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The Lovely Feathers
by Laura Matsue
When I was 15 I was faced with an ultimatum. Stay in a city that’s could easily be the prototype for suburban hell, or evacuate with my mother to Montreal; a beautiful city of crepes and poutine. Particularly fond of a meal that consisted of fries covered in cheese and gravy, I reached my decision mostly out of fear – this was my only escape. What followed was compared to what the Amish do on their “Rumspringa” I immediately discovered that in a land half-ruled by the French, I could smoke, drink, swear, do drugs, steal bicycles, join a gang, wherever I wanted with no authoritative consequences! I was as corrupted as one could be and led by a mind fueled a series of illegal substance binges. Meanwhile, there was a whole other movement going on; which I had completely missed out on. Bands like Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, The Unicorns, Godspeed, The Dears and now the Lovely Feathers; started surfacing in the mainstream media. Meanwhile, lying on my back on my apartment roof, my dialated pupils were trying to decipher if the goblins forming in the sky were going to love me or hurt me.
The Lovely Feathers are the cities most recent trick; fast, childish and incomprehensibly endearing with their musical simplicity, for example: “The lion eats the wildebeest (chop chop)”. Their newest album ‘Hind Hind Legs’ is a series of tracks that seem more like melodic games, incorporating new nursery rhymes lyrical structure into a tug-o-war of unrelated topics; from the Pope to Rod Stewart. Providing easily to please pop music, it’s a nice switch from the weighted trend of music driven by teen angst and resentment of one’s parents.
Richard, the group’s guitarist/vocalist, took some time to speak with us last week, introducing us into the Lovely Feather’s world of being open-minded about everything; especially the idea of a man wearing a raspberry unitard.
L: You don’t sound very French, you’re from Montreal I was expecting an ‘Allo! Ca va?’ type of hello.
R: No I’m not very French; none of us are French actually.
L: So you’re part of the other 50 percent of the province.
R: I grew up in Westmount, which is right by downtown.
L: I lived there for a few years.
R: Yeah it’s the Anglo-American, the England of America. We just got back here from New York, spent a couple of days there. It got a little bit overwhelming but now I’m back in old Montreal, enjoying the weather
L: How was the dinner show in New York, was that a formal occasion?
R: Yes, our keyboardist put on his raspberry colored unitard. Aside from that we were dressed usually.
L: Purchased from American Apparel?
R: Yeah it was. Well we all have one, we all have one of our own but the thing is that Daniel looks so good in it that he’s decided to make it his special performance outfit. We all can’t pull it off quite as well as he does. He just has this way of wearing spandex, and we don’t all have it, but he works it.
L: Was playing in SXSW your first time in Austin?
R: We’d gone there once before with Metric a few months ago but it was our first time at SXSW and it was really exciting, really overwhelming. The way the bands were set up like one on top of the other, there was another band playing like 20 feet above us. We had to scrap our favorite song, which worked out fine; it was just weird hearing another band play between our songs. We missed our original flight there and didn’t get to catch some of the bands we wanted to see, because of customs.
L: What was the problem at customs?
R: Well Daniel forgot his passport, even though I don’t really think he was required to bring it they were just giving him a hard time about it. It was funny because we were sitting in their room just hearing them debate about what exactly SXSW and then some other officer just walked in and was like ‘Oh yeah, the music festival!’ Then they let us go 5 minutes before our flight. You kind of just wanted to swing your head into the office, look it up on the internet for them, and help them figure it out.
L: Daniel wasn’t wearing his unitard was he? That might’ve confused them.
R: No he might’ve been wearing it underneath; ready to break it out at any moment. He wasn’t exposing it though.
L: Can you tell us about the artwork on the album, ‘Hind Hind Legs’. I see animals, a doctor, two guys in suits and a police officer. What does that mean?
R: It’s this guy from Montreal, his names Levine Macdonald. I don’t know what the inspiration is, he’s just terrific. He’s just an inspired guy.
L: I assumed he was trying to relate each of you to your own specific character of wildlife.
R: Maybe, I wish I knew. I wish I could get into his mind.
L: Who wrote the song about Rod Stewart?
R: I think it was sort of a tongue-in-cheek ode to him. I think he’s still got the party in him. Although, there must be some commentary in there as well but I always seem to get lost when it comes to that. That all comes from Mark’s warped mind. I think we all have our different interpretations of the lyrics, we don’t really discuss them, and we all have our own – well aside from Ted. I don’t think Ted really knows the words to any of the songs. He’s the drummer so he’s really not brought into that. To me, Rod Stewart the song is a sad story of a mannequin that couldn’t quite make a meaning in society.
L: I guess that’s pretty deep.
R: We write songs about things which our relationships are so complicated that we don’t know what we’re doing at any given point.
L: Are you guys planning on staying at the home base for a while?
R: Hopefully we’ll get out of Montreal pretty quickly. We’re going to start a tour with Duchess Says, it should be pretty cool.
L: What’s there for you to do while you’re there besides dress up like a mime and ride in a vintage bicycle with a baguette in the front basket?
R: I’m actually looking for literature on the Maritime Provinces. I want to go up to Nova Scotia and check out the Bay of Fundy.
L: When are you planning on making it over to LA?
R: Well it’s so much further than Nova Scotia; it’s kind of difficult to get to! We want to make it out there. If we could actualize that we’d be a happy bunch but there are no immediate plans for the future unfortunately. If somebody is going to have us there then we’ll come down.
L: I should book you guys to play on my birthday in the Godsgirl’s loft, as long as everyone wears a unitard.
R: Oh really, did this just turn from an interview into a gig?
L: There’s absolutely no dress code but the preferred attire is a unitard, some form of birthday hat, streamers for accessories.
R: Great, it’ll feel good to be comfortable.
L: Excellent, thanks Richard. See you then!
R: You too!
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