>>PREVIEW
EMILY HAINES
Tuesday, January 16
The GRAND
"You should make music because you have to," says Emily Haines, the voice of indie darlings Metric and the solo artist behind last September’s Knives Don’t Have Your Back. "The right reason," she says, "is to do it because you feel like you have to, without putting much emphasis on results."
Intentionally or not, Haines’s results speak for themselves. Along with her Metric bandmates and her friends in Broken Social Scene, Haines has raised Canadian music’s international stature in a way that few other musicians ever have. Since the turn of the millennium, we’ve gone from the butt of countless Celine Dion and Bryan Adams jokes to the globe’s leading source of forward-thinking art-pop.
It’s easy to be cynical here, to say that no one could make it so far without a single calculated move, but Haines is entirely sincere. The daughter of an acclaimed jazz poet, she grew up with a piano at her fingers, turning out songs before she ever realized there might be an audience for them. She recorded a solo album before Metric was formed, a friends-only affair that has since found its way onto the odd eBay auction, selling for hundreds of dollars. While that decade-old album has some moments that make Haines cringe, she shrugs off any potential embarrassment.
"If you really care about music being part of your life for your whole life," she explains, "you have to cut yourself some slack. You do the best you can at the time you’re at. I listen back to some of the older stuff I’ve done, and I can hear that I was a different person. It’s like listening to your little sister. You express as honestly as you can what sounds best to you, and then five years later, it’s not where you’re at anymore. That’s kind of the point."
If anything, Haines is amazed that people can be bothered to hunt for the ghosts of her musical past. At a time where any piece of media can be reproduced and archived in some nebulous technological ether, it’s difficult to judge which albums have the artistic weight to stick around. And while Metric may deal with deeper political and sexual issues on the dance floor, it’s not surprising that Haines’s sombre solo material is given more critical clout. However, in her view, that attitude is a mistake.
"We have an instinct as people, sonically, that when we hear something quiet, we think that makes it more real," Haines says. "I do it myself, but I still think it’s more about what you’re trying to convey. In the case of Knives, I just wanted it to feel cinematic and evoke imagery instead of necessarily being a straight narrative. It was just a different feeling that I wanted to create."
Knives certainly does stand out as a drastic departure from Metric’s propulsive indie rock. With her aptly named backing band, the Soft Skeleton, Haines conjures songs so sparse and fragile that they seem to be made of frozen winter breath. However, just as it’s easy to question the intentions behind those making the music, it’s also easy to wonder if critics are jumping behind Knives because they’re more comfortable seeing a girl behind a piano than in front of a rock band. It’s an issue Haines has dealt with before, but in this case she sees Knives’s success as a natural progression from Metric’s rise.
"It’s thanks to Metric that anyone would even give a shit that I’m making the solo record," she says. "Knives is like a companion piece to the Metric catalogue – it’s because of my adventures with them that I have anything to write about. In terms of being the chick in the band and then being taken more seriously as a writer, I think the perception has been consistent with what I’ve put forth. If you present yourself as your whole life being about trying to play the best rock ’n’ roll show ever, it’s only fair to expect that people are going to focus on that aspect of your work."
For a while, that actually would have been an accurate description of Haines’s goals. Before starting Metric, she made a conscious decision to avoid the drudgery of a normal life. She’s succeeded so far, but the loneliness of songs like "The Maid Needs a Maid," a plea for a stable, sane relationship, hint at a lingering regret. Does Haines ever feel as if she’s missing out?
"Like that there’s domestic bliss to be had and I’m on an airplane instead?" she laughs. "Yeah, all the time. But I made choices about the kind of life that I wanted and that’s the life I’ve got. It doesn’t mean that I’m not going to stay tuned to what I might be missing or to other things that are important, but the life I have is exactly the one that I created."
She pauses a moment, and then adds, "I think it’s easier to change direction than people realize. In our minds, people are afraid sometimes."
Given that we’ve just hit a new year, it’s as appropriate a time for change as any. And though Haines has no love for that particular tradition, she still holds hope that the coming months will be different.
"I don’t do New Year’s resolutions," she says. "But I do want to be able to enjoy my life more. The last little while I felt like I was starting to get really mired in the things that aren’t music. My hope for the new year is to get the balance back in my life so that there’s more music in every day than all the other crap."
Haines’s current tour should be a nice way to start that trend. While it’s true that 22 hours out of every given tour day don’t involve music, the Knives tour promises, if nothing else, a different attitude. Rather than playing to sweat-soaked clubs, Haines will be playing exclusively in theatres, definitely more elegant and probably a healthier option.
"I’m really excited," she beams. "It’s the perfect time, the dead of winter, to have that. It’s like going to the movies and going to a show, all at once. Sonically, we’re going pretty far with making it a full experience, with all the extra atmospheric sounds, so I’m hoping people will be awash. They’ll feel like they’re in a movie, that they are the movie." |
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