To talk about Broken Social Scene is to talk about one of the key pieces of modern indie: a changing, almost community-based collective that helped define the aesthetics of indie rock in the 2000s with albums like ‘You Forgot It in People’ and from which acclaimed names such as Feist and Metric emerged. Their proposal offered a way of understanding music as a network, collaboration and scene rather than as a traditional band. That legacy remains a reference for subsequent generations of artists and continues to influence how indie is understood today.
In this context, their return to the Spanish stage has a special value, since they present their first album in almost a decade. On September 21 at La Riviera (Madrid) and September 22 at Razzmatazz 1 (Barcelona) will be the opportunities to hear ‘Remember the Humans’ live in our country. Tickets are still available.
The Broken Social Scene tour is already underway and, when I have the opportunity to chat with Brendan Canning via Zoom, the artist meets me from a hotel room in San Francisco while having breakfast. We talk about the connection of ‘Remember the Humans’ with artificial intelligence and politics, as well as the documentary that chronicles its appearance on the Toronto indie scene, ‘It’s All Gonna Break’, which has just been released internationally.
What’s the most chaotic thing that’s happened bringing so many people together again?
Nothing really chaotic; It’s more like the usual. There’s always a lot of people when Broken Social Scene does their thing. And now we’re all grown up and have family, kids, nephew… plus the friends you’ve had for years… it’s like a funny movie happening all the time.
Do you all use WhatsApp or something to contact each other?
No. In the band we only use group text messages. Nobody is really from WhatsApp; we simply write. Things like: “today the sound check is at 11”, “the soundcheck is at 4”, and that’s how it works. Our tour manager makes sure that the logistics go well.
How do the new songs sound live?
We’re playing on average four or five new songs a night, in addition to the old ones. We try to cover material from as many albums as we have published.
The album title seems like a response to ‘You Forgot It in People’. What do you feel you missed saying on that album that you needed to say now?
It’s not like going back in time to say “we should have done this 22 years ago.” The title is a response to the rise of AI and, funnily enough, imagine what the AI would say if you wrote to it “make a record that sounds like ‘You Forgot It in People’”; probably something like “remember humans.” The title stuck because it reflects where we are as a society and the amount of attention being given to AI. Also our server farms are a very destructive force for the environment. I have doubts about spending so much money on AI when there are people hungry, dying or unable to pay for medical care… although I suppose the world needs technology to advance; It’s always been like that.
Is there a kind of panic regarding AI, like when there is any technological progress?
Personally, and at the point I am in my career, I can’t panic about AI. The band is still hired to play, people are still buying our records, and I’m still talking to someone from Spain to promote two concerts. Then I go to a record store and buy vinyl (shows the records through the camera).
What have you bought?
A Stephanie Mills record and some disco and boogie records from the ’70s and early ’80s, like Universal Robot Band. It’s called ‘Barely Breaking Even’. I’m still a DJ and I play records, although I don’t consider it a career.
People talk about AI as if it were a “human or robot” issue, but it is actually being integrated in more subtle ways. How do you see it?
Obviously people use it, but sometimes it takes the fun out of it. It’s like when you had to write an essay about Macbeth in high school: you could go to the bookstore and ask someone to summarize the meaning, but you still had to read it. You miss the finer details. In an album like ours there are many nuances; You can’t teach a machine to behave like a human, although you can get pretty close. And that would be fine for a lot of people. I, who sometimes have problems using my Bluetooth headphones, don’t think the AI is going to convince me at all.
Do journalists ask you a lot about this?
Yes, of course, it’s the new thing now. But you can’t get obsessed. I mean, there’s a war going on and people are more interested in football… and I don’t find it strange; Football also gives good news.
Is that tension something you think about a lot?
With age you realize how wars, which seem far away, can directly affect your life. For example, the price of diesel is going up a lot, which means the band makes less money because we need fuel for the bus. It’s a selfish way to look at it, but it’s true. People are dying all the time…
“I have doubts about spending so much money on AI when there are people hungry, dying or unable to pay for medical care”
You’re supposed to worry about yourself too, right?
Of course. And we are a political band insofar as we try to bring some unification to human beings who feel polarized.
Does it bother you that your band is not more political? Should it be?
I think if we had a bigger microphone we would be more political. U2 wasn’t necessarily a political band at the beginning; with songs like ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ they almost seemed like a Christian band. Then they became very famous and Bono started to get involved in politics because he had a big platform. I’m sure it has helped in some way. If I had a lot of money, I’d do more charity work too. Like any caring person, you give what you can and to the extent you can, but you also have your own bills.
You are not involved in politics, so you do not have a direct influence on change either. Do you feel comfortable with that limitation of the artist, where your power is more symbolic than material?
As an artist you try to write something that is empathetic to humanity, evocative enough that someone ideologically very different from you can be moved and perhaps change the world in their own way. You’re just trying to be part of the conversation and do something useful with your time while you’re on Earth.
The album is very personal and shows the complexity of being human. The lyrics can be dark, even though the music sounds light and hopeful. Is that contrast intentional?
Since I’m not the main lyricist on this album, I can’t talk about it in detail. But as you get older, you deal with death, loss, and sadness around you, and you see the world with a different perspective. If you make honest and empathetic music that reflects the moment we live in, you can’t do the same thing as 20 years ago, because you are no longer the same person. You try to offer artistic insights into how you feel things. There’s always hope in our lyrics, and that’s one of the reasons people connect with the band.
Do you think ‘Relief’ works as an emotional catharsis within the album? I see it that way, even though it’s quite early in the album. What do you think?
‘Relief’ is by Lisa Lobsinger; she sent the song. As we know her, we know she comes from an honest place. He’s been through a lot emotionally. I think it’s a necessary component of the album. There’s a lot of introspection, but you can’t make an album out of that alone. You need something like a disco beat, like ‘Relief’ or ‘The Call’, which is my favorite song to play live because I feel very free playing it and it’s very uplifting.
What can you say about ‘Think of You’? The lyrics seem almost like a mantra, an obsessive repetition. Is it about love or rather an intrusive thought?
That’s a very Kevin Drew question; I can’t answer it at all. What I can say is that when I first heard it, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t understand it at all.
Didn’t you think it should be part of the album?
It didn’t convince me, but it wins with listening.
«If we had a bigger microphone we would be more political. Like any caring person, you give what you can and as far as you can, but you also have your own bills.
What is your favorite song on the album?
I like ‘The Call’ and ‘The Briefest Kiss’. I also really like ‘Only the Good I Keep’.
I feel like ‘Only the Good I Keep’ has a better balance between sound and message. What does it mean to you?
For me it’s a very Broken Social Scene song. Thematically, it’s a natural progression of what we’ve been doing for twenty years. It’s more concise as a pop song, thanks to the input of Hannah Georgas, who hasn’t played with the band in a while.
What’s an essential Broken Social Scene song that’s not as well known?
Funnily enough, last night someone told us that they discovered the band through a B-side called ‘Song for Dee’, which I wrote about the death of a friend of mine’s dog. I wrote it for him and it’s on the 2010 EP ‘Lo-Fi for the Dividing Nights’. He commented that he loved this song, which is very unusual. It’s not the typical Broken Social Scene classic that people talk about. The lyrics say: “You’re such a pretty dog, aren’t you, Dee?” I thought it was adorable that this song helped someone discover Broken Social Scene.
The documentary is two years old, but now it is released internationally. How do you remember the Canadian indie scene from that time?
When we started the band and played gigs, it was kind of like a gang, not just our band. We never doubted that we were doing something good, and there was a lot of support from the community. Rents were cheap. That was before the great commercialization of Toronto. There was a very strong local spirit, very characteristic of the city. It was a liberating time, and that is reflected in the film. I had already been in other bands and everything seemed different to me with Broken Social Scene: we weren’t chasing anything, we just believed in what we were doing. We were lucky people who found each other.
Any scene from the documentary that made you laugh or feel embarrassed?
I’m not ashamed at all, but it’s nice to see the old images because they are like a time capsule. I should feel very lucky that someone was following me and my friends, documenting it all, and that 20 years later people still care, and even leave the house to go to the cinema to see the movie.
Is there still fertile ground in Toronto for a band like BSS to exist in the digital age?
Local scenes continue to emerge. I’m not as connected as before because I was already there. Obviously it will never be the same. When we started, going out for coffee was not common; you made coffee at home. Now there are many different coffee shops and you spend $6 on your “designer” coffee. We came out before the “coffee revolution.”
