Define: Stars

Star ‘€“ stär  – Middle English sterre, from Old English steorra; akin to Old High German sterno star, Latin stella, Greek astēr, astron

a : a natural luminous body visible in the sky especially at night b : a self-luminous gaseous spheroidal celestial body of great mass which produces energy by means of nuclear fusion reactions

‘€¦

a : the principal member of a theatrical or operatic company who usually plays the chief roles b : a highly publicized theatrical or motion-picture performer c : an outstandingly talented performer <a track star> d : a person who is preeminent in a particular field

Merriam-Webster, I’mma let you finish, but Stars is one of the best Canadian indie bands of all time. Of all time.

You might have heard their songs placed on such television shows as Sex in the City, The OC and Law & Order. Maybe you’ve seen them open for Coldplay. You might be familiar with their members’ contributions in Broken Social Scene. You might know a lot more about the project started by keyboardist Chris Seligman and singer Torquil Campbell than what appears on their Wikipedia page. I want you to know one thing: you need to listen to their new album, The Five Ghosts.

The band’s ten year career spans several EPs, three award winning and critically acclaimed full lengths, interruptions by solo efforts from vocalist Amy Milan and collaborating in another Canadian super group, and miles and miles of global touring. Seligman tells Tastemakers that for the band, it feels like they’re just beginning.

How’s the summer tour going?

Great! It’s been really fun. We’re playing the new record in it’s entirety for the first half of the show then we come on a little bit later and play songs that the fans voted on through the internet. It’s been really fun. It feels like people are really enjoying the new record for hearing it the first time. It’s been an interesting way of doing things. I think the new record is great, a lot of (the crowd’s reactions) depends on how we play every night. I think if we perform well then there’s good energy, a new energy. It feels really fun to play every night to a good crowd.

What songs do you enjoy playing the most?

It’s funny because we were talking about it after the show last night, how we’ve been playing in a band for ten years and you’re always trying to find new ways to get better. We’re kind of evolving as a band right now. We’re trying to find excitement in a lot of old songs. Finding a new relationship with them has given us, as a band, new life in a way.  I guess that’s not really answering your question specifically, but it feels exciting to be up there again to be playing the music together. In the past when you’ve been on the road for a while, you get into a headspace where you’re not in the moment all the time.

How did the band come to have such a dramatic performance style that creates such an intimacy with your audiences?

It’s a tough question because you don’t think about it too much ‘€“ you just get out there (on stage).  I think we’re all perfectionists. I feel like we’ve finally got to the point where we’re all working as hard. Everyone’s putting in 100%. The music is the most important thing in our lives right now ‘€“ being a band. We’re all trying to find new ways to evolve and to trust each other on stage. Surprisingly enough, that doesn’t always happen. It feels good to love each other on stage and to listen to each other on stage really culminates in the music coming together. That reflects on the audience and the audience gets a better show. That’s a process and you’re always trying to find new ways to achieve that.

My love affair with Stars is not a steamy, rollercoaster ride like you’d find on Grey’s Anatomy. It’s more comparable to Jim and Pam’s constantly glowing ember that seems to get hotter as time goes by. I took in their previous releases like a desert sampler, relishing the rich textures and flavors one song at a time. From the smoldering ‘€œOne More Night’€ to the ebb and flow of ‘€œWhat the Snowman Learned About Love’€ I took the songs in as deep breaths that filled my blood with the thoughtful, dramatic, and emotional style that has come to be a trademark of the Stars’.

For the first time, my initial reception to a Stars’ album lasted from end to end, resisting the temptations to repeat ‘€œWasted Daylight’€ and singalong, to dance by myself to ‘€œWe Don’t Want Your Body.’€ As the closing track ‘€œWinter Bones’€ hummed to finish, I found myself comparing the album to last years’ Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix or the previous summer’s Saturdays = Youth by M83. When I think of the summer of 2008, I think ‘€œKim and Jessie’€ casting a dreampop colored haze over the LA skyline. The summer of 2009 was the crescendos of ‘€œRome’€ playing a soundtrack to the July 4^th fireworks as they reflected off the Charles. All three albums are by foreign artists, healthily synth driven and can be placed under the umbrella that is indie pop (until being placed in car ads of course). The Five Ghosts will remind me of the travels of the editor-in-chief and myself, covering countless concerts and festivals, interviewing all of today’s next big thing, and struggling to keep this review from reaching a word count worthy of a hard cover.

Putting my metaphors and comparisons aside for now, Chris explains to us what went into the making of the album.

What was the songwriting process like this time around?

We were in Vancouver at the time of the first writing session and we were just trying to figure out how to approach the new record. I kind of had a tough night sleeping the first night I was in Vancouver. I kind of had a haunting experience in my room. I basically felt like I had been visited by a ghost. I freaked out a bit. I left my apartment at six in the morning and wandered the streets until noon when the band was meeting. We got to the space and people asked me what was wrong and I told them what happened. It kind of set the tone for the whole record I guess. Over the next couple days we wrote, I think the songs kind of reflected the experience I had and the headspace that we were all in. That was kind of a starting point for the record, and it obviously went other places, but that was a weird beginning point for it. The record was written in chunks. We’d get together for three weeks, we’d record four or five songs, then we’d separate for a month or two, then we’d write again. It was disjointed but in a way it made it so the record (was something) you could take the time to reflect on and dissect each song.

Was there a sense of a reunion each time you all got back together?

What I liked about it, each time we got back together, we’d be in a different head space because it’s where a lot of the songwriting comes from ‘€“ as opposed to just writing all at one point in your life. If you can write at different points in your life, the songwriting can be more interesting because you start at different (points of view) along the way. There was a death in the family of one of the members which happened later on in the sessions, so that was a really intense experience for everyone. After that we got together and wrote a bunch of songs and those songs (represented) the process of a loved one dying.

What would you say each member brings to the table individually?

There are five of us and generally we all allow each other to bring something to the table. We all have our roles and for me, I’m the keyboardist. I’m writing the initial music with Evan (bassist). We’ll come up with the song structure: the verse, the chorus, the chords. We build instrumentally, we write the music first then Torq and Amy come in. It’s funny sometimes we’ll say ‘€˜that sounds more like an Amy track’ or ‘€˜that sounds like a Torq track’ and we’ll allocate which track goes to whom. They’ll come in and write lyrics and song melodies. When we had that form, we sent it off to a producer who then listened to an initial skeleton, which we’ve never done before, but I think that’s made this record more unique in a way for us. The producer, Tom McFall (who also worked with the band on Set Yourself on Fire), got to listen to the songs so early on that he could then have opinions about them and change certain ideas and add some musical sections. It’s great to have another perspective on it because you’re already so deeply involved in the process yourself. When you have someone else pushing you, you can make the songwriting that much more interesting.

In effort to be as un-Kanye-like as possible, I’d like to make good on an earlier promise and let Merriam-Webster finish:

a (1) : a planet or a configuration of the planets that is held in astrology to influence one’s destiny or fortune ‘€”usually used in plural (2) : a waxing or waning fortune or fame <her star was rising> b obsolete : destiny

With the release of The Five Ghosts it seems apparent that Stars have taken the reins of their own destiny and are on their way to rising fame and fortune.