Mar. 24, 2010 - Issue #753: Zion I
Prevue
Great Zeus
Jason Collett gets help from his backing band on Rat a Tat Tat
"The production [of Rat a Tat Tat], with Zeus behind the wheel, was really me plugging into an energy that they've made themselves the centre of," he offers up generously. As his backing band for the last two years, Zeus' familiarity inspired Collett to enter the studio blindly, exposing them to his new material point-blank. It was his intention, Collett admits, to avoid pre-production and see how Zeus would react when put on the spot—a plan that suited the Zeus style quite well, he adds.
"I really wanted to have things super fresh. The band didn't hear the bulk of the songs before going into the studio, then we were recording within 10 minutes of them having heard them," he reveals. "A lot of the rough-and-tumble scruffiness of the record comes out of that. I was really happy to embrace that change—it's actually far more reflective of how we've been playing live for quite some time."
For an artist who has been a lightening rod for community building and supergroup collaborations, Collett is modest and complimentary about his band, who are now label mates in their own right on Arts&Crafts.
"From the very first day I started playing with them, there's a work ethic that they have that I've always admired, and a playfulness and a fearlessness," he explains. "I've learned a few things over the years about making records, and the most important things I've learned is, 'there are no rules.' The trick is to get all the intent and calculation and intellectualization out of the room; that's where the real magic is.
"Fortunately, those guys are so fast on their feet," he adds. "They have great instincts, and that's what you want to capture with any good musician: their gut reaction to what you throw at them."
Taking to the road with Zeus and Afie Jurvanen, aka Bahamas, the Bonfire Ball Revue will see all three bands sharing the entire evening, rather than the standard three-band/three-set night. "I don't want people coming out to the show later, just expecting to see me, and then getting confused," he warns. "Quite likely, I could be the first guy to walk out and play a few songs on my own, and then hand it over for a few of the songs before coming back out.
"The three bands have enough history and chemistry together that we can do a revue-style: one big set, maybe with an intermission, that brings a show to a whole other level where you get that cross-pollinating live on stage between musicians. We'll play as one band that will expand and contract all night long, reflecting three different bands. I think it will be more interesting, and I'm very excited." V
Wed, Mar 31 (8pm)
Jason Collett
With Zeus, Bahamas
StarliTE Room, $18
RAVE ON SAD SONGS
Jason Collett weighs in on the challenge of translating a record to a live show, Toronto's social scene and how Rat a Tat Tat compares to his discography.
RE-CREATING "THIS MONSTER YOU'VE MADE"
"If you're four or five guys in the studio and you've layered on a number of guitar parts, horns and Jason Tait doing a lot of vibes on this record—trying to recreate that mess you've made live—they're just two different worlds. We don't worry about having to figure it out later, because if you do, once again, you're just limiting yourself. You rise to the challenge. I've always felt that recording is one thing, and playing live is a whole other thing. The songs aren't static in their interpretations, what we record was just what happened that day. Songs have a life of their own, and they can go on to be re-interpreted again. So I think we're doing a good job at re-creating the record in rehearsals. The way we recorded this, it was the first time someone had played that part, sometimes that's a difficult thing to learn, that initial inspiration. And then when you play it live, you go to second base naturally—'this is what I would have done if I had more time in the studio.' So there's some of that that goes on, and you have to leave space for that or the band starts to feel like there's no new life in the songs."
CENTRE OF THE TORONTO SCENE
"In 2001 I started Radio Monday series, which became a thing for musicians in Toronto to go and play at or watch their peers play. Part of the reason for doing it was seeing there's strength in a community of peers validating each other's work. I started doing this at a time when there was a real void in the music industry. It was the turn of the century, the record industry as we knew it was fucked up, there were lawsuits for Napster, labels amalgamating, A&R guys losing their jobs—this was the climate that Broken Social Scene and Wavelength Series was born out of, and Radio Mondays was born out of that, too. It was a community turning inwards to validate itself because there was no official industry to do that anymore. The important lesson learned in all that was working in a community makes you better. It's like the Group of Seven, say. Your peers become your best critics, they become a support network, they tell you when you're full of shit—which is important to know as an artist, when you're going off the rails. It's just a healthy environment to be in, and since then, I've just instinctively been drawn to that. Not to mention when a member of your community does a standout piece of work, it reflects on you. It forces you to stretch further, it inspires you."
RAT A TAT TAT: HIS STRONGEST WORK?
"I feel it's my strongest work, partly because of the energy that's there, and that I was able to catch Zeus at their stride. The songs are that much stronger. I haven't tried to articulate this yet, but in my gut I feel really confident about it as a piece of work. I feel fortunate that I feel like I'm still learning, it keeps me a little wide-eyed about what I'm doing. At this point in my career, I've developed an instinct to know when it's a good piece of work. And that's the feeling I have about the entire record." V
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