{"id":7842,"date":"2013-10-16T15:14:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T15:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=7842"},"modified":"2013-10-16T15:14:23","modified_gmt":"2013-10-16T15:14:23","slug":"fast-romantics-bringing-the-afterlife-blues-to-winnipeg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2013\/10\/16\/fast-romantics-bringing-the-afterlife-blues-to-winnipeg\/","title":{"rendered":"Fast Romantics :: Bringing the Afterlife Blues to Winnipeg"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"9038734\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Martyna Turczynowicz<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fast Romantics are an indie-rock band from Calgary, Alberta. Their second full-length album,<\/em> Afterlife Blues, came out on October 8th<\/sup>.<\/em> \u00a0Stylus caught up with the band\u2019s singer and songwriter, Matthew Angus, to talk about the release of their new album and upcoming tour.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stylus: Tell us about Afterlife Blues<\/i>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matthew Angus:<\/strong> It\u2019s the first time our band has figured out exactly who we want to be. I think we were a little lost with the last couple records. It\u2019s been eight months since we\u2019ve finished recording Afterlife Blues<\/i>, and we still really love listening to it. The people that have heard it really seem to like it, which is gratifying. I\u2019m sure just as many people who will like it, will hate it. That\u2019s part of the fun of doing things like this.<\/p>\n

Stylus: What was the recording process like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MA:<\/strong> It was really long. We moved from Calgary to Toronto and really took our time. We did a couple of different sessions and worked with music producer Howard Redekopp (Redekopp has worked with the likes of Imaginary Cities, Said the Whale and Mother Mother) on a few songs. Then we took a break to let it all sink in. We weren\u2019t rushing, that\u2019s why there\u2019s such a long gap between our last album, the EP Kidcutter<\/i>, and this one.<\/p>\n

Stylus: The name of the album is Afterlife Blues<\/i> and your most recent video was for “Funeral Song,” what\u2019s with the morbidity?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MA:<\/strong> Somebody close to me actually asked me if this was a really depressing album. He had somebody close to him die and didn\u2019t want to listen to it if it was really depressing. It\u2019s not. There\u2019s a weird duality to Afterlife Blues<\/i>. It sounds dark from the titles, but a lot of the songs are pretty happy and party sounding. It\u2019s a real hodgepodge of emotions. It\u2019s the first time we\u2019ve shared our emotions with people. There\u2019s happiness and sadness and everything in between.<\/p>\n

Stylus: The video for “Funeral Song,” was recorded in a very old church, what was recording that like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MA:<\/strong> It was interesting; we got the oldest church in Ontario. It was really old and fragile, so it was pretty scary packing a bunch of rock\u2019n\u2019rollers and punks in there. We worked with the right people, so we weren\u2019t too stressed about it. There were definitely a lot of people running around and being stressed out, but we weren\u2019t so that\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n

Stylus: When do you start touring the new album?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MA:<\/strong> October 11th<\/sup>, we\u2019re doing a CD release here in Toronto. We\u2019re going to Montreal first and then west to Sault-St Marie. We\u2019re being weirdos and zigzagging. The next year is going to be nonstop touring. We\u2019re going to do a North American tour in the spring and probably Europe in mid-2014. We\u2019ve been working on this album for so long that we want to focus on playing for people.<\/p>\n

Stylus: You had a Pledgemusic <\/i>campaign to help release your album, Afterlife Blues, <\/i>how did that go?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MA:<\/strong> \u00a0The Pledgemusic<\/i> campaign was a little experiment. We\u2019re an indie band and we\u2019re broke all the time, so we thought we\u2019d try it.\u00a0 We always want to do things over-the-top and bigger than we should. We\u2019re at the point where we\u2019ve maxed out pretty much every credit card we could get our hands on. If we\u2019re going to tour and release the album properly, we\u2019re going to need some cash. I\u2019m always wary of stuff like the Pledgemusic <\/i>campaign. It was walking a fine line, because we\u2019re not salespeople. At the same time, we\u2019re an independent band and we\u2019ve got to learn how to work on our music. That\u2019s just the new reality of things.\u00a0 We thought we\u2019d give it a shot and it\u2019s been an interesting experience. It was a nice way to get the people who were going to buy the record anyway to buy it earlier and to help us out. We gave them all sorts of fun little trinkets and exclusives. \u00a0Now, we\u2019ll be able to afford touring and gas.<\/p>\n

Fast Romantics will be playing with Mise en Scene at Le Garage Caf\u00e9 on Tuesday, October 15th<\/sup>. Doors open at 8pm.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Martyna Turczynowicz Fast Romantics are an indie-rock band from Calgary, Alberta. Their second full-length album, Afterlife Blues, came out on October 8th. \u00a0Stylus caught up with the band\u2019s singer and songwriter, Matthew Angus, to talk about the release of their new album and upcoming tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}