Ten Questions With Paper Moon

By: Andrea Grassi

There is nothing mysterious about pop. It's in your face, almost literal, and with a tangible pleasantness. It's recognizable, and reliable – the people pleaser of musical genres. Paper Moon, however, prefer to be mysterious, right down to the origin of their name – and no it's not a place card from the banquet of that awesome song. SoundProof caught up with the band's Chris Hiebert to talk about their complicated past, their bright present, inter-band relations, Winnipeg and the art of the pop song that catches.

Congratulations on your recent nuptials with [bandmate] Allison Shevernoha. Has married life affected the dynamics and creativity of Paper Moon (i.e., on-the-road fights, fulfilling duets and collaborations, favouritism)?

Thanks for your congratulations! Yes, it's true that Allison and I are married. Paper Moon members, once they've been with us long enough, just end up this way. We're like a family, or a creepy polygamist cult or something. I don't really think that anything changed after the marriage, since the whole band was practically married to each other anyway. I mean, we've all seen each other in our pyjamas. How much closer can you be?

You guys have rolled through a few members over the years. Tell us about the meet-cute: When, where, how?

There was a time, a couple of years ago, when we had a relatively stable membership consisting of six people. Allison and I decided to take this opportunity to suddenly move ourselves out to Vancouver, leaving the other four behind to suffer through Winnipeg's winter. While we were out there, living two blocks from the beach and trying to write songs and play shows with some of our new Vancouver friends (but mainly just playing laser tag and riding the Sea Bus), our band members back home were carrying on with their lives. Rob Rodgers (our bass player) and Leslie Oldham (one of our keyboardists/vocalists) had activated a baby which was due to arrive in the usual amount of time those things take, in this case directly in the middle of recording our album. 

Naturally, such a life change would make being rockstars difficult for them. We managed to convince our friend Ken Phillips, who had filled in for Rob once before, to take over the bass duties, and we just made Nikki Taylor learn all of Leslie's parts in addition to her own. Somehow, that worked out!  And so, here we are, the five of us, just waiting for the next shakeup.

The name Paper Moon comes from: the 1973 film starring Tatum O'Neil, the song "It's Only a Paper Moon" turned into household jazz by Ella Fitzgerald, your love of craft work . . . ?

The film called Paper Moon is really, really good. I could watch Tatum and Ryan O'Neal arguing in their car all day long. "It's Only a Paper Moon" is an undeniably wonderful song. Neither of these things have anything to do with us, unfortunately. I choose to remain mysterious regarding this topic.

Talking about the Winnipeg scene . . . The Waking Eyes, The Weakerthans . . . stuff is happening in the W. What is brewing on the frontier?

There is always a band on the verge of greatness in Winnipeg. I mean, look at us. We are definitely brewing, with such vigour that the kettle containing us is shaking and whistling furiously. But besides us, I'd have to say that a band called The Details is making considerable waves of their own. There are others as well. Propagandhi put out another record, that's awesome. The Weakerthans are still basically the greatest band ever. It's Winnipeg. It's what we do.

Your first album, One Thousand Reasons To Stay . . . One Reason To Leave, and the second, Broken Hearts Break Faster Every Day, both got a lot of play in Canadian television programming and film. They are mood inducing; they are visual. Why do you think you've had so much success on this front?

I think our music is accessible to a wide audience, which is perfect for many music supervisors. We write about universally recognizable subjects. People can identify with our lyrics and they apply to a variety of situations. And we're really good, you know?

Which leads me to Falcon Beach – describe your stay, and merger.

That show really took a liking to us, even though we didn't have songs about wakeboarding or marinas. We even got to appear in an episode. We were a plot device, in fact. That was a very exciting two days of being on set. I still have sand in my . . . places. Also, Alli and I totally saw Devon Weigel, who played Tanya on the show, just hanging out at the Railway Club in Vancouver when we were living there! She didn't recognize us, though, despite her character supposedly really "liking" us on the show.

Most bands don't usually prefer stage and studio equally. Where is Paper Moon most in their element?

We are, perhaps, an anomaly, because I think we enjoy stage and studio equally. Playing a show is exciting and immediate. Dangerous, even? Mainly it's just a lot of fun and it's a chance to pick up on the energy of the audience. When the connection is there, the stage is a wonderful place to be. The studio, on the other hand, provides us with a chance to really be creative and do things that you can't do live. You can experiment and play with new sounds and arrangements, and it feels amazing to listen to a newly created song that didn't exist a few hours before . . . The studio can go from inspiring and productive to frustrating and tedious in the blink of an eye. This was a really wishy-washy answer, wasn't it?

Only During Thunderstorms has a curious release, as it is the successor to the five-song EP, What Are You Going To Do With Me? Tell me about this decision, transition, and birth.

It had been a considerable amount of time since we had released our previous album. We felt that we should try to remind people that we existed in order to hopefully generate more interest in the upcoming album. Initially, we had envisioned a single with a couple of little homemade bonus tracks that would be used as a promotional tool, but it somehow turned into a full-fledged release that brought in some very positive reviews and built up some anticipation for the full-length. All those evenings of hand-making the covers paid off!

Which leads to the May 21 release of Only During Thunderstorms. Why did you take four years between albums?

The time between our first and second albums was four years. Ridiculous! We determined to never take that long again. But remember that stuff I mentioned earlier about lineup changes? It just kept happening. It's very difficult to build momentum when you're always trying to solidify a lineup, going through auditions and teaching new people the parts of old songs. Then there was the Vancouver adventure, and after Alli and I had gotten engaged out there, we had to plan a wedding during the time when we were also trying to put an album together. And let's not forget that Battlestar Galactica was happening in the time span between our last album and this one, so that writes off one evening a week.

As expert pop musicians, what are your thoughts on pop music today?

Pop music is basically the same as it's always been. For every amazing songwriter or band, there are several crappy, over-produced clones who are only in it to earn truckloads of money for their corporate masters (or just for themselves) while the short attention spans of the youth are on them. It's a shame that all too often, the really interesting and unique talents get lost beneath the piles of bland carbon copies. But if you push aside the charts and Top 40 radio stations, you can find amazing artists who are putting out some quality stuff.


Video: Paper Moon On Falcon Beach