Interview | Metric’s way out of the crisis

The pandemic has been tough on Metric and its singer, Emily Haines. After completing his longest career tour from 2018 to 2019 in support of the album Art of Doubteverything stopped short for the Toronto group.

Pierre-Marc Durivage
The Press

” Are you serious ? Emily Haines answers us without filter when we ask her if the pandemic has been difficult for her.

She was not one of those musicians who took advantage of confinement to work on individual projects or to materialize ideas that had been on the sidelines for too long. “I understand that some have found a way to take advantage of it, but I have lost loved ones to the hands of COVID, explains the 48-year-old musician. It continues to be a topsy-turvy world for musicians. But we tried to make the most of it, which is why we wanted our music to be the one we want to listen to after a crisis. But there are already others emerging. We truly live in unstable and unpredictable times…”

Going back on the road with his band does him a lot of good, especially since the last album, Formenterawas first recorded in the absence of American colleagues Joshua Winstead and Joules Scott-Key, the bassist and drummer unable to cross the border.

“James [Shaw] and I made the complete demo of the album before being able to play the pieces with Joshua and Joules”, Emily Haines tells us. Under the circumstances, the creative duo from Metric chose to create a free zone by moving their Toronto studio to a church purchased in rural Ontario. Thus, if the beginning of the album testifies to the ambient anxiety of the beginning of the pandemic with titles like Doomscroller and All Comes Crashingthe subject is lightened over the following songs.

“I hope the record will help people understand what is going on, because we are all coming out of this crisis a little disturbed, believes the Canadian-American artist. We learn to get through it, that’s why we see the album as an oasis for the mind, to better accept what we can’t control. »

Unexpected success

Musically, we recognize the signature of Metric, with a return to the foreground of the keyboards, at least compared to Art of Doubtcertainly the most rock album of the quartet formed more than 20 years ago.

“Jimmy and I play all the instruments, so it’s fun to see people wondering about the presence of keyboards versus guitars,” Emily Haines tells us with a laugh. We even did a little in-house survey to find out people’s reactions, because for us, Formentera is more balanced. A bit like their first albums, Old World Underground and Live It Outlaunched in 2003 and 2006.

Emily Haines points out that she never created with the aim of appealing to the masses, even if she is delighted with the success of the album – the song All Comes Crashing stayed at the top of the Canadian rock charts for five weeks as it reached number 1 on Sirius XM’s Alt-Nation channel. “There is something going on, recognizes the singer. But we have always made music that resembles us. What we want is for it to resonate with the right people. For my part, I have never sought to multiply knowledge, I rather want meaningful relationships; the same applies to the group. »

For Metric and Emily Haines, Montreal is just one of these significant relationships, the singer having studied at Concordia University from 1995 to 1996. “Montreal contributed to my formation as a human being. Those years allowed me to know who I really was. It’s like I travel back in time when I come back here. So I’m really looking forward to being in Montreal. »

The public present this Monday at the MTelus will know how to give it back to him, there is no doubt about it for a moment.

Rock

Formentera

Metric

Metric Music International

Metric will be at the MTelus this Monday at 8 p.m., with Bartees Strange opening for it.