MVRemix: Whenever I see the major music press try to sum up the bands sound in a couple of sentences, The word "pop" always seems to come up, but listening to the record there seems to some contempt for modern pop culture.
Emily Haines: I think it's just sonically, and the album definitely came out in the height of garage rock cool, which we were aware of. And figured that since we are a real band it would be a bad idea to just suddenly change our sound and try to sound like a garage rock band like a lot of people did. Our choices musically, the changes and the choices of sound, and I suppose my voice to some extent are kind of "pop."
MVRemix: Does it have anything to do with the fact that you are female?
Emily Haines: As soon as it's a girl it's lighter. Maybe, but I like to think of it as pop isn't a dirty word: if you think of the Kinks, and the Zombies. I just harken back to those kinds of bands. The Kinks and the Zombies both--and Bowie--both wrote real, incredible pop songs. Not super dark, and grungy and mid-tempo. Pop's okay.
MVRemix: On the album, it seems like there is a longing for something in the past.
Emily Haines: Definitely.
MVRemix: There are a couple of times on the album where you evoke the image of being on a farm. Where does that come from?
Emily Haines: It's a feeling I had, and seems like my friends do too, that things seem to be moving too fast. In my lifetime, literally, in the town where I grew up it was. In "IOU", that lyric, across the street from me, looking out the window, it was an old farm house. And in my lifetime it became paved over for a 24-hour Tim Horton's and a gas station. So, it's in some way's literal, but figuratively it's longing for a simpler time.
MVRemix: As a former student, are you eager to play Arts County at UBC tomorrow?
Emily Haines: I think I did go the first year. It'll be really fun. I hope everyone gets muddy.
