The first Owen Pallett album, in 2005, was called Has a Good Home. Fact is, the man is now homeless. One of the key
Torontopians of the early 2000s, he decamped to Montreal last year—but has
barely been there, either, since he signed up for Arcade Fire’s Reflektor tour,
which has kept him on the road for the last six months and likely will for the
next six as well. Owen’s fourth album, In Conflict, comes out May 27. I think
he’s topped himself yet again. It says a lot that Brian Eno’s presence is one
of the least interesting things about the record. I’ll have a lot more to say
about it, both in this space and for Maclean’s, in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, however,
Owen Pallett is coming home to Toronto this weekend: for less than 24 hours. He
plays the Danforth Music Hall on Saturday, May 10.
Owen Pallett
March 18, 2014
From a Philadelphia hotel
room
You’ve been in Montreal since
when?
It’s been a gradual drift. I
lived there for four months in the winter, and stopped paying rent in Toronto
in April 2013. But I was away since the end of 2012.
Do you feel at home there now
or are you not even there enough?
100 per cent. I even feel
like a bit of a Torontophobe (laughs). I come back to Toronto and think, “Oh, noooooooo.
More Toronto!”
That didn’t take long.
It had been happening
already, getting off tour and coming home to Toronto. It used to be that I
would get off tour, and it was a bit of a joke because often I’d get home on a
Sunday. I would immediately throw my shit in my room and go down to Wavelength.
Like clockwork. I’d see all my friends, I’d wear something stupid, it was
great. But it was becoming the opposite. I’d be taking the Gardiner in and have
this sinking feeling. “Not Toronto again!” I don’t blame the city. I think it’s
having my great 20s there; had I not enjoyed my 20s so much it might be
different.
Well, you left your 20s in
the most Torontocentric way possible. What was your 30th birthday party about again? A show with 30 acts in 30 hours at Lula Lounge?
30 acts in 10 hours. Everyone
had a 20-minute set.
How do you now view what
happened in Toronto between roughly 2000-05 now?
I don’t know if it was
special, or if it was something that happens to a lot of cities and a lot of
crews. I’ve been thinking about it a little bit, because a lot of what we’re
told is bad is actually good. One of those things is what people refer to as
arrested development, or naivete, or wide-eyed wonder. There is something
magical and amazing about being in a scene that has that excitement. The root
of sexual impulse is in all these things: arrested development, naivete. I
think they’re linked: this joyousness that is linked with a bit of ignorance.
Part of that ignorance is saying, “It doesn’t matter if your band is not 100
per cent the best band, but is maybe a 9/10 band.” That’s pretty much every
band in Toronto at that time, was a 9/10 band. And the 10/10 bands are the ones
we hate now. I don’t know what it was. It was situational, but I think it could happen in any city. That’s what is so beautiful looking back on it, is that it
wasn’t Toronto-specific, even though it happened to have happened in Toronto.
It was more tied into this moment of non-cynicism.
It’s like falling in love and
not thinking about getting old and having Alzheimer’s. It’s the immediate rush,
the wide-open headfirst plunge.
Yes, and I don’t know if it’s
possible now. Reading the Twitter feed after the Arcade Fire show in
Philadelphia last night, one in three comments said something like, “Well, no
black people at this show!” I thought, “What?” The implication is that the onus
is on Arcade Fire to specifically get that 15 per cent of the American
population out to their shows, whereas I believe the onus is on the American
people to create a situation where these people can perhaps afford to maybe
come to these shows! Oh wait, [boyfriend/manager] Patrick’s telling me not to
talk about class in an interview. But what I’m trying to say is that I tend not
to place the burden on artists; I place it on socio-economic structures and
politics.
I feel as if the environment
[now] is quite the opposite of joyous. It’s become a statement of acumen to be
a cynic. So Toronto 2000-05, I’d be embarrassed to play show-and-tell with now,
because people would either find it dated or problematic. I have trouble even
identifying myself as a gay man at this point. A lot of what was going on in
Toronto was intrinsically tied to LGBTQ emancipation. Not emancipation, but—now
when I hang out with my Toronto friends, especially my straight ones, it’s like,
“Oh right, you really get me.” In the rest of the world, you can’t make jokes
about poo dick or whatever and have people laugh. They’re like, “That’s
disgusting. I’m leaving the room.”
But there was that moment in
Toronto with Will Munro and Hidden Cameras that provided a freedom for the
whole music community to be themselves, to be less conservative. It was also a
time when the concept of gay marriage went mainstream.
I think of gay marriage and
Will Munro to be polar opposites. The attitude in Toronto was very
anti-institutional. If there was one thing that straights and queers all
learned was that there was this new idea of beauty, which was rooted more in
positivity and participation. You can even see it in Margaux Williamson’s films, with Carl Wilson with his shirt off, like no fucking problem. I watch
that movie and I think, this is it, this is the whole idea of 2000-05, trying
to get everyone to take their shirts off. Gay marriage is not the opposite, but
on a different track. Pretty much most queer people will agree that marriage
isn’t for them, but it’s a symbolic gesture for acceptance of the lifestyle as
equal. That’s different than taking your shirt off.
There are two characters on
this record—in “I’m Not Afraid” and “The Riverbed”—who reach a point in their
life where they realize they’ll never have any children. It shocked me to hear
that—only because I can’t think of any song, ever, that deals with this topic,
this transformative moment in the lives of everyone: either having a child, or
deciding not to, or having that decision made for you. It’s a huge moment in
someone’s 30s or 40s, yet it’s not common song fodder compared to divorce or
death or other life events.
Me, I want kids. But I’ve
never thought about it, because a large part of my desire for children is not
wrapped up in the disgusting biological need to see one’s face on a young
person. I mean, disgusting theoretically—I’m sure it’s very nice. The thing
that is not available to most homosexuals is the thrilling sex story.
Paraphrasing a friend of mine: “Oh, we had broken up and then she flew down to
New York and came to the show and put on some makeup and we got wasted and had
sloppy sex in a hotel room—and then nine months later so-and-so was born.” The
romance of having it as an extension of your romantic life doesn’t exist for
gay men. Usually it’s an extension of administrative activity—which is so
disappointing!
Were somebody to come along
and deposit a child in my lap, I’d be the best dad. But the whole administrative
process makes me wonder: do I actually want this? I didn’t know that I wanted
one, I thought it wasn’t for me. Then a lesbian couple, friends of mine, asked
me if I would father a child for them. I was asked via text message. My heart
completely exploded. I’d never felt this feeling before. I remember using one
hand to respond to her text, and thinking, how can I continue to text her while
phoning my mom? It turns out she was joking! [pauses] And we’re not friends
anymore. [laughs] “Thank you for showing me that I am a bag of meat with
procreative desires. Never speak to me again.”
I love how the line is
delivered in “I’m Not Afraid”: “I’ll never have any children” is set to a
lovely, major-key melody.
Yeah, well, there’s nothing
weird about it. In a way there’s a delicious irony, in that some people are
celebrating the Macklemores of the world for a song like “Same Love,” and I’m
like, “Oooh! I can’t wait to get all y’all into the reality of queer life! Are
you really going to be celebrating a song like ‘Same Love’ when you understand
the full extent of what we’re talking about here?” I’ve always felt very much
in the middle in regards to gay rights arguments. I don’t know if it was you
who said it, that I never met a dichotomy I didn’t like—that was you, wasn’t
it?
Yes, it was the lede of the
first Exclaim story.
That might have been true
eight years ago, but I don’t really feel that way. I’m much more in this weird
grey area where I’m having trouble believing in anything. Not in a nihilist
sort of way, but in this, “Wow, it’s so confusing!” I’ve been singing about
this since my first record, which ends with me saying, “Confusion is why I
sing.” This is really meant to be the topic that comes to the forefront on this
record. Pretty much every assertion I make on this record is like I also
believe the opposite. Like desire portrayed in a negative light. Or that I’d
personally love to have children—except the reality is that I wouldn’t.
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