2011-01-14 - Broward Palm Beach New Times

Q&A With David Barnes: Of Montreal Concert This Evening Will Involve a Dragon

By Leslie Minora Fri., Jan. 14 2011 at 8:37 AM

False Priest album cover by David Barnes.

​Of Montreal frontman, Kevin Barnes, and his brother, David, the band's artistic director, grew up in West Palm Beach and are returning to their South Florida roots tonight for a show (or, more aptly, an energetic, colorful, costume-laden spectacle) at Revolution in Fort Lauderdale.

The tour promotes their latest album, False Priest, which NPR calls "bonkers," but in a good way. False Priest is as energetic as a candy-addicted toddler and listening to it instantly transports you to a party -- a party full of dancing and dark secret rooms. The music, with its synthetic sound-glitter along with the band's penchant for theatrics promises a Friday night that is border-line otherworldly. County Grind caught up with David, the artistic brain behind both the album art and the performances, known to involve human hair clippings, pig costumes, and a Susan Sarandon cameo...don't worry, we'll get to that.

Your performances are known for crazy costumes and lots of energy, so what do you have planned for Fort Lauderdale?

Our whole thing is really just creating a scenario for escapism, and that's why we do have all the theatrics. Me and the bass player, Davey Pierce, made a bunch of -- we made our own masks and stuff like that out of fiberglass and so we have these weird little school children characters. We have these characters that we call 'the builders,' and they're kind of modeled after Catholic priests a little bit. They kind of are bumbling idiots though. That's a little jab at organized religion I suppose. [And] we have a giant dragon that Kevin rides on.

I heard he rode on a white stallion before so I guess a dragon is the logical next step, right?

Yeah, we have a lot of theatrics going on. We have four performers with us on the trip, and just because we know so many people we tend to grab our friends every now and then.

Earlier, I was watching the clip of Susan Sarandon slapping a pig while on stage during an Of Montreal performance (video below). Was that your idea?

Yeah, it was just kind of a joke because a friend of ours was friends with her son. She could be this harsh school teacher that disciplined the pig characters for biting, and it was one of those surreal moments where what could have been just a funny idea somehow becomes reality.

Were you on stage at that point?

I was a pig, yeah. I didn't get spanked. Sometimes you give the lead character role to someone else so that you can enjoy it more. You can actually see it.

Where do you draw your inspiration for these stage performances and for the album covers you design?

draw a lot, I'm just always drawing, and so if you're always drawing and you're also reading and watching things, somehow it just all blends together naturally. There's definitely a comic book superhero influence for sure. I would definitely prefer it if everyone wore costumes all the time. False Priest, the album cover is kind of based on the idea of a false priest, which dosen't have to be religious. It can just be anyone that pretends to be something that they're not. If you meet a fish that's wearing a gas mask, then he's lying about something because fish would never need a gas mask. Maybe he's not a fish (laughs), or...

Have you ever had any ideas for performances that were just too crazy to carry out?

I have a friend that is a hairstylist, and so I had him save the hair for like two weeks. So, I had three garbage bags filled with hair, and I wanted to drop it onto the audience. The joke was kind of like, "Do you like flowers?" and every one's like, "Yea," like super excited that flowers are about to fall down, and then it's like, "Too bad, you get hair." And then hair drops down. We asked our lawyer about it, and he sent us a letter that I actually still have that's really funny..."Under no circumstances do you drop human hair on the audience." It was just a liability. It wasn't until after it was like no, it's not happening, and I kind of felt some of the hair and realized, "Oh, this is pretty disgusting." I got these weird little boxes and just put a little bit of hair in each box, and threw the boxes up so that it didn't get on them. It was not symbolic or intelligent in any way. It wasn't even really a prank. Sometimes ideas like that are just funny.

How would you describe the general vibe of False Priest compared to other Of Montreal albums?

Definitely more influence by '70s funk bands I would think. Kevin was just listening to a lot of that at the time. And there are some pretty heavy -- like the last song is the darkest ending to any of the records, which is basically God kind of apologizing for the Old Testament, basically -- for the idea that humans should worship God, so God's basically saying, "I was wrong...you guys should start worshiping each other as human beings and take care of each other, and if you're going to put your ideology above your brothers and sisters, you're going to hurt them for your ideology, then that's not right."

Do you think that message is more poignant now with the Tucson shootings?

I don't know if it's any more relevant now. I mean, people die all the time, and every now and then the nation cares about someone dying, but you know, people are being cruel to each other every single second of the day...I went to a Catholic school, so I tend to poke fun at not religion but organized religion in the sense that it's so stuffy, and there are so many rules and the rules are very arbitrary...

Did you and your brother go to the same Catholic school? I went for all four years; he went for, he couldn't even make it through a year so then he went to public school.

Was that an influence behind False Priest?

Probably not Catholic high school, but definitely we grew up in a Catholic household, and so, it definitely effects you. I'm kind of obsessed with the concept of God and religion, I suppose.

What do your parents think?

They're pretty religious, but they're also super supportive. There are certain things we've done on stage that my mom will be -- my mom especially will be like, "Ohh no, why did you do that?" But they're super super supportive and always have been. And my dad's like a business man, so he has this really funny outlook on it where it's like, "I don't understand half of what you guys do, but it appears to be working."

Video, as promised: Susan Sarandon Spanks a Pig

2010-10-01 - Drowned In Sound

"If I make sense, I fail". DiS meets Of Montreal

by Andrzej Lukowski - October 1st, 2010

According to the full version of the above photo, there are potentially a full 13 people in the ever-evolving Of Montreal's current incarnation. As you know, just one of them really matters: Kevin L Barnes, the genius/fruitloop behind all ten of their albums to date, including last month's funky/fucked up False Priest. On the eve of a walloping great three date UK tour, DiS caught up with Mr Barnes to talk about fish slaughtering ex-girlfriends, the futility of religion, and why you can't change the world via the medium of lampshades.

DiS: Did you have any particular plan for False Priest? It’s clearly a different mode of songwriting to the fragmentary approach you adopted for Skeletal Lamping...

Kevin Barnes: I think because I’d done that collage style writing on the last record I didn’t want to do that again, I felt like a change, so, um I leaned it more towards slightly more linear arrangement with the songs. I also wanted to create longer vamps within the songs. Skeletal Lamping was very jarring, with this one we wanted to bring out the rhythm element more. But I was still very much under the influence of Skeletal Lamping, it’s still very funky and still a fairly sexy record. But I started getting into, I guess, the heavier end of funk music.

DiS: Why did you decide to cut the entire record with live instruments this time? Was it because you had more money?

KB: Well I actually made this record at home, and by my standards it was basically done. But I’d been sending rough mixes to [producer] Jon Brion and I guess he had sort of gotten it into his head that he would like to help me realise a fuller sound. So he invited me out to California and I went in with a session drummer called Matt Chamberlain who came in and drummed on every single song. So once we’d improved the fidelity of the drum I was like ‘maybe I should recut the bass too’ so I just went through song by song and redid all the bass lines and then we sort of realised ‘well, why don’t we replace a couple of these digital pianos with real pianos’ and we kind of got carried away and sort of replaced everything.

DiS: So what you’re basically saying is that you technically made the same album twice?

KB: Yeah... it all just happened organically, I found myself out there working with this wizard of a producer and a musician and transforming my record, it’s been such a great education for me.

DiS: False Priest seems a bit more playful than your last few records; do I take it that not so many of the songs are biographical this time?

KB: Everything is based at least loosely on true stories...

DiS: So ‘Our Riotous Defects’... that actually happened to you?

KB: Yeah.

DiS: Wow. So you had a girlfriend who killed your fish?

KB: Yeah, she killed my Betta fish over some really small shit...

DiS: Wow. On the second date?

KB: Er, no, it was later, well into the relationship...

DiS: It’s not your wife is it?

KB: No, previous relationship.

DiS: How does the subject feel about the song?

KB: Um... well, they’re not really a huge Of Montreal fan, they might hear it on the radio at some point... but I don’t care, she deserves it.

DiS: Yeah, it, er, sounds like it! Does it get harder finding stories like that now you’re settled down..?

KB: It’s pretty easy I guess – when I’m feeling inspired I just let whatever happens happen and I don’t really edit myself or second guess it I just let it flow... it’s funny, a lot of songs I can’t explain the inspiration or influence behind it, I can’t remember writing or even recording them. I just have a really bad memory I guess.

DiS: Skeletal Lamping, False Priest and your upcoming The Controller Sphere EP all take their titles from a single line of the song ‘Faberge Falls For Shuggie’... is there any meaning to them beyond that? Bar the anti-religious monologue at the end of the ‘Do You Mutilate?’, False Priest wouldn’t seem to be much to do with religion...

KB: I think that maybe it has some connection to the part before it, the ‘try to connect XX infinite pleasure’, but it is abstract, that’s the only way I can really write. If I try and make sense than I just fail. I might be failing anyways, but at least I’m doing it in a way that works with my normal brain function.

But I don’t really have any strong agenda. I mean, I was raised a Catholic, I did go to church for 18 years, went to Sunday school for 18 years, my mum is very involved in the church, but I don’t think that much about it or care about it... I don’t feel like the Catholic church is bringing about the end of the world or anything. But what I was trying to say with that very frank lyric at the end, which is something that my brother and I talk about a lot, is that we should put humanity first, that we shouldn’t put god above humanity, we shouldn’t think of a religious prophet as more important than just day to day helping people. I think people get carried away by the mythology of these things, the mysticism of it, that if you don’t on the surface act a certain way they you’ll be punished and if you act another way then you’ll be rewarded in the afterlife... but who cares about the afterlife? I can’t really understand that obsession. We can do better without God, because we can do away with all the uncertainties, leaving just the certainties. If we got rid of religion and just concentrated on trying to empower each other then I’m sure that would help us a lot more.

DiS: It sounds to me like you’ve been pushing your vocals a lot more on this album, not technically, but in terms of a few more vocal personas. Is that something you were aiming for?

KB: Yeah, definitely, and I think listening to people I really like live David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, Prince, a lot of people have different vocal personas and with an album they go through four or five different personas. I’m just trying to be very expressive and experimental with what potential I have on this record, really trying to put my heart into every vocal performance and just make it more unconscious, sort of natural expression. It’s a cool thing because on this tour I’m not actually playing an instrument I’m just singing.

DiS: I can imagine you’ve wanted to do that for a while.

KB: Yeah, I’m sure I’ll miss playing a guitar but it's an interesting challenge and it will allow me to put all my energy into my singing. And of course there’s the dance moves, which are really tricky.

DiS: [laughs, unsure if he is joking] Speaking of Bowie: he always took pains to point out the inauthenticity in his dabbling with black American music, referring to it as ‘plastic soul’. Do you feel similar with what you’re doing?

KB: I’m not really TRYING to make soul music, but I don’t believe in that thing that if you’re white you can only make ‘white’ music authentically and if you make music that was created by black people then it’s obviously phoney. Maybe it was at one point, but I think now there’s so much cross pollination and intermingling of ideas and releases and cultures, I don’t feel any more of a phoney doing this than when I was making Coquelicot... which was influenced by the Gershwin brothers... now it’s just a sort of different obsession, but it's emotionally and intellectually connected to me, it doesn’t feel like I’m putting on a persona or anything.

I think that it goes both ways too – I think there are a lot of R&B producers seeking influence from outside sources, it’s not as homogenous as it once was, people are starting to nod to each other... it’s kind of similar to what was happening in the Sixties, Otis Redding covering Rolling Stones songs and Aretha Franklin covering Beatles songs... I don’t really know what happened in the Seventies to make it all so segregated again...

DiS: Do you ever feel at all self-conscious about the music you make? Like, does it require a special effort to psyche yourself up to do a vocal as OTT as the one on ‘I Feel Ya Strutter’?

KB: Er, no, when I’m recording I work on my own and just forget about the world. I don’t think about playing the music live or anybody else ever hearing it, I just want to make it exceptional, powerful, and not question myself. So much of funk music and soul music is so much about swagger, about attitude and confidence and you know I think I’ve reached this point, I know I’ve accepted my flaws, I’ve accepted that I’m not a perfect person, that I’m a total fuck up and I don’t really care, because everybody’s the same way, you know? I think self-forgiveness has really allowed me to go out there and not feel vulnerable, I don’t feel like anyone can take anything from me. It’s not like a cocky thing... I’ve just been down so low that I’ve got a new understanding about myself, what can be taken and what can’t.

DiS: ‘Enemy Gene’ and ‘Sex Karma’, the tracks on False Priest with guest appearances by Janelle Monae and Solange Knowles, are very explicitly duets, it’s not just a chorus hook or whatever; is that a mode you’d been interested in writing in previously?

KB: I’ve been a big fan of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s stuff for a while and I became sort of really obsessed with it while I was working on False Priest, so it was something that I was excited about. But I felt so privileged and so honoured to be able to work with Solange and Janelle, I think they're two of the most exceptional singers and artists and performers and human beings that we have among us on the Earth right now.

DiS: There are no novelty editions of False Priest, whereas Skeletal Lamping had all these special editions that were just a download and a fancy object; did that not pan out how you’d hoped?

KB: Um, it was kind of a funny thing, because we thought it was going to completely revolutionise the music industry. And that kind of didn’t happen, it didn’t even seem to be that big of a deal. And then you see other people who came out with similar things afterwards and we didn’t get any props for it. But we’re just some underground indie band... and maybe somebody had come up with the idea before us and I just didn’t know it. But we were all a little bit deflated because we thought it was going to be this big event, you know, abandoning the conventional product that goes along with the record and doing something totally far out.

DiS: I bought a lampshade.

KB: Maybe it was because the things that we were able to make on our budget weren’t that outrageously commercial... we were just crazy, now I think about it. We thought that this elaborate lantern or wall decal was somehow going to replace the TV or the microwave or something. But for The Controller Sphere we do have plans for some really cool packaging, something that we’ve been working on for a while.

DiS: Should we expect anything different from this tour?

KB: I think the same spirit but we’ve expanded out line-up so that we’re now an eight piece band, so this with the exception of a few samples everything is live. We’re trying to just get completely away from any sort of oppressive backing track, just try and create spontaneous energy, like we did it back in the day. We just want to be a real band, follow the spirit of Parliament. But there’s definitely going to be a theatrical element to it, we have a lot of new props that we’re very excited about bringing over to Europe.

DiS: Do you have a mental cut off point over how far into your back catalogue you’ll go?

KB: I’m weird about my back catalogue and my past in general, it’s almost like another person wrote those songs and I’d be covering some other artist if I played anything before Satanic Panic in the Attic. I think the False Priest tour will be very False Priest heavy with a few Hissing Fauna... and Skeletal Lamping songs thrown in. Luckily we don’t really have any major hits, so it’s not like anyone can go ‘they didn’t even play that’.

DiS: What about ‘The Past is a Grotesque Animal’?

KB: Yeah... that one’s hard though, it’s like a ten minute journey into hell... but I guess we’ll probably play it a couple of times. We’ve never done it with this line up, with a violinist, I think we could definitely create an interesting version of it. Maybe we’ll do it in London.

2010-10-06 - The Quietus

Performance Breakdown: Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes Interviewed

Alex Denney , October 6th, 2010 03:56

As Of Montreal hit the UK, Al Denney talks to Kevin Barnes about the influence of Parliament on False Priest and the history of 'The Past Is A Grotesque Animal', one of our favourite songs of the last decade
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Athens, GA’s Of Montreal were a pleasant fixture on the indie-pop firmament for more than a decade before depression, divorce and a well-documented bit of madness involving a fortysomething, transsexual alter-ego collided with frontman Kevin Barnes’ world and sent the band spinning off in ever wilder trajectories.

Quietus ed John Doran reckons Barnes might be some kind of genius, but that feels like too premeditated a word, somehow – he’s more a compulsive truth-teller; a keenly perceptive fellow whose desire to take a magnifying glass to the fine print of his soul leads him just as often to moments of pathological ugliness as it does pockets of transcendence.

Whatever the semantics, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? was quite simply one of the most beautiful meltdowns ever set to wax, with ‘The Past Is A Grotesque Animal’ the darkly circling eye of the storm. A twelve-minute, depressive’s tract written from a cabin in the Norwegian countryside, it’s a little like Bergman’s Hour Of The Wolf set to a krautrock groove, and as such completely unfuckwithable. To celebrate the track’s rerecording for a forthcoming Spike Jonze short film, we asked Barnes about its genesis, aftermath and exactly how much his missus minds him taking a hammer to his id in public.

Since Kev is exactly the kind of stand-up Southern gent we always like to hear more from at The Quietus, we also found time to ask him about the latest full-length dispatch from his band’s salty canon, the campily brilliant False Priest.

You’re releasing a new version of ‘The Past Is A Grotesque Animal’ featuring Nick Zinner and members of The Moonrats, can you tell us how that came about?

Kevin Barnes: I guess it was Spike Jonze’s idea, he contacted me and said he wanted to have a special cover version. He’s really good friends with Nick (Zinner) so he put us in touch with each other, and Nick and some of his friends created a track and sent it to me. Then I cut my vocals and sent it back to them.
I wasn’t involved in the musical production of it. I have a lot of respect for the people involved so I knew they’d do something cool with it, they had carte blanche really. I was just really excited to hear what they would do with it. The only direction Spike gave was that he took out certain lyrics he didn’t want to be there, just because it’s such a long track. I mean the song is basically a four-chord vamp on a loop, you can pick out any of the lyrics and it’ll be fine.
It was kinda cool ‘cos I wrote and recorded the song almost at the same time and when I did the lyrics I just happened to throw them together that way. I’ve played that song hundreds of times, but with the new version when I cut the vocal track I could incorporate things I’d done in live performances of the song. So the re-recording is impacted by all the times I’ve played it over the years; I sang it differently.

That must be a difficult song to play live on a regular basis.

KB: Definitely. I always feel sort of emotionally spent afterwards, but at the same time it feels very exciting and empowering. It’s just this really massive emotional workout, and at the end of the song you just kind of fall to the ground.

The song feels like a centrepiece for Hissing Fauna. How much of album did you have written at that point?

KB: It’s weird with that record ‘cos the way the tracks are arranged is basically the order I wrote them in. After I wrote that I was able to exorcise my demons or whatever and felt able to write poppier stuff. I actually edited it down, the real version is like sixteen or seventeen minutes long. But I had to cut it to make it more palatable.

Amazing! I’d be curious to know what got left out.

KB: It was really just more of the same. I could have written a whole album out of that song because of what it’s about – my wife Nina and I’s relationship dissolving and all the pressure I was feeling, the chaos, anxieties and all of that. It was a very insane period in my life. I’d been writing and writing and I had so much material I could have put into that song, but at a certain point I felt like people would just want to eject the CD and throw it out of the window.

Artistically the record was hailed as a breakthrough, did it feel that way at the time?

KB: I think it has a weight to it, an emotional strength to it that a lot of other records don’t have, a lot of our records are more abstract and poppy and fun. There was no primal scream element to them, they’re fairly balanced or whatever. And Hissing Fauna’s the first one that deals with a lot of psychological issues, just because of what I was going through at the time. It has more of an emotional impact than previous records and it definitely helped to establish us in a way. I actually was using the creative process as a form of therapy but it wasn’t really working, I was hoping if I wrote these songs I would get healthy again.

Does that seem like wishful thinking in hindsight?

KB: It’s the same thing that always drives me to create art, to create a world that’s better than the one I’m living in physically or mentally. So I mean the same source of inspiration is always there regardless of how I’m feeling. It’s always trying to create this secondary world that I have more control of or is more romantic or poetic or funny or whatever it is.

Just coming back to ‘The Past...’ specifically, were you surprised at all by the violence of the imagery in that song?

KB: Well I felt like a trapped animal, and I think that when that happens you’re capable of things you wouldn’t be if you were just skipping through some flowery garden or whatever.

Were you prepared for the interest that record sparked in your private life?

KB: I’m not sure it did. I can understand if people are curious, it doesn’t bother me. I performed naked on stage. I’m not too concerned about privacy or keeping things secret for myself.

What about some of the literary allusions in there? There’s that line, “I fell in love with the first cute girl that I saw/ who could appreciate Georges Bataille/ standing at a Swedish festival, discussing Story Of The Eye." Is Bataille a big influence on your work generally?

KB: Definitely. It really is true though, that lyric... I had this idea about a fantasy woman who’s really into Bataille and can understand him or not be freaked out by him. When I met Nina that was the first thing that impressed me about her. I was always looking for someone who could teach me things and stimulate me at all levels, and I hadn’t met anyone like that. So it’s true that we were at a Swedish festival, we were hanging out and talking about George Bataille so that’s highly autobiographical.

It’s quite the opening gambit, as chat-up lines go.

KB: That’s just how I roll, ha-ha. When you first meet someone you test the waters, I wasn’t trying to impress or anything, I was just hoping to be impressed. But when you’re meeting someone... sometimes I’ll act really idiotic just to see if they can take it. Then if they can you think, well, this person’s cool or whatever, and then if they look at you like you’re crazy it’s like "I don’t wanna have anything to do with this person anyway..."

What about the reference to Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf (“The mousey girl screams 'Violence! Violence!’/ She gets hysterical, because they’re both so mean/ and it’s my favourite scene/ but the cruelty’s so predictable/ and it’s my favourite scene.”)

KB: I always loved that play and I always loved that movie, just the dynamic between the two of them and imagining a relationship which can go through such an incredible tumultuous rollercoaster emotionally. Just the shared fantasy life that the two of them have in that play - the hysterical pregnancy and everything - it makes you realise how complex relationships can be when you put these highly intelligent human beings together. We have so many devices that we use to hurt each other and help each other and I just think that’s really interesting.

But you and Nina were reconciled by the time of Hissing Fauna’s release?

KB: We got back together just before it was came out and Nina was extremely embarrassed – well maybe not embarrassed but just like, "Oh this all our dirty laundry you’re sharing with the world, and that’s just your side of the story so it’s not really fair." So she felt a little bit awkward but also she really loved it, and was really touched by the emotion behind it and so she was extremely supportive.
She never asked me to change a certain lyric and I wouldn’t have anyways. She’s an artist as well, she’s a crazy woman so she’s not afraid to expose her inner-life with the world and I think she can appreciate that aspects of art will make you uncomfortable. Especially if you’re speaking from personal experiences and sharing your actual thoughts with the world, so it’s not all just fantasy-based. There’s always a danger that someone’s gonna make fun of you for it or you might feel overexposed but in a way I think the best art comes from that place. People can identify with it more; if it’s too skilfully managed you lose a bit of the rawness that makes art great.

With the follow-up album (Skeletal Lamping) did you worry that your alter-ego Georgie Fruit would be seen as just such a ‘skilfully managed’ contrivance?

KB: Definitely, I mean at first I had the Georgie Fruit character as a songwriting device but it was such a strong pull. Somehow there was this force that was just pushing me to write these songs and they seemed so different from anything I’d done before. So it helped me to have this device where I could say well, it’s not really me it’s Georgie Fruit. But then I realised no, it’s completely me, I couldn’t possibly do it if it wasn’t me.
I don’t really believe in personas being somehow disconnected or different from the artist. The art’s completely that person, there’s no escaping it. You’re not capable of producing something that doesn’t come from your psyche. So I kind of realised Georgie was just another part of me, I stopped thinking about him like that. It’s all just part of Kevin Barnes, whatever that is.

I like the way you’ve run with the funk and R&B vibe on the last few records – psychedelia seems to be such a white preserve nowadays, which is weird given how it was kind of joined at the hip with funk in the late ‘60s.

KB: When I first started getting into music it was total R&B stuff that I was listening to and then I started getting really into The Beatles, and then via The Beatles, The Pretty Things, White Noise, Os Mutantes and stuff like that. And then of late I’ve been way more interested in ‘70s soul and R&B. Parliament was a great discovery for me, they were taking stuff like ‘60s doo-wop and ‘70s funk and psychedelia, acid rock and blending it all together into this crazy collage, and having so much fun theatrically with all the visuals and stuff. So they’ve been a real guiding light for us, because it’s not just superficially interesting, there’s also a great emotional depth to the songs as well because it’s coming from those soul roots. George [Clinton] was a member of a doo-wop group in his early days. So what we’re doing now is taking a lot of inspiration from those guys.

The Janelle Monae thing has been cool [she features on the track ‘Enemy Gene’ from False Priest] – I feel like you guys are aiming at similar things, albeit from quite different starting points...

KB: I think we’re very much the same creature in a lot of ways. We’re on tour right now together, we’re combining our shows. We still want both artists to have a really strong identity, but it’s amazing how much we have in common, there’s this desire to kind of cross-pollinate and it’s exciting ‘cos you never know what’ll happen from night to night. There are just so many ideas bouncing back and forth. We do a thing where a member of Janelle’s art collective, Roman John Arthur, is coming onstage and singing a couple of verses of my songs. What happens is I pretend I’m about to sing a song and then the performance artists come and grab me and hold me back. Then Roman comes from backstage and sings the song while I’m pretending to be really upset, like, "What’s going on?"
We’re incorporating all these crazy ideas into the show and having a laid-back fun attitude towards everything, it’s not like an ego-trip or anything. In a way it’s very much like when I watch the old Parliament shows, Clinton was an important part of it but he wasn’t a lead singer, rock-star archetype you know, he was more like a director. And he realised he had all the insanely gifted people around him so they all should have their moment in the sun. That’s the way performances should be. It’s kind of funny because most performances you go see a show and it’s so scripted in a way, you know what’s gonna happen, the artists know what’s gonna happen, the lighting guy knows what’s gonna happen, it’s almost set up like a Broadway play. But we’re trying to keep that spontaneous element of just doing what you feel like doing on any given night. Just keeping things alive.

It’s also good to hear an artist sing about sex in such frank and bizarre fashion. We’re bombarded with sexual imagery nowadays but beyond the surface raunch people don’t seem to have an awful lot to say on the subject.

KB: Well I mean a lot of it is very clichéd. It’s all ‘I love you baby’ but there’s no intellectual involvement, it’s just very physical or visceral or whatever. There’s no thought about sexual politics. It’s like people are on autopilot when they’re writing pop songs, they’re just like, "Well I want people to feel sexy" or whatever and then they go from there. It’s rare that people actually spend time with lyrics.

Do you feel like Lady Gaga offers something ‘other’ in that sense, or is she just an insanely ambitious hack?

KB: I think she does a lot of things really, really well. Visually she’s amazing, superficially she’s great. And also the people she’s trying to speak to are the underdogs, she’s trying to give her voice to the awkward people of the world in a way and I think that’s beautiful. But musically she’s definitely hitting on a very mainstream level, it doesn’t match her persona at all. When I first heard her I thought it was like Pet Shop Boys song or something – I mean I like Pet Shop Boys, but it wasn’t really what I was expecting, I was expecting something more artsy, something a bit more Grace Jones at least. But it comes across as too safe, but you know that’s why she’s so popular, she can appeal to Jersey Shore people and teenage art kids at the same time so you know, she’s obviously doing something right.

How would you say Georgie Fruit’s role has shifted on the new record?

KB: I think he’s just kind of immersed into my head, I don’t even think about him anymore. It’s like he doesn’t exist. He’s just melted into it, he’s a part of the collage.

And the title, False Priest, you’re on record as saying has to do with a kind of "false policing of the self"?

KB: It’s a funny thing; with a lot of conceptual or fine artists, so much of the creative process is connected to explanation, you know it looks just like canvas with a red dot on it, but it’s actually it’s something completely different. But for me, somehow an idea gets in my head and I don’t really even question it or even think about. I had this thing when I was making song titles for Hissing Fauna, and I was reading these Dylan Thomas poems just to get into a creative frame of mind. I think he has an amazing way of structuring sentences together, so after I’d read a poem I’d just close my eyes and let that influence my own consciousness.

I came up with ‘Skeletal Lamping’, ‘The Controller Sphere’ and ‘False Priest’ during that writing session and for some reason those three didn’t seem like song titles, they had this weird aura about them.

Do you feel with the new record you’ve been able to engage more with the outside world after the introspection of the last two?

KB: I’m always trying to be creative, I’m always trying to pay attention to ideas and be observant. So I don’t really think about whether I’m more or less connected to reality. It sounds really pretentious but I don’t really remember writing or recording the songs especially, because you get so absorbed in the process.

But there is a bit of anticlerical sentiment in there, for example...

KB: I was raised Catholic, it’s my mom’s religion and like any good mother she said, "That’s your religion as well"... I’m joking. But you know how it is with mothers, like, "You’re my child, you were baptised so this is your religion, this is your faith." How ironic. It’s a strange world for sure, but kind of fascinating as well. It’s like a comic book in a way, it’s hard to believe it actually exists and that people actually believe in this stuff, all the superheroes in there like the Pope. It’s hilarious to me, that the Pope is the voice of God and has these powers, he’s not just a man who takes shits every day like anyone else. He’s just a man, he’s not anything! It makes me realise how much we have to mature intellectually, spiritually, emotionally to get to a point where we’re really just focused on reality and not mysticism. I mean as an artist I can appreciate mysticism, but I’m a realist and I’m not about to go believing in my fantasies.

If you were to set up your own religion Alan Moore-style what would it be like?

KB: I guess it would be something in line with progressive humanism, where we just realise that we don’t have any divinity looking out for us so we have to look out for each other. In a way that is God, by caring for each other we’re able to create God amongst ourselves.

2010-06-17 - Pitchfork

original article.

Thursday, June 17 : Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes Talks New Album, Tour With Janelle Monáe

"I've always had a suspicion of the Catholic Church, even as a kid."

False Priest, the new album from Athens glam-funk freaks of Montreal, is coming this fall. Frontman Kevin Barnes recorded much of it in Los Angeles, working with the producer and composer Jon Brion (Fiona Apple, Kanye West). The album will feature collaborations with like-minded R&B sirens Solange Knowles and Janelle Monáe. And according to Barnes, it'll also feature a ton of trunk-rattling bass, a first for an of Montreal album.

We recently caught up with Barnes as he was finishing work on the album. We talked about the Catholic Church, what False Priest will tell you about your car stereo, and the touring extravaganza of Montreal is planning with Janelle Monáe.

Pitchfork: The new album is called False Priest. What does the title mean?

Kevin Barnes: It's open to interpretation. At first-- just as with most things I do-- I didn't really think it had a meaning. But the meaning I've grown to attach to it is sort of a sense of a false policing of yourself, or your psyche-- creating false limitations for yourself, as if there was a false priest inside of all of us that controls us.

Pitchfork: Do you mean inhibitions?

KB: On some level. But inhibitions can stem from so many different sources. We all have our sense of right or wrong, or acceptable or unacceptable thinking or behavior. Especially for me, growing up Catholic, the word priest has more significance than it would for someone who didn't go through that. I've always had a suspicion of the Catholic Church, even as a kid. My brother [artist David Barnes] and I, in our theatrical performances, address that a lot as well: the hypocrisy and the negative aspects of the Church.

Pitchfork: A lot of artists who grew up Catholic and are conflicted about it seem to end up creating work informed by their experiences with the Church.

KB: Yeah, I guess there's something to it. A lot of people take a lot from it. It gives them a sense of balance. It gives them a sense of control, as if they don't feel like there's total chaos. It gives their life meaning on some level. But it never really worked for me. My two sisters go to Church every Sunday. My parents go to Church every Sunday still. It's just my brother and I, for some reason, who didn't connect with it.

Pitchfork: How much did you work with Jon Brion on this one? Did he produce the whole album?

KB: No, he didn't produce it. Basically, I made a record in my home studio. By of Montreal standards, by the previous records' standards, I made a record; it was basically done. And then I came out to L.A., to Ocean Way studios with Jon. He basically showed me how I could make it sound a lot better, improve the fidelity, get more low end, expand the audio spectrum. And so we cut live drums on top of my programmed drumming, and we recut all the bass guitars and added a whole bunch of synthesizers. I basically came to Jon with a finished record, and we improved upon it.

Pitchfork: Is this the first time you've done a really high-fi recording?

KB: It's not even really that hi-fi. It's definitely more hi-fi than anything I've ever done. If I were to have done the whole thing with Jon, then that would have been a different story. But just from my own limitations as a non-engineer-- basically just working by myself and not really concerning myself too much about fidelity-- it's just about getting the ideas out, not worrying about mic placement or EQ or compression or anything like that. It's more about writing all the compositional elements and then dealing with whatever fidelity it has after the fact. But we've definitely accomplished a lot since I've been out here, improving the sound of it.

Pitchfork: What genres did you play around with on this album? And did the improved sound inform the music?

KB: There's a thick R&B influence, so it's cool that we have a lot of deep low end. Basically, every song has a lot more low-end information than I've ever used before. We're trying to make a record that has similar low end to records like The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest and even, to some degree, stuff like Dr. Dre. That was the goal: To make something that had that low end but also was my thing, an of Montreal record. So it's different. Most indie-pop records don't have that low end.

Pitchfork: So will this be trunk music, then?

KB: That was definitely the thinking: People all of a sudden realize what kind of car stereos they have. It's one of those things where if you listen to it on your laptop, you're not going to hear it, but if you listen to it in the club, then you're really going to hear it; you're really going to feel it. Most cars have pretty decent sound systems nowadays, so you'd hear it there, too. That's the funny thing about when you're mixing, trying to make it sound good in every situation. But there's certain limitations, especially with laptop speakers or something coming out of your iPhone; that's not going to sound that great.

Pitchfork: Are you hoping this one gets some action in the club?

KB: Yeah! I mean there's definitely a lot of candidates there. There's a lot of very dancey, very funky songs. Jon and I were talking about what we really love about music: The physical connection that you can have, besides an intellectual connection. If the music can go through you, and not just make you want to dance, but give you a physical charge as well.

Pitchfork: Jon Brion co-produced Kanye West's Late Registration. There's not too much club music on there, but it's a really widescreen experience. Are you going for something similarly huge like that?

KB: Yeah. That was the thing when we were adding instruments out here and looking at what I had done already, trying to bring that out even more. The thing I really love about music is an unpredictability; that's essential for me. If I'm going to appreciate or connect with something, it can't be predictable. So we try to have these "holy fuck" moments where you're really having your mind blown, especially if you're listening to it on headphones. There's a lot of different records where I'm like, "Oh my god! That's so cool! I can't believe they did that!"

Pitchfork: What are some of your favorite examples of records that do that?

KB: Probably the biggest and most obvious example is the Beatles' "A Day in the Life", when those strings are ascending up and it's getting all chaotic and crazy, and then there's the big ending. That was the first moment when I realized the power of music. That song is so brilliant on so many levels, and in addition to that, there's that moment that just makes you go, "Oh my god!" When it's over, you're breathless.

Pitchfork: You've been doing of Montreal for so long and for so much of the time it's basically been a home-recording project. Is it a big adjustment to come out to L.A. and work the way you've been working on this one?

KB: Yeah. I can't imagine that I would have been able to do it with anyone else, but somehow I just felt so relaxed with Jon. I just really love hanging out with him, even if we're not working. A lot of the time, we're just hanging out, talking and trading stories. We talk about music and playing songs together; he's amazing in that way. He has this head full of songs. He remembers everything and can figure it out instantly. So we spent a lot of time sitting on the piano. We'd talk about some Marvin Gaye song, and he'd be like, "Oh yeah! It's like this! And then this chord changes; it's so beautiful!" We were falling down over these things. We both just love music so much, and we're just so excited about the creative process. He's an exceptional human, and I can't imagine that I would have had as wonderful of an experience with anyone else.

Pitchfork: You've got Janelle Monáe and Solange on this album, and they're both fans of your band. Is it a charge for you to reach across these aisles and connect with people who work in genres that are so far outside where you've been situated?

KB: It's funny. I listen to so much soul music and R&B music. I never really felt like we were a part of any genre. I know that other people would group us in with certain other bands or whatever, but in my heart I didn't really belong there. So it wasn't really strange at all for me, at least, to think of myself on the same wavelength with [Monáe's collective] the Wondaland Arts Society and with Solange. But it was definitely exciting. It's always exciting when you meet someone that is insanely gifted, who you respect so much. And if you get the sense that they respect you too, that's the greatest feeling.

Pitchfork: What are Janelle and Solange like to work with?

KB: Fantastic. I mean, they're my good friends, so we just have fun together. I wrote a song on Janelle's record, and we sang it together. I'm super-close friends with everybody at the Wondaland Arts Society, and we trade songs back and forth all of the time; they're like my best friends. And Solange is fantastic. Her son and my daughter are best buddies, and I think we're going to have an arranged marriage for the two of them.

Pitchfork: The song that you've got on the Janelle Monáe album is really interesting; it's basically an of Montreal song with her singing on it, rather than with you guys playing on her song. It's interesting how it fits into the fabric of that album, and also how it stands out from it. Whose idea was it to put your song on her album?

KB: I guess it just happened organically. I can't really remember a conversation or anything. I think I was just sending them songs. After I met Janelle and [collaborators] Chuck Lightning and Nate Wonder and everybody from the Wondaland Arts Society, it was almost like this romance began. I still feel that excitement. Like, we're in the honeymoon period. It was just super exciting to know each other and to collaborate together, so I can't even really remember how it came about. It just happened organically and now it's there. I haven't really thought about it.

Pitchfork: It's cool how it comes up like that. I like how that album is just left turn after left turn.

KB: For me, it's the album of the last five or 10 years. It's fantastic because it's not just one thing. Like you said, it's constantly changing, and it's almost a through-composition. You never really know where one song is ending and another song is starting. And there's so much cool stuff happening on every fadeout of every song as well. You're like, "Where's that going? That thing was so great! I wish they would have developed it more, but oh, another amazing thing is just popping up!" I can't say enough good things about that record.

Pitchfork: When you're putting music together for a record, do you think about how it's going to come off onstage, with all the theatrics of your live show? Do you develop ideas for the show as you're working on the music?

KB: No, the live show usually comes after the fact. Usually, I write without thinking too much about how we're going to pull it off, just sort of getting excited about what's inspiring me at the moment. We just did this two-week tour, and basically every night on that tour, we would all have a meeting and talk about different ideas that we want to try out for the False Priest tour. We were really excited about production and getting that in motion. Right now, I'm still in L.A. mixing stuff, but my brother and Davey [Pierce] and everybody in the band is back in Athens, building props and creating costumes and thinking up ideas. So we're super excited.

The initial tour that we do to support a record, we'll invest a lot of money and a lot of time and energy and try to make it this giant production. We don't necessarily make money on those tours, but that's not the point. The point is just to be involved in something artistically satisfying and exciting. So this initial False Priest tour we're doing with Janelle Monae. It's going to be the most exciting event that I've ever been a part of. I just know it because we've got so many exciting ideas. We're going to marry the two shows together, in a way. It doesn't feel like you go see a band, and there's a pause, and there's another pause, and then it's over. We want to control the environment from right when the doors open, and have performance art and video performances and so many different levels of artistic stimulation that would go on throughout the whole night, so there's never a moment where there's house music or boring lighting. We want to transform the venues each night, so it becomes this exceptional experience for everyone.

Posted by Tom Breihan on June 17, 2010 at 8 a.m.

2009 jan/feb - Death + Taxes

by Isaac Lekach - Photos by Ray Lego.

2007-01-22 - MySpace Blog

Monday, January 22, 2007

new orleans knows how to party (and wear cologne) i woke up at 4p.m. in new orleans after a long night /day of weird dreams. nothing new. i tried to find out what channel was going to show the NFL championship games until i realized that today is saturday. i wandered into the venue and was happy to see that the stage was a decent size and that we were going to be able to do the full production tonight. i was also psyched that the green room was nice and that we had our own bathroom. a touch of class. i went on a hunt for a coffee house and of course the only one around was a starbucks. to my chagrin they closed at 3 so i looked for some food instead. on the recommendation of this bartender at a hotel bar i went to a cajun restaurant around the corner. on the way i discovered this really cool architectural object and took a bunch of photos of it for my film project. i sat down in the restaurant and quickly became self conscious. i hate that feeling. i wished i had "the wind up bird chronicles" with me or, at the very least, my mobile phone. reproaching myself, i overcame that pathetic little feeling and just sat there and analyzed last night's dreams. i have this recurring dream about being in a house possessed by an evil invisible force. probably an extension of the effects of my catholic upbringing. so many of my weird superstitions can be blamed on that. hawk and a hacksaw's performance was rad as usual. it's amazing to hear sounds like that. so different from what you expect to hear at a rock venue. so inspiring. our show was a lot of fun. the highlights for me were the debut of the three headed tiger bull and the first live performance of "the past is a grotesque animal". the low point was when a group of misguided creeps chanted "steak,steak, steak" after we played "wraith pinned to the mist". it just proves,no matter how much you want to add something positive to the world, there will always be people who try to bring you down. not to say our selling of a song to a corporate steak house was something positive, but sometimes you have to suck a little dick to get by. that's just a hard fact of life. but really, of all the evil organizations out there, it's hard to imagine the thought process behind heckling of Montreal. oh well. still working out the kinks in the visuals but some progress was made from last night in memphis. i should mention that, in memphis, all of these super cute kids from little rock made the drive to see us and they brought us a bunch of hats, in response to my song "little rock". made me feel like a jerk for writing the song but they were good natured about it. after the new orleans show, the venue quickly transformed into a dance club catering to the worst of the CK1 set. i felt like an alien so i went and hid in the bus. after awhile i got bored and peeked my head out to discover these three indie kids hanging around so i began talking to them. they were very cool so we decided to go run around bourbon street together. i'm not the biggest fan of that scene but it's kind of cool to check it out every once and a while. lots of crazy drunk retards from the suburbs and sleazy characters. we did run into a bunch of kids that we're at the show and our entourage grew in number. we crashed this hotel party we heard about only to discover no party at all, just a couple sleeping on a fold out bed. we took the parade to a bar called one eyed jacks and had a gin and tonic. nothing too exciting. michael called and said we had to go back to the bus so the evening ended without climax. when our new friends dropped us back off at the bus, one of them confronted me about my song "gronlandic edit". being a christian, he was offended by the song's apparent dismissal of all religion as a haven for the delusional and pathetic. it made me realize the strange and unpredictable nature of belief. it's so bizarre how an idea can seem so real for one person and impossible for another. i have nothing against religions as long as they don't foster negativity and division. i told him as much and he seemed satisfied. so i jumped bak on the horse and we drove for twelve hours to san antonio through an intense rain shower.

2007-02-27 - Seattle Music

Chemical Creation

Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes: Inside/Out.

Aja Pecknold

Published on February 12, 2007 at 5:45pm

Born in the Southern university town of Athens, Ga., in 1997, by way of frontman Kevin Barnes, Of Montreal have proven themselves to be one of the hardest-working art-pop, disco, glam indie bands around. In an era where myspace saturation, and a stamp of approval from Pitchfork, can send new bands from zero to 9.0 in a matter of months, it's a rare occurrence to see a band that's been steadily releasing records and wearing van tires bald with tour after tour for nearly a decade (they've played Seattle close to 20 times) finally make a blip on the pop culture radar. Their latest, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, has been raved about in such high-minded publications as The New York Times.

Barnes' music has gone places most people only dream about . . . while tripping on acid . . . in Alice's wonderland. From concept records where each song incorporates Dustin Hoffman to albums whose titles—like Horse and Elephant Eatery (No Elephants Allowed)—are reflective of the bizarre, colorful content within, it's clear there's no shortage of imagination at the source. Even while he was wallowing in the depths of depression on foreign soil during the making of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, Barnes' well of weird, hook-drenched psychedelia seemed to spring eternal. And with sold-out shows and three costume changes a night, Barnes and his band just might need to get ready for their close-up.

Seattle Weekly: Your material is so full of imagination that it makes me wonder what you were like as a kid growing up.

Kevin Barnes: Well, I was a really shy kid, very introverted. I didn't have a lot of friends when I was really young. I don't know why. I guess where we lived there weren't a lot of kids around. So I think that kind of helped me establish an internal dialogue that benefited me later in my creative life.

What brought you to Athens?

I moved there because I really wanted to get a band together. I heard there was a pretty cool scene in Athens. You know, it had the sort of . . . the romantic dream of the early '80s—REM and the B-52's starting out. It's a cool city, very artsy, and people are pretty open-minded. It's a strange little oasis in a way because, y'know, it's in the South.

You spent a good portion of time while you were working on Hissing Fauna in Norway. What was that experience like?

It was cool to be in a European city and spend a long period of time there—learn where everything is, get acclimated—just because it's a different lifestyle in a lot of ways, especially during the Bush regime. It feels kind of weird to be an American.

Did you get that vibe from the people there?

To some degree, but I was pretty much like a ghost. No one was really like, "Oh my God, you're an American, let's talk politics!" I mean, most people were really cool, and understood that just because you are American doesn't mean you are a right-wing conservative. It was definitely a challenge, going through it all. At the time, I was like, "Oh my God, I'm freakin' out. I'm having a kid, and I have all these anxieties, and I'm in a foreign environment, and this is so crazy and I can't handle it!" I sort of broke down in a way. But now that I've kind of gotten through it, it's sort of made me a little bit, not necessarily stronger, but I think when you have experiences that don't totally traumatize you too incredibly and you are able to get past them, they give you an interesting perspective on things.

In one of the songs that you wrote while you were there, "Gronlandic Edit," you talk about the desire to pray to some kind of higher power, praying to a saint that nobody has heard of. Can you expound a bit on that?

Well, I was in this horrible downward spiral of chemical depression, and I didn't understand what was going on because I'd never experienced anything like that before, and so I felt totally under attack by these invisible forces, trying desperately to keep my head together. But I had so many problems. Anxiety issues, paranoia issues, and all these things. So I started thinking about God, or the saints, or religion, some type of spirituality, because I don't have any whatsoever. So I tried to think: "Should I be Buddhist, Mormon, Muslim?" None of them really appealed to me. But I felt like I wanted, like I needed, help—some sort of guidance. And so the saint that nobody has heard of is my uncle who died 10 years ago. For some reason—I don't do it as much anymore—but when I was in the really low period, I would try to pray to him and connect with him to have him help me, like picking him as a sort of celestial, benevolent force to contact. Because it's kind of my thought that when you die, sometimes, if you want to, you can help people who are living.

How much of the record was written in Norway?

I wrote the first half of it, from "Suffer for Fashion" to "A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger"—all of those songs were written and recorded in Oslo. Then we rented a house in Athens, and I put together kind of a makeshift studio in the attic. That's where the second half of the record was recorded.

In a song on the second half of the record, "Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider," you tell a girl named Eva that she will never have you because you need a lover with soul power. ("Eva, I said I'm sorry/But you can never have me/Cuz you're just some faggy girl/And I need a lover with soul power/And you ain't got no soul power.") Can you talk about how you'd define soul power?

Well, it's kind of like my concept of emotional depth, and there's something beyond that, too, like when I imagine a person with soul power, it's like they're super comfortable with themselves and with the world around them. They just feel at peace in a way, and they can project that onto other people as well.

You've been putting out records and touring for nearly 10 years, and it seems like this release has been garnering quite a bit of attention. Do you feel that it may be a tipping point of sorts?

I think that maybe it's just—things have just sort of aligned in the right way, right now: the music that I'm writing, the sound of the recordings, the sound of the recordings of my contemporaries, and what the record-buying public is interested in. [The music is] sort of in line with whatever's fashionable right now. That's the thing you realize: Selling records has nothing to do with the quality of your record.

You used to be a gymnast.

Uh-huh—yes, I used to be totally into it.

Your suit in the video for "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse"—is that something you would have worn as a gymnast?

That's more speedskating. I have two different leotards, though—one of them is kind of obscene. It's a gold G-string, but I only wear it on special occasions.

Do you wear tights with it?

Yeah, I've been wearing tights. Not because I'm modest, but because I think it looks better when you don't have to see all this hair.

No waxing, then?

No. I thought about waxing, but then that's kind of like a commitment. You can't just wax once.

2007-03-12 - Wireless Bollinger

Why Kevin Barnes Is Not Normal

originally published in Wireless Bollinger (no longer hosted).

Kevin Barnes is not a guy that you can rely upon to act ‘normally’. Whether this be performing a handful of songs completely nude (well actually, he did wear face paint, a red cummerbund and some sensational black fishnet stockings) or the creation of the character Georgie Fruit (the personality that dominates the second half of Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?), Barnes is not afraid of the atypical.

However, reliable is exactly what Barnes’ recording project, of Montreal, is. Throughout his decade-long career as the mastermind of this band, Barnes has embraced change, evolving from the ‘60s-influenced and character-driven style of The Gay Parade to the post-Bowie, dance-glam and lyrical melancholy of Hissing Fauna. Barnes’ reliability as an artist is not driven by rehashing similar past successes, though. It is borne from the quality of each release and his ability to impart catchy hook-laden pop on every record, regardless of musical evolution.

“When I was making Hissing Fauna, I wasn't really thinking that I was making an album. I was just losing myself in the recording process and using it as a form of escapism. I wasn't thinking about how the songs would fit in with the rest of my canon,” Barnes said. What about the Georgie Fruit persona? “He/she created herself/himself. I didn't sit down and say to myself, ‘I wanna create a new persona,’ or anything like that. It just happened organically.”

Possibly this is one aspect of Barnes’ success: that where some bands refuse to change, or force themselves to, of Montreal have evolved naturally. Either way the development of the new album has been favourably received by both fans and critics.

“I try not to pay attention to reviews. It is rare that I read a piece about of Montreal that I find constructive. Basically, it's either an ego stroke or an ego crusher. I'm one of those people that is more wounded by negative criticism than encouraged by positive comments, so I try to avoid reading anything about me.”

Many fans of of Montreal would have heard the album prior to these reviews as the album leaked in September 2006, five months before the real release date.

“I knew it was going to happen so I wasn't disturbed by it. It was a little disappointing that it leaked so many months before the release date, but it didn't bother me too much. In some ways, I think it actually helps bands. It's always good to get word of mouth going before an album is released. It might potentially hurt album sales, but the benefit of turning people onto the music outweighs the negative. We just want people to hear the music, and it doesn't really matter that much how they go about getting it, as long as they support the band in some way: go to the show, buy a shirt, make out with one of us.”

Hissing Fauna’s greatest evolution is undoubtedly the personal nature of the lyrics, these being a marked departure from the character-led stories of early of Montreal. I ask Barnes about the theme that dominates the first half of the new album: chemical depression.
“A chemical depression is one you can't get over on your own using conventional methods like exercise, extra sleep, healthier eating habits, yoga.
It's not just a general sadness or loneliness. It's a condition not unlike high blood pressure and requires the right kind of medicine to help you balance things out.”

Barnes continues: “I got on anti-depressants and they saved my life. They helped me deal with things that had become unresolvable in my personal life. Unfortunately, they also made me more detached and indifferent. I think that's why my relationship with Nina [Barnes’ wife] dissolved for a long time. It's the trade off I had to make to keep my sanity. Luckily being on medication hasn't slowed down my creativity. I was afraid it would turn me into a zombie, but it didn't.”

The writing of the new album was clearly therapeutic for Barnes. Did he consider that such an honest appraisal may help fans of his understand the realities of depression?

“I hope so. I wasn't really thinking about that when I was recording the songs. It's definitely a very positive thing though – when one's difficult and painful experience can offer support and comfort to others going through similar experiences.

That's one of the greatest things about art, that it can transform the horrid and nasty aspects of the human experience into something more poetic and tolerable.”

Barnes is a noted fan of the writing of Syd Barrett [the founder and early principal songwriter of Pink Floyd], a man who had struggled similarly with depression. Barnes’ description of Barrett’s music could easily be applied to a description of his own: “I just love his free form style of writing. His songs are very catchy and infectious, but also unconventional in their arrangements.” Barrett gained cult-status for his withdrawn tendencies; arguably it was the combination of his depression and drug taking that led to his reclusive nature and exit from Pink Floyd.

“I think if you are already a little unstable, drugs can be very destructive,” Barnes cautions. “There are certain people who can do tons of drugs their whole life and be fairly unaffected, and others that are deeply affected by one experience. I don't mess around with drugs for that reason. I don't need them to be creative and they just make me paranoid and freaked out even more than I already am.”

While depression is a central theme of Hissing Fauna, Barnes has also provided fans with a porthole into his background with references to religion in his lyrics: “The church is filled with losers/ psycho or confused,” and his MySpace blogs: “I have this recurring dream about being in a house possessed by an evil invisible force. [This is] probably an extension of the effects of my catholic upbringing, so many of my weird superstitions can be blamed on that”. What exactly is this weird superstition concerned with?

“Well, it's more a feeling that God is going to do horrid things to me if I partake in certain activities. I don't really worry about it that much, but it is always somewhere buried back in my mind. I realised early on that it was just a bunch of bullshit. I can't understand how people can really believe in organised religions.”

“I went to Catholic school for a long time, and I was also forced to attend church services every Sunday during my childhood. I found it dreadfully boring and I didn't believe a word of what they were teaching, other than the golden rule. I could see all of the hypocrisy and phoniness involved in the church and it made me sick. Now I can appreciate the theatre of it, but it's still too perverse for me to handle. I guess it made me a bit more cynical about adulthood and the ‘normal’ people of the world.”

“It helped me see very clearly what I didn't want to be as an adult. I can't stand most religions because they over-simplify things in this extremely childish sort of way. It is an escape from the insanity of life, but it's an unhealthy escape in my view.”

Another element of Barnes’ childhood that has flowed over to his music has been an early love of theatre – which may explain the nudity/Georgie Fruit thing.

“My parents forced me to join choir when I was in high school to perform in school musicals but I really hated it at the time. I felt it was super lame and couldn't get into it. For some reason, as I got a little older, I started to really get into classic musicals like My Fair Lady and Gigi. When we perform it is very important to us to do something exceptional and unpredictable. We want to offer an audience visual dynamics, as well as musical dynamics. We want the performance to engage people on all levels.”

Will we be blessed with a similarly grand Australian tour? “Right now our Aussie label is trying to set something up. Hopefully we'll be able to tour in June. We won't be able to transport everything from the U.S. tour, but there will definitely be a strong theatrical/visual element to the show that we travel overseas with.”

It is hard to imagine Barnes as an artist settling for anything less than a stunning live show, as he seems highly unaffected by current trends or so-called realities. With this said, I can’t help wonder how of Montreal will next evolve?

“I'm working on a new album now. It will still be poppy and melodic, but more fragmented in its structure. I'm stepping away from the pop song template. I am going to create a bunch of 30-to-50-second sections and string them all together. I don't think there will be any pauses between pieces. I want it to feel like one long piece with hundreds of movements. The tentative title of the album is Skeletal Lamping.”