Webcuts Music

Canada was something of a no-mans land in music at the beginning of the decade. The break-through acts that would give credibility and attention to the Toronto music scene (Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Feist etc) had either yet to form or were toiling away, building up their name, but The Stills from Montreal mixed their French-Canadian heritage with a UK-influenced sound, arriving on the New York scene in the midst of its hyped and glorious ascendancy.

There was no question that The Stills had found themselves in the right place at the right time, with a sound and style fully formed and enough songs in their repertoire to elevate them above the rabble. Quickly signing to Vice records, they released the critically received Rememberese EP that spawned the Public Image Limited lifting “Still in Love Song”. It was the perfect song for that moment. A catchy, brooding and bitter song, the self-referencing 80s influences standing strong, and where similar bands like The Strokes were pushing image over art, and Interpol were angling for the esoteric and austere, The Stills were pure electricity, with songs that would explode in a shower of sparks, giving rise to comparisons with The Chameleons, The Pixies and Echo and The Bunnymen.

Their debut album Logic Will Break Your Heart was an astonishing release that exceeded expectation. A dozen songs honed to perfection, songs that teased and toured the depths of human emotion with epic choruses of apocalyptic romantic urgency, The Stills maintained these were desperate times but it wasn’t time to let go. With a follow-up album Without Feathers released in 2005, and their latest album Oceans Will Rise released in August of 2008,  Webcuts caught up the band late last year and spoke with vocalist/guitarist Tim Fletcher to indulge in a little history revision.

Webcuts caught The Stills play their very first show at the Buffalo Bar in London in 2003 having oddly picked up on them from the radio relentlessly playing “Still in Love Song”. The show itself was a double-bill with Ireland’s The Thrills, which a member of the band made light of at the time, suggesting all they needed were The Kills and they’d have the complete set. It was an impressive debut on that tiny stage, highlighting unreleased tracks like “Gender Bombs” and “Lola Stars and Stripes” that would feature prominently on their forthcoming album. The songs were in a similar vein to that of “Still in Love Song” — epic guitar-driven tracks with big choruses infused with melodrama. It was only a brief half-hour set, but they had quickly made an impression. Tim is lost in thought for a second as I jog his memory.

“Oh yeah, I remember that show. That place was tiny. At that point when we first played in London it was spring of 2003. We’d been playing around since 2000/2001 in various forms and various recorded forms… on heiroglyphics, parchments… We came back a few months later, and played with TV on The Radio that was really rough, I lost my voice, and my throat was bleeding and I had a throat infection and all kinds of record company people were there for all labels, and it was super important show and I stood up there and lost my voice. Which was kinda cool in the end”.

From an outside perspective, The Stills seemed to come out of nowhere, shifting back and forth Montreal to New York, playing shows and building a name for themselves, making friends with bands like Interpol who adopted the band and took them on tour. Both bands shared a similar aesthetic presentation that distanced themselves from the garage rock reinvention that was happening around town, and it wasn’t long before the band had begun making enough waves to sign with a new label and put out their first single.

“From the very beginning the band started playing as a four piece and within two months we were signed to Vice records and that’s how we rose to prominence initially. They put out the first EP and the first album, within a few months of each other. We were in New York at the time, hanging out with friends and artists and, some of them were mutual friends of ours and the Vice people and it just worked out like that. We were their first domestic signing and they wanted to make a great debut record as their first step”. With a critically received debut album (Logic Will Break Your Heart) under their belts, the band began long tours around North America and Europe, releasing several follow-up singles (“Lola Stars and Stripes”, “Changes Are No Good” and a re-recorded “Still in Love Song”) to great response.

The unexpected departure of guitarist Greg Paquet when the band returned to Canada to work on the second album cast some doubt on the future of the band. In most cases, a departure like this from a band riding a wave of success can be disastrous but the band used it to their advantage. “He was a really smart guy with a lot of different interests and he was eager to pursue a lot of different avenues and do other things with his life. He got a lot out of being in a band and learned a lot from it and wanted to move on. At the same time we happened to be changing and evolving as a band”.

Paquet’s departure would see a dramatic change in the band with Fletcher being removed from the microphone while drummer and songwriter Dave Hamlin took his place on guitar and a new drummer was hired. Keyboardist, Liam O’Neil, who had been touring with the band over the last 12 months became a full-time member. I ask whether Paquet’s departure was a catalyst for the game of musical chairs that would follow.

“A little bit. Liam was already in the band since the beginning, but he became a little more in the forefront, and we got a new drummer and Dave stepped up to the forefront and started singing and playing guitar as well, but he’d always written a lot of songs and played guitar and sang, so it was not a strange or unexpected move. The only reason he played drums in the beginning was because we didn’t have a drummer”.

A misconception at the time that worked against the band when Without Feathers was released was Fletcher’s role as the frontman and that since he sung the songs, he also wrote them. When it came to the writing of the song that featured on the first album,  much of the material had been written before the band had started, and the songs which were attributed to the group as a whole, were largely written by Hamelin.

“I wrote three songs on that record personally, and Dave wrote the other nine songs, so that’s how it broke down for that record. I’d write my parts and lyrics and Dave would do the same and that’s how it functioned”. When it came to the release Without Feathers, the songwriting for each song was made clear, and the dominance of Hamelin on vocals was seen as The Stills evolving into an entirely different band that were broadening their sound, which some fans found distracting.

“I can see how it could be could be a confusing record for a Stills fan who expected a band of the same people making the same kind of music,” Fletcher asserts, “but we’re all into varying types of music, like the most simple catchy pop to really avant garde fucked up experimental compositions and our interest exist everywhere in between. The second record is more of a kinda rootsy The Band, Neil Young, Dylan vibe and we needed to get that out.”

When a band goes through such extreme changes it begs the question as to whether toes were stepped on and the decisions agreed on being entirely amicable. Being the one who was forced to step aside on vocal duties for Without Feathers, Fletcher, having no doubt fielded inferences like this in the past, didn’t hesitate in his response. “We’re a family, and The Stills are a refuge to try things out. We’re young in our career and we haven’t shown our different sides yet. I think each step will make itself more clear in time. The more records we put out, the more people will see that we have a lot to try and a lot to get out. So having Dave sing the record was a necessary step that needed to happen”.

At the time of the release, many critics found the album less than impressive, laying fault on the direction the band were moving into and the sweeping changes that preceded.  New songs like “In the Beginning” and “Destroyer” were aiming for a more generalised rock and roll sound — with hammond organ fills and acoustic guitar. The band were quoted at the time that they didn’t want to write Logic Part 2, but when they started debuting new material live, it came as a surprise to some people. Fletcher takes the criticism in his stride.

“We’re very reckless in our approach to record making, I guess. It keeps it interesting, and you’re nothing if you don’t feel some kind of precipice. If you don’t feel some kind of potential fall and failure. You should set it up that, not all records need to be that, but we like to have that kind of urgency”.

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