Quick & Dirty - Novels
By: Bill Alexander
February 5, 2010 – Toronto, Canada
Supergroups are so hot right now. Much as is the case with the NHL All-Star Game, Hollywood hogwash like Nine, or the Justice League of America, supergroups assemble some big-name talent as a means of generating buzz, excitement and, most importantly, mega bucks, while their dual-action brush gently massages the egos and bank accounts of their glam-ham 'n' greedy members. (Unless, of course, said group is made up of fictitious superheroes, in it merely out of the goodness of their fine mutant hearts.)
But the motives of Toronto supergroup Novels may in fact be more in tune with those of the beloved caped Super Friends than with your average cookie-cutter collective of fêted fame-whores. Why you ask? Because the Novels boys are in it purely for the music, the fun and the camaraderie, and prove this by giving away their shiny new superEP for free.
"I think it just sort of made sense to us," says Novels member Will Currie, of Will Currie & The Country French. "The whole idea was to do something in a completely different way. For one, this band that we created doesn't have a record label or anything like that, so the easiest route was to just give it away. We wanted to go in and have a whole ton of fun making good music that we like, not for money but for the fun of it."
The Novels seed was planted way back on the playground, where Currie first met Tokyo Police Club's Graham Wright when the two went to grade school together. Years later, after finding success with their own respective music projects, the two began to talk about eventually doing something together.
"We didn't have a lot of free time, so we wanted to do a quick project," says Currie. "That spontaneous stuff we used to do as kids that we haven't done since.... Hashing out parts as they come to us, running in and recording it. It was the easiest way and more fun."
When Currie and Wright entered Toronto's Chemical Sound Recording Studio alongside Novels co-stars Luke Lalonde (Born Ruffians), Dean Marino (Ex~po) and Jason Sadlowski (Jay Sad) in January of 2009, all they had were some loose plans, some even looser ideas and the drive to record an entire project in just one day.
"The idea was to go in bare bones," says Currie. "We had ideas, little tidbits of songs going in."
Entering the studio at about 10am, the band had the bulk of the songs down within the first eight hours. Writing lyrics last minute, eating only once and never really breaking, let alone slowing down, the guys emerged 16 hours later with a five-song EP.
"It felt like The Beatles in their first Martin sessions recording 12 songs in an afternoon," says Currie. "It's not the way we make records usually, but it was exciting and different and really creative."
To commemorate the marathon recording session, the band invited filmmaker Wade Vroom to film them in the studio. The result is footage that has shown at Pop Montreal and can be viewed online at okaynovels.com.
For all their efforts, not only is the band giving away their self-titled EP for free, but they're encouraging people to burn the album to disc, share it with friends and even leave copies in random places around the universe (take that Gideon's Bible!). And if all that weren't enough, fans can broadcast their sharing-caring ways to the world via the band's Sharing Blog.
"It just sort of evolved as a way of getting this thing out as quick as we could. We made up 200 CDs that we gave away, from there came burned CDs.... Make it fun and easy for people, have the people be part of the project themselves, go virally. We are happy to have everyone who wants to hear it hear it."
Currie and the boys are fully proud of their Novels project and yet have no plans, no desires even, to tour or work together again. Given all it took to get these five guys into the same room at the same time in the first place, it looks like this sad proclamation may, in fact, reign true.
"We have no plans to ever see each other again," says Currie with a laugh. "We never really wanted to form a band. We just wanted to form a band for a day. I think we'll leave it at that."
Download the Novels EP:
Video: "Record In Hand" by Novels
