Brit-band feel on certain
tracks. Do you find English artists are an influence to you?
Nadim: Yes, definitely. Phil and I grew up in Beirut Lebanon
and during our teenage years we were more exposed to British music than we were
to American music. In the 90’s Lebanese kids were hooked on MTV Europe which
broadcasted tons Brit-pop as well as a few big American bands like Nirvana,
NIN, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers etc. When I compare my
knowledge of American bands with Derek’s who is from Massachusetts, I realize
how little I know of 90’s American rock.
What is the process by which your music
comes to be? Has that process changed throughout your five years of working
together? If so, in what ways has it changed?
Phil: At first, we used to write music
individually and bring it to the band. This is how fairytales was written. It
soon became clear that we wanted to collaborate from the inception of the song
so we started to create songs out of jams, or sometimes out of tiny fragments
of ideas that someone would propose. This new process allowed us to create
music that was more felt, and definitely more consensual. It is a better
reflection of us as a group.
This is a 2 part question: If you could
open for one band (still performing together or not), which band would it be?
Part 2: If you could have one band open for you, who would it be?
Phil:
Part 1 I’d love to open for Blur. That just entered the realm of the
“possible” as they seem to be slowly reforming. Otherwise, I’d love to open for
The Besnard Lakes, which have been a true inspiration to us. Part2 I’d also love it if
Radiohead could open for us one day. J
Derek:
as far as opening for us goes, I once saw Paul McCartney perform in Boston, and
rather than having an opening band he had an opening circus act! We're
definitely into expanding the possibilities of what a show can be; we had a
magician open for our first album release concert.
In comparing your first release with your latest EP, I find that
Fairytales from the Island has a bit more subtlety to it. It seems to have
somewhat of a softer, more refined feel. What has caused your music to evolve
into a harder, more alternative feel?
Phil:
When we wrote fairytales, there was a lot of attention to detail. We wanted to
prove that we could write intricate songs that were multi-layered without ever
going overboard. I think we really created a beautiful album, and I’m still
very proud of it. When we started playing the songs live, an unexpected raw
energy came out, and we found ourselves simplifying the songs, and making them
more visceral. It happened very naturally, and that signalled to us that the
band’s live character was more along those lines. The more we played, the more
the identity of the band shaped. With the new album, we wanted to capture that
on record, and we asked our producer to help us achieve that raw sound. So we
recorded the album in a manner that was as close to our live sound as possible:
we used our own equipment, sang on a standard live mic, and tried not to layer
the songs to the point that we couldn’t perform them live. That said, you’ll
find that some songs on the new album resemble Fairytales a bit more than what the EP is showcasing.
Nadim:
In addition, even though there was a strong sense of urgency behind
most songs on Fairytales, it was
tamed by the fact that the songs were structurally more complex, we had to
subtly go from one part to the next and didn’t have enough “songspace” to let
out that urgency we felt (even live).
With the newer material however, we set out to make songs that are more
focused around an idea or two so there’s more room for raw feelings and
emotions to come out.
Intensive Care will be
performing at Howlers Coyote Café in Bloomfield, PA on Friday March 2, 2012.
Doors open at 8PM, tickets $5
(Image courtesy of Intensive Care)
Their new EP, It
Takes Time, released on February 7 and is available on their
website along with their first album, Fairytales
from the Island.
