So a little while back I listened to an album that was so good it caused me to repeatedly crap my pants. This album was Surreal Auteur by a lovely little band called Allegories (Adam Bentley & Jordan Mitchell). I sent them the dry-cleaning bill, but they refused to pay (saying that they could not be held accountable for loss of control of one’s bodily functions in reaction to their awesome music). Adam, however, felt pretty bad about the whole thing and agreed to let me interview him. 

After a brief conversation regarding Celine Dion and other French Canadian classics, this is what transpired:

J: So Adam, just how many bands are you in?

A: I am in two bands. I don’t think I could handle any more at this point.

J: Only two? Spencer Krug is in like seven. What’s the deal?

A: I find after two bands the others start to suck. 

Not to be mean to Spencer, but having a high quality of work is somewhat important. Not to just throw everything out into the vast internet hoping that through quantity my work will be noticed. 

Now that I’ve said this I think I’ll probably start eight more bands to compete with Spencer. Just my highly competitive nature.

J: Well he’s the king of music, apparently, so be careful.

A: I’ve heard that somewhere. Probably through Celine Dion’s people.

J: Yeah they probably had a hand in that.

A: They work in the same genre, so it makes sense.

J: Music from Quebec?

A: Yeah, it’s the new genre. Soon to be the only categorization.

J: Obviously you have to start seven or eight more bands, then, just to give Music from Ontario the competitive edge.

A: Well Ontario is all about joining the rat race, so one more event shouldn’t hurt.

J: Agreed. 

I heard Surreal Auteur is being released June 17th. How’d that happen?

A: It happened out of our own impatience with the music industry. We could have waited another six months for a label to make up their mind (and that could still happen), or we could take the initiative and put the record out ourselves. It’s been part of the plan since the beginning to have this record be a launching pad for our label “Auteur Recordings,” and we’ve been in a situation before where we waited too long to act. And we didn’t want to see this record be thrown under the rug and forgotten. We spent over a year putting it together, and it’s something we want as many people to hear as possible.

So June 17th the record will be released in Canada, but will be available through the great invented internet internationally. But we’re still hoping something can be worked out for America and Europe by the end of the year.

J: Well I hope so too. It’s kind of an incredible album. Mandatory listening, really.

A: Well thank you. The response so far has been incredibly positive. The amount of people who have just streamed the album and given their feedback has been overwhelming.

Especially since people (in general) have shown a lack of attention span, well it’s astonishing when people are sitting down listening to a record for 50 minutes without a clear understanding of what song they’re listening to, or what section. Just taking the whole piece in… It’s a great feeling.

The record was made to be dense. We knew as we were working on it that it was an album for people who loved albums. Since we’re in a resurgence of the single that has more in common with the 50’s or early 60’s it actually could be seen as a throw-back record.

J: Well I think the album is making a comeback. That may or may not be wishful thinking.

A: I would hope it’s not, but I really don’t know how the album is going to get a real chance. 

With the still surging popularity of the iPod and the like, the album has no home. In general, the whole population likes their new technology to make things easier, and buying a single song, digesting it, and then moving on to the next band/artist is a much simpler task than actually sitting down and listening to a body of work.

And that’s really a shame, as most of the time I feel you can’t understand what a band is trying to convey without the whole picture. If people only hear “Grass Toboggan” it will be a shame because that is only a small piece of the puzzle.

J: I think “Grass Toboggan” will be a catalyst for people to check out and subsequently vomit happiness over the rest of Surreal Auteur.

A: (Laughs) Well I hope so. That’s why we picked it to represent the record, which may have been the hardest decision we had to make for the whole record.

J: You say you were working on the album for a year. What was that process like? What did you set out to do when you started? How is that different from what you have now?

A: It’s quite different than what we had set out to do. 

Jordan had been “commissioned” to send in some stuff for a noise tape series and he asked if I’d like to be involved. We had worked on some improv noise before and it had been an amazing experience, so doing it again seemed like a great idea.

As we began we noticed that the level of our involvement and the sounds we were getting seemed to need to be expanded past a cassette tape. Any concept that we would throw out we’d try, and many of them were coming out better than we had conceptualized.

Everything we played on the record wasn’t preconceived past a concept, and once it was recorded we would find the most interesting ideas and keep them. What we started noticing was that these ideas were turning into songs. Not quite overt pop songs, but they had those sensibilities.

So I started to sing more, and Jordan took some nods from Motown and used their style for percussion.

Around that time we took 12 songs out of the dozens and started to shape them into suites. Very little prodding actually had to be done to make them flow together properly. It felt that the three groups of four songs were meant to be together.

So, over the next months, we would just get together whenever possible to augment any parts. We seriously were looking down to the second. Everything was analyzed. Which is funny since everything that was played or sung was completely spontaneous. It became intricately arranged spontaneity.

Of course, it was a much more detailed process, but I think that gives you an idea.

J: Well the explanation certainly makes sense, given then end result. I think “intricately arranged spontaneity” is a pretty accurate description of Surreal Auteur.

A: Yeah, it’s human but detailed.

J: How does it feel knowing that it’s done and people will soon be able to buy it?

A: Exciting, and a little apprehension. Well actually I lie. I had apprehension to finish the record, but there was a moment where we both went “I think it’s done” and once you’ve gone that far it should be left alone. We could have kept working on this forever, but we probbly would have just made it worse at that point. I hope people enjoy it and can delve into it, but it’s out of our hands now. 

You can’t make anyone hear what you want them to hear, you just hope you’ve transferred those feelings on record. And then make another one.

J: What’s your favourite part of being a musician?

A: Probably the creation. It can be a long or short process, but I like that process always changes, and that (if you choose), you can keep challenging yourself, and by doing so surprise yourself.

I guess that the process can almost involve everything too because recording and playing live are extensions of creating.

J: What would you do if you weren’t making music? What’s your secret dream job?

A: General Manager for the Toronto Blue Jays.

If I wasn’t making music I wouldn’t be nearly as happy… Unless I was GM for the Jays.

J: …Wow… 

…Well, as long as you don’t end up managing the Leafs, I’ll be happy.

A: No, I don’t like the Leafs.

J: GOOD

A: I told them to take me off their possible candidates list.

J: Yeah I think that’s probably for the best. Although you could do crazy crossover acts like having Allegories cover the Hockey Night in Canada song.

A: I like baseball, and basketball more, and midnight sunsets on the beaches. 

My other band The Rest used to do our own sport song “Go Team Go” at shows. Got people pumped.

J: What do you mean used to? That sounds like an important permanent installment.

A: It should have been but we lost the spark.

Once the spark is gone you have to change things up, like wearing frog costumes, or sticking frogs to your bodies to get the crowd going. Crowds want frogs.

J: Seriously. The last six or eight shows I’ve been to have not included frogs, and I was unimpressed.

A: See? They say downloads are killing the music industry. I say it’s lack of frogs. And I’m almost always right.

J: That sounds like fact to me, buddy.

What’s the most embarrassing song you love to listen to?

A: I just left the employment of a hardware store where I had to hear countless 80’s ballad sand 90’s radio rock songs… for years… trying to think of a song from there… “Private Dancer” by Tina Turner is pretty awesome.

J: TOTALLY!

A: I think I’m usually oblivious to being embarrassed. If I like it I’m usually pretty vocal about it… No use shying away.

I’m actually trying to go through the Cool Rock commercials to think of something.

J: I don’t know. Private Dancer is a little nugget of gold.

A: Cool Rock Gold.

J: Yeah. Like Sheryl Crow or Hootie and the Blowfish.

A: See I hate those two… bad teenage/hardware store memories.

J: Well yeah, they’re terrible. That’s the point.

A: If you had to listen to Sheryl Crow and Hootie every day for the last three years, you’d murder them at first eye contact.

J: I worked at Roots, dude. If I ever have to listen to reggae again, people will die.

A: (Laughs) You know the pain. It’s a slow death through satellite radio.

J: Yeah, man. There were three different versions of “Redemption Song” on the playlist. I HATE “REDEMPTION SONG.”

A: That would be awful.

I actually went through a three month period where I couldn’t write anything without it being terrible, so I thought the radio music was infecting my brain… That makes a bad job seem like a sentence to hell. I’m surprised more retail people don’t go “postal” more often.

J: Some people seem to be able to block it out. Or maybe that’s just the voices in their heads playing them better songs.

A: That’s where voices come in handy.

J: Yeah that’s what they tell me. The voices, that is.

A: Well as long as they’re keeping you happy.

J: Well, I think this interview has degraded enough into the realm of ridiculous. If we keep working on it at this point, it’ll just get worse. Any last words?

A: Nope. I’m just glad that it did degrade.

J: Me too. Otherwise it would have been way too good and professional for my ridiculous blog.

Allegories - Surf’s Out

 

Posted by Jocelyn

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