JK: On the album there is a bit more of a 70s classic-rock thing going on though. I mean "In the Rushes" actually turns into a Who song. Why re-write "A Quick One While He's Away"?

NT: You know, it was a comment on the finitude of rock music. The dialogue between us and the history of pop music. And switching "you are forgiven" with "you are forgotten" seemed like a way to poke fun at the forgetting of pop music. That's kind of what it was about.

JK: Was the Who always sort of an on-the-sly influence on your multi-part songs?

NT: Not explicitly. But you know, it appeared. It was definitely lingering somewhere in the background.

JK: It strikes me how much your lyrics continue to be death-centered, even if it's tongue and cheek. Why do you think that morbid subjects work particularly well in pop songs?

NT: Do they? I don't know. It wasn't a calculative attempt to reach a wider audience fixated on death or anything.

Islands - "Creeper"

JK: Well, like "Creeper" for example, did you start writing it knowing it'd be about a home invasion/stabbing? Did the music come first and suggest it?

NT: The theme and the music were really composed at the same time and it was an overt attempt, a cynical attempt really, to write a pop song. To say, "O.K. I can fucking do this." On the surface its got hooks and a refrain that'll stick in your head, but also the arrangement is pretty weird and there's no simple structure, strange bridges and stuff.

The song was written...it was inspired by our old label. One of the inspirations was a Morrissey song called "Why Don't You Find Out For Yourself" which is just about bad dealings with industry people. And that one is more of a literal take about getting ripped off. I took a more figurative approach to getting..uh..stabbed in the heart and feeling like you knew somebody and having them take advantage of that naive, I guess, unguardness. Because I'm a pretty open person.

JK: But why do you think death, and accidents and such, loom so large in your lyrics? Not to be crazy psychoanalytical, but do you have any theories?

NT: Let's get psychoanalytical. No man, I'm all about psychoanalysis. Let's get into it.

JK: My girlfriend had a theory that the cold in Canada made you more closely attuned to death. Think there's anything to that?

NT: I think there's something to that. "Abominable Snow" is a bit of a direct reaction to the weather, and how the weather can make you feel like everything is disappearing. A sense of impending doom, I think when everything is covered in snow and everything seems like it's slowed down or stopped entirely. There's a bit of a doomsday sense of dread, I guess. (chuckles)

I guess I'm just fixated on death because it's such a strange inevitability. Everything comes to such an abrupt and final end. It really blows my mind. I gotta get past that. You know, I'm trying. I think it's a form of therapy to be writing songs.

JK: About "Abominable Snow," that was probably the first Islands' song that most, or at least a lot of people heard. Why did you hold it back for this new album?

NT: It didn't fit with the first record. You know I'm not making conceptual prog-rock records, I'm not far from it, but I'm not making concept records. "Abominable Snow" wasn't really in line with the rest of Return to the Sea. It wasn't where my head was really at. We recorded that song in January right after the Unicorns' had split. It was a song the Unicorns were playing out before we broke up. When I went back to go through songs that would become Arm's Way it just fell in more naturally.

For me it's not just a collection of songs that we have. We have tons of songs left off the record. They just weren't really where my head was at. There was a lot of fluffy disposable pop songs. When we started to get really serious about amassing the songs it was a matter of picking the best ones. On some level I guess an overarching concept of material, or a connecting thread that's weaving all the songs. And it's not just the subject matter or the relationship to death, it's just the sonic similarity. Without appearing homogenous...I would hope.

JK: So you have a stockpile then of songs that didn't make this record?

NT: Yeah, and they might never make it on another record. But who knows? "Abominable Snow" I didn't know what was gonna happen with that. It just kind of presented itself. It's not like we were explicitly forcing it to put on a record. It's a song we played on tour. And touring is just something we do, that we enjoy to do, and really the record is a document of touring, a product of that. It's not like we tour to promote a record, but we record to promote the songs we've been playing. If a song's in our live catalog we'll consider putting on a record.

JK: Next week you'll be back playing in Denver. The city's been sort of bad luck for you it seems are you feeling a little apprehensive about going back to the mountains?

NT: It's funny you say that. The first time we played Denver was the day after J'aime (Tambeur formerly of Islands and Unicorns) announced he was leaving the band, I dunno if you knew that...

JK: Right. And the next time you got stuck in a snowstorm?

NT: We had a twenty-four hour commute, nonstop. The vehicle we were in was moving for twenty four straight hours, and the driver was going insane and we were going a little loopy ourselves. You know, I'm banking on the third times a charm scenario.

Suspicious mural at the Denver Airport

JK: Fingers crossed?

NT: Hopefully people come out. I don't know if it has something to do with the airport. I know there's an underground base in Denver, a sonic underground base in the airport. And I know the Queen owns some land around there. There's lots of weird stuff going on with the murals, they're painting over them because there's been alot of speculation about the New World Order and its connection to Denver airport, that there might be some sort of weird conspiracy theories about that. There might be some kind of contribution to the negative energy surrounding us when we get off in Denver. It might have something to do with the underground base, the New World Order. The New World Airport. The Queen.

JK: One thing I did want to ask you about. With Return to the Sea you had commented a lot that one of the big influences was African pop songs. And since then, that's become sort of a full-fledged trend. Do you feel like you started a wave or do you think you narrowly missed out on all the current attention?

NT: Well I mean we were ahead of it on some level and I don't think that means we missed anything. I think everybody missed us.

JK: So is the moment now somehow more conducive to it?

NT: I don't know, I think there's alot of things that I've been apart of that...you know the Unicorns were one of the first Montreal bands of this generation that kind of started to make a name for ourselves. And we took Arcade Fire on tour before their record came out. We don't take credit for the Montreal wave of music, but I'm not gonna say I'm not slightly ahead of the curve sometimes. It's not an ego thing, it's just a fact.

You know we didn't write Graceland, we were just influenced by it. People who grew up around that time were. The difference between us and Vampire Weekend is that we're not parroting the genre, going in and mining the territory that Paul Simon was in such a boring and uncreative way and just basically ripping him off. We were doing it in a way that wasn't reducing it to...parody really. I mean when Paul Simon was doing it it was a discovery for him and we were trying to just get in sync with that same sense of musical exploration. I feel like with a band like Vampire Weekend it just seems so calculated, going through the same narrative styles and trying really hard to imitate. And it just sounds like an imitation. I don't even liken what we did to what they're doing. We had the same touchstone which was Graceland, which is a great starting point. That's what Paul Simon's great thing was is that he opened alot of people up to South African music and Brazil and all over, and he was creative about it. You have to be creative in the way that you interpret and explore music. And I don't think that band is a very creative band I guess.

JK: So, if you're a bit of an oracle for what we'll be getting in a while, maybe the newest stuff you've already recorded can give us an idea of where the scene will soon be?

NY: I'm not thaaat far ahead. I mean I've recorded little demos and stuff. Nothing like I'm sure where it will end up. The songs always take on a life of their own when the whole band puts our creative heads together and they always end up sounding way better than I would make them if I were all by myself. I don't know where things will be and I don't have a real sampler of the new sound, but definitely the songs I'm working on now are alot shorter. Alot of them are under three minutes and most of them are under four except a couple. But that's what I was saying last time, in between Return to the Sea and Arm's Way. I was telling people that the songs we were working on were all three-minute pop songs and when it came time to record the record only a few of those survived and the rest became these, you know, progressive, arrangement-heavy songs, which I love, and that's where my head's at now.

JK: Is that the process? You'll demo material and then bring it to the full band, and then it becomes an Islands' song?

NT: Yeah, I'll demo it and kind of root out the weaker tracks. Or bring it to the band and see if we can make it sound good. I'm definitely a couple steps ahead of myself, because Arm's Way hasn't even come out yet. I gotta pace myself a little bit.

JK: Is that frustrating?

NT: A little bit. I guess I wish the records would come out a little sooner because it's so fun to make records and have them available, and it's so fun to write songs and I definitely could release more if I had the opportunity.

JK: Are you going to be playing stuff that's even ahead of Arm's Way on this tour?

NT: Not on this tour. No, thank God. We've taken a breather. But I'm holding on to the new songs to let the Arm's Way songs sort of soak in and focus on them.

photo credit

JK: What's the origin of the white face paint that you've been wearing at recent shows? Is this just a concept for this tour or does it just look particularly good on stage?

NT: No, I'm always wearing white face paint.

JK: Right now?

NT: Yeah, it's a part of who I am. No, I'm kidding. It's just to accentuate the performative element to touring. It's just to distance myself from the banalities of my everyday life. You know you're sitting in a van all day and then you're going on stage. So let's put on a show. I think that's a way to get into character. I've always felt like changing into something whether it's weird clothes or just clothes specifically for the stage. It's just a nice ritual to feel like you're getting into character on some level. I mean I'm still me. I'm Nick Thorburn not Nick Diamonds anymore. I feel more confident about my identity but I still like to get in to character when performing. I think that's just a tool to get there faster.