Indie Rock Band Metric Interview Part 3/3

Metric gives us insight into their latest album 'Fantasies' in this part of our three-part interview.

Indie Rock Band Metric Interview Part 3/3 Rebecca Breighton: This Indie band’s fourth album reflects an idealized world. Hi, I'm Rebecca Breighton and welcome to watchmojo.com. Our host, Stephanie, got to speak with Metric about “Fantasies”, both their album and their desires. Stephanie Ng Wan: I’ve read about this thing that you guys created called a campfire test. I was wondering if you could tell me a bit more about it and how the “Fantasies” record faired on this test. James Shaw: It’s kind of like a litmus test if you will for like testing if a song is working or not. Emily Haines: Structurally sound. James Shaw: Yeah. It’s like--the thing that happens with a lot of music is there’s infinite possibilities from recording studios, in Pro Tools and multitracks and a million different instruments and-- Emily Haines: Different effects. James Shaw: --and all these different things that you can do. If you can’t play a song on one instrument from beginning to end, then you may not be getting the emotion across through that song. I mean, it’s not like that’s the only way to make music. There are tons of music that I listen to that I love that could never be played like that, but it’s just one way of approaching. Stephanie Ng Wan: You took a couple of weeks to record “Live it Out” and then almost a year and a half for “Fantasies”. So I was wondering, how did this extended time period help you guys? Emily Haines: Wasn’t it more like six months? We spent time writing--yeah. James Shaw: But we also recorded--we were in the studio. It took a long time and-- Emily Haines: I know. I was there. James Shaw: I think the thing that was freeing about that was that we didn’t care. We didn’t feel like our career was going to slide down the drain. Emily Haines: Although apparently everybody else did, which is really interesting. It’s like it’s so fun in general of being in this band and all the things that people say, “No, no, no, you can’t do that. You’ve missed the window. Your record needs to come out then.” It’s just like--or how about it doesn’t? How about we do it exactly when it feels right for us? And we’ve had so many things like that, particularly on this record that we’ve just listened to ourselves instead of getting confused by other people who somehow feel like entitled to tell you based on I don’t know what just where your life should go, which is so weird to me in music. Stephanie Ng Wan: One of the studios you guys were in was in Bear Creek I believe, outside of Seattle, in where you guys were really isolated in the woods. So I was wondering why did you guys decide to do that. James Shaw: We’ve been on tour, touring “Live it Out” for two years pretty much at that point and we knew we were going to take a really substantial break at that moment. And the idea was to go there and essentially plant the seed for what we would come back to after a long break. And so, there’s no better place to plant a seed than the forest, I guess. Emily Haines: Nice! Did you know you were going to say that? It’s amazing! You just ramped right up to it, like the whole time that was your punch line. That was amazing! Stephanie Ng Wan: Actually, I want to know what are some of your own personal fantasies. Emily Haines: Oh, I have one, camp counselors. That was what Dan told me to say. James Shaw: This is my fantasy, this life and what we’ve created and what we’re doing, and I woke up in a very good mood today thinking, “Wow! I can’t believe I get to do this.”