The Stills - London, UK, Summer 2004
By: Samantha Hall
We live in a world that is destitute and defected. The good and honest mostly struggle throughout life: inadequate benefits, social close-mindedness, lack of community support. While the morally corrupt fat-cats in our habitats roll it in, devouring everything in their path in the spiral of debauched and greedy existence.
Hopes and dreams of adolescent youths, for many, are trampled into the sands of time as mortgages, education loans and nappy bills spiral endlessly towards the establishment of their 9-5 existence.
We all know this. Yet through music, art and human expression we exceed and exult ourselves into areas that drive us, spark our passions and our loves, that thrive in us, that drive us to live; our reason for existence.
This hope creates the romance, the faith in survival that balances the heartbreak of reality. Indeed, without strife and defeatism there'd be no soul. How many times have you heard of the whimsical line that it is essential for an artist to struggle in their art form for their role as a creator to be of any significance?
The Stills are a band, similar to many that have come and been, that do not celebrate but reflect and depict this defeatism. They're not active in their documentation or dismissive, but simply observe and retire to that same existence. And like their superiors before them - aka The Smiths, The Cure and The Bunnymen - they create immense, beautiful and heart-wrenchingly empathetic music. And in doing so, win over many hearts... and pockets.
'With American bands, the reaction's always more complacent,' acknowledges frontman Tim Fletcher in their K-West Hotel. 'The thing with music, is people like familiarity; it's all up to us, to bring people in, to get them to get it and recognise us.'
And Fletcher's personal feelings on their rise to top-40 prominence so rapidly? Well, the band was receiving label interest upon their immediate formation. The quartet, all in their early twenties, spent the last summer in New York recording their debut album 'Logic Will Break Your Heart' with their all-round sound-architect Gus Van Go, which they are now touring extensively throughout Europe and the States, and all regions outside and in between, to great critical reaction and acclaim.
'Well, we've all been playing in bands for over ten years, so it's not like we're unaccomplished or inexperienced musicians, but, yeah, it changes you,' he ponders. 'I can't even start to think about it. You have so many crazy circumstances and experiences to adjust to every day from day, to think how it's affected you as a whole...'
He shakes his floppy barnet in disbelief as he drifts into yet another cloud of Marlboro Light fog. The, The-band factor, we gist... He surprisingly jolts up off the rather luscious chocolate leather sofa and enthuses.
'Well, yeah, it fits us into that kind of climate, the genre we fit into. Truth be that we live in a post-Strokes environment. They blew it open and now the scene's overflowing, pouring out. It makes people understand, get what we're doing...'
It could even be sniggered at that this superb execution of the downfall of apathy roots from a familiar Canadian homeland. Is there something in the water?
For Montreal, the birthplace of The Stills, has also bred such key observationists (although notable non-activists) as Leonard Cohen and, somewhat less savoury, Alanis Morissette. To quote Paquet's lyrics (yes, the guitarist writes the wordy banter, Fletcher just cries it out), 'It is the middle-class thing to do', to sit back and document, yet not get your hands dirty. The middle-class are far too needy of security, of certainty for that, oh no. We don't fear the terrorist attacks and the popular terror panics of the masses; somehow we imagine we could swindle our way around that, as we do most things, but to secure belief in our own paths... own self... it's just a desperate seek for validation.
'You seek that validation,' Tim concedes, 'it's a really f**ked-up thing. You don't want to hear certain opinions, you want your ego stroked... you want that validation not just in music but in your every action.'
But to indulge, The Stills have uniquely gained that, from the majority if not the entirety of the British music press and alt airwaves. One such avid supporter is the hugely respectable Mr Zane Lowe. For such a key-player in the fate of UK alternative music to seek out and even offer to sign the band himself must be an appraisal of validation if ever there was one.
'He has a really different perspective on the music scene. He's really comfortable and relaxed to hang out with, really natural... not at all like a typical tripping DJ. To think he has such a great influence; he's really powerful man.'
But why wouldn't Lowe be as bewitched by the beauty of The Stills as the rest of the media world? Totalitarian, poetic perfection is their sound. With their debut being obsessively produced by the 'maddening' Gus Van Go in an intense, heated and vigorous recording process, as The Smiths created their self-titled debut, The Stills gave birth to 'Logic Will Break Your Heart'.
Fletcher comments on the recording: 'Instruments are a means to the end; we don't love our instruments like Hendrix or whatever. I know Dave doesn't give a shit about his drums.'
Poets to the core. They're forceful and hearty; just as in their live show, stooping down unitedly to pound out their sound, they exclaim so passionately, richly and vibrantly that message of... of what...? Nothing. Of observation. Like all artists, like all poets, as fellow Montreal citizen, the esteemed Cohen said, 'A poet is deeply conflicted and it's in his work that he reconciles those deep conflicts. That place is the harbour. It doesn't set the world in order, you know, it doesn't really change anything. It just is a kind of harbour; it's the place of reconciliation, the kiss of peace.'
The Stills have taken us down to that place by the harbour and our world has become that much richer for the journey.
Artists in this article: The Stills