As a member of two bands du jour – Broken Social Scene and Stars – one would expect Amy Millan to be, if not living the life of a superstar, then at least basking in her indie royalty status.
And to an extent she is: Millan has just moved into a (relatively) swish Montreal apartment and is enjoying time off after six months of solid touring, with both Stars and BSS. The thing is, indie royalty counts for less than you might imagine, especially when it comes to recording a debut solo album.
“Because studio time is so expensive, we had to make the album at ungodly hours, because the rates were less,” explains Millan of her solo LP, an (unexpectedly) country-hued gem called Honey From The Tombs. “So we ended up doing the sessions from midnight until six in the morning.”
Far from disadvantaging Millan and her troupe of supporting players (members of Stars and BSS chipped in on the sessions), working the graveyard shift helped, she feels , to coax to the surface the material’s plangent air of melancholy.
“I remember reading about Neil Young recording an album and making the guitarist do like 325 takes of a song. He wanted the playing to sound sort of despairing and exhausted which, I guess, is how you feel after you’ve repeated the same part 300 times! For this record, it was a case of us heading to the studio after we’d consumed lots of red wine in the neighbourhood bar.”
Honey From The Tombs references an apocryphal Tom Waits observation that old songs, long buried, can retain their freshness and energy (‘honey’ was his handle for the unrecorded nuggets in his repertoire). The remark struck a chord with Millan, who actually wrote the songs on the record several years prior to joining Stars, leaving the material to one side, until the time felt right to commit it to tape.
Listening to her misty-eyed forays into Americana – a phrase it’s safe to use again, now the scenesters have moved on – one wonders how she ever ended up plying straight up indie-rock with Stars. “Well Evan (Cranley) and Torq (Campbell) write the songs in Stars. The country thing is something personal to me. I’ve had friends in bluegrass bands. When I was young I would play back-up guitar in country groups.”
Plus, she notes with a laugh, country music tends to be obsessed with death and suffering – “the kind of thing I’m interested in, obviously!”
Should we conclude that, beneath Millan’s chirpy exterior, a latter day Laura Nyro is waiting to burst forth? Perhaps she’s noted the career trajectory of Jenny Lewis, who, taking time out from indie B-leaguers Rilo Kiley notched up her biggest hit yet with a suite of country ballads.
“No, Stars is still the day job. Actually, we’re going into the studio in October to start on the new record. There’s no question of a solo career taking over.”
Lyrically, the singer seems to be coming from a dark place – even allowing for country’s melodramatic tendencies. Millan croons as though her heart has been pounded to dust more times than she can remember.
“The songs are definitely autobiographical. That said, I’m not pretending that my life has been different from anybody else’s. On ‘Losing You’, for instance, you might get the impression I’m singing about the love of my life. I’m not but at the time, I probably felt as though I was. The feeling of being shot down and rejected will always be intense.”
From the outside, the Canadian rock scene can seem one big, happy clique. In addition to knocking about with Stars and Broken Social Scene, Millan enjoys a long-standing friendship with members of The Dears and Arcade Fire and went to school with Metric frontwoman Emily Haines.
“And Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning from Broken Social Scene knew each other from the first day of first grade,” says Millan, laughing. “Canada is a big country but there’s definitely a bond between all of the bands out there. At one time or another, most of us have hung out together. We’ve all come from a background of having no money and making music for the sheer love of it.”