Emily Haines of Metric - Interview

Metric made the map with their 2003 debut, , Old World Underground Where Are You Now and over the course of 2004-05 they traveled it. Emily Haines (vocals/synths), Jimmy Shaw (guitar), Josh Winstead (bass) and Joules Scott-Key (drums) were everywhere, from MTV and commercial rock radio to French art-house cinemas (the band made a show-stopping cameo in Oliver Assayas’ 2004 junkie drama Clean); depending on the night, you could find Emily playing sombre solo piano shows in churches, or diving off the stage at Toronto’s Mod Club Theatre, where Metric played an unprecedented four sold-out nights in a row in January ’05. And the band’s about to mark another milestone this month performing music from their latest album, Live It Out, (Last Gang Records) as they open for The Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden January 18 and 20.

“I think it’s going to be amazing,” says Haines. “The way we found out was the best too. We were in France. We just finished a three month tour, and we were so tired. It was our last night and there were a lot of filmmakers there and they threw this party for us on a boat on a set, which was already really cool. It was like an apartment on water. While we were there we got the call that we had gotten the Stones show and we’re like, ‘Well, where? Madison Square Garden! Great!’”

Described as a “band comfortable making music for both the misfits and the masses,” the Toronto four-piece with hometowns scattered throughout the world (Montreal, London, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles), demonstrate that as concerned citizens, the personal and political are interchangeable.

“I don’t know if it’s just a coincidence that each of us realize that whatever’s happening in the larger context of the world always seems to have a big impact where we’re each at personally,” says Haines. “Decisions relating to where to live, what move to make next, who to work with and what not to do is pretty affected by the larger state of things…We went back to Canada the day Bush got re-elected. It sounds like a most poetic act of civil disobedience, but it was in fact the biggest coincidence…I was like, ‘Wow, my life is on this storyline and I don’t know who is writing it.’”

Why not shut the world out? Why is responsibility important?

“I think about that.” said Haines. “I’m kind of envious of people who don’t feel that responsibility. Is it just the way I was raised? And it just happens that the three other people I’m most excited to work on music with were raised the same way? I don’t know. I’m sure if I sat down with a therapist they could help me figure it out (laughs)…By going to Canada and surrounding myself with friends, it’s the closest thing I could do to just shutting the world out and hibernating with my friends and making a record, but it’s still completely present (laughs).
While in Toronto, surrounded by childhood pals from Broken Social Scene and Stars, Metric found additional inspiration, particularly for Haines’ favorite track, “Empty.”

“So much changed with all my friends,” says Haines. “It was just a crazy bunch of years between what happened in the New York scene and the loft that we lived in and obviously Nick Zinger and Karen O [both of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs] got so huge. Then with Broken Social Scene and Stars and all those inter-relationships, everybody’s lives just sort of fell apart. Nobody really knew how it was going to keep going. That summer James and I got together over at Kevin Drew’s place [from Broken Social Scene] and that song was the first sign to me that we were going to be able to make another record. I really like the song because we definitely exhausted a certain approach to trying to make improvements in our lives and what we perceive the world to be and we definitely had to take another tact.”

Haines leaves her songs open to interpretation, however, and often finds other peoples’ takes quite amusing.

“It’s funny,” says Haines. “I don’t really read press, but I read a couple of things and they were the most hilarious interpretations of the songs—written as though they had gotten first-hand, sworn testimony from me that that was what the song was about. It makes me happy in a way that it’s so open to interpretation, but in this case they found war imagery everywhere. Like ‘Glass Ceiling’ was like the tale of a soldier who’s general won’t let him speak out, I mean wow! Obviously anyone can get whatever they want.”

Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly 1/4/06.