Q&A: Constantines (Wavelength 500)

The Constantines celebrated their tenth anniversary last December, so it’s somewhat fitting that they are also ringing in Wavelength’s tenth birthday this Saturday as well. The Toronto via Guelph quintet are one of the city’s most renowned and respected acts, so it makes perfect sense for them to be closing off the Wavelength concert series’ anniversary festival.

We spoke with guitarist/vocalist Steve Lambke about the Cons’ parallel history with Wavelength, their place as one of Toronto’s flagship indie rock bands, as well as their plans for the rest of the year.

What does Wavelength mean to you?
Steve Lambke: Some of our earliest shows in Toronto were at Wavelength. It means a lot. It means the old times, it means thinking back on starting out. It’s been such a great scene builder, especially in the early days. It’s hard to remember now, because the culture in Toronto is so thriving, but ten years ago, it was pretty quiet compared to how it is now. Wavelength was pretty exciting when it started, because it was the only thing like it that was going on. It built a lot of connections between people. That idea has become so entrenched in Toronto, that collaborative spirit. I think Wavelength’s been a part of all that and making that the case.

You’ve been around for pretty much the same amount of time as Wavelength. How do you think the Toronto scene has changed in the past ten years?
It’s a lot bigger. There’s a lot more happening, and there’s way more venues than they were at that point. Wavelength and The Constantines started when there was a bit of a lull in the city. Ten years ago, it was pretty quiet. Now, it seems like it’s just sustainable. Toronto’s made itself a cultural city, in the sense of an indie rock, underground kind of thing. There’s ups and downs. It’s been that way with the band, and I’m sure it’s been that way with Wavelength. That being said, even when Wavelength fell a bit below the radar, the annual shows in February were always the best shows of the winter.

How do you feel about your band in relation to the Toronto music scene after ten years? Do you feel you’ve grown with it, or grown apart from it?
A bunch of the guys still live there. I don’t live there anymore, so I feel a bit disconnected, but I definitely think The Constantines are a Toronto band. Where we fit into what’s going on there now, I don’t know.

It’s a bit of old news now, but congratulations on the ten year anniversary. I caught the last of the anniversary shows back in December, and it ended up being the most epic of them all. How did you guys have the energy to keep playing for almost three hours?
[laughs] Well, thanks. That one became especially long. It was the last one, so there was no reason to save anything for the next night. That was the only show that Leslie [Feist] could come to, Jen Castle was around, and Julie [Doiron] was around, so we wanted to do all those songs. The setlist just grew and grew. We were having a good time, so we played a few songs that people were shouting out that weren’t on the list. It was a long show, but it was definitely one of my favourites.

I’m assuming you’re keeping it a bit shorter for your set on Saturday.
Well, there’s five or six bands playing, so we’ll probably stick to the schedule. We’re really stoked to be a part of it. It’s not about us throwing our own show, it’s us trying to be a part of things. I’m really excited to see Rockets Red Glare play. I hope they play for three hours [laughs].

You guys played with them a bunch way back.
Yeah. In the early days, way back. It’s pretty cool that we’re doing it again now, in February 2010.

Are you planning on releasing any live recordings or videos of the anniversary shows?
They were all definitely filmed and recorded. I haven’t seen any footage, so it’s definitely a possibility, but it’s way too early to say whether that turned out in a way we’d be happy with.

Your shows seem like they would lend themselves to being documented in a live album format pretty comfortably.
I think we’re open to it. It would be pretty fun, at this point, after a bunch of records. The songs are pretty different live, so it would be fun to have different versions of them out there.

Is that the general outlook of the band? Being in a touring band for ten years, how has the outlook of the band changed in that time?
Well, like you said, we were ten years younger then. It was the first time any of us had been in bands that did really extensive touring. The whole thing, from day one until now, has been a learning process. I don’t think we’ve ever necessarily figured anything out, but it’s just a matter of taking opportunities as they come, or deciding to opt out of certain opportunities. It’s all a daily thing, daily questions. I can’t sum it up. Obviously, through experience, you gain a bit of, if not maturity, then some sort of different perspective.

It’s interesting to see how a band changes its priorities over the years. A band just starting out would jump at the chance at a lengthy tour across Canada, whereas guys with families might not decide so quickly.
For sure. It does change. I don’t really want to go on tour for nine months straight. If people want to do that, that’s awesome, but that’s what’s cool about being young. You don’t care where you sleep, and you don’t care if you alienate all your family, friends and lovers [laughs]. I think it’s important to do that stuff if you feel motivated to do what you want to do.

Is that type of extensive touring in the cards for you guys anymore?
No. Even over the last year or two, we’ve been a lot choosier than we were in the Shine A Light days. Each time you go out, it seems like you go longer or further. After five or six years, you’re going out pretty far and for a pretty long time. We reached the point where, as a group, we don’t want to go out for that long of a time. That’s what I mean by the learning process. You learn your limits and what you can do to stay happy and stay excited to do it. That’s why you’re supposed to be doing it in the first place, because you’re excited to present your music to the world, or trying to. You have to maintain that without lying to everybody.

You mentioned that you were being choosier with the tours you picked. I noticed that you didn’t tour the States as much as you had in the past on the recent tours. With the move from Sub Pop to Arts & Crafts, was that a move to relegate yourselves to Canada in a certain way?
Not as coherently or consciously as you just put it [laughs]. We did go down a couple times [for Kensington Heights]. We’ve been playing the States since day one. There’s a few places that are great for us to play. Chicago, Austin, San Francisco and LA, New York, those are the cities where we’ve done really well. If you look at a map, those aren’t really anywhere near each other. It wasn’t economically sustainable for us to do a lot of touring there. It was just barely working, almost. It was trying to find a way to keep doing it that made sense for everybody, emotionally and financially. We did cut down a little bit. Arts & Crafts records are pretty widely available in the States, so it wasn’t like we completely cut out that world. Every couple of years, the border just gets worse and worse! I talk about it being economically sustainable, I am just talking about putting gas in the van and getting place to place, but it’s also a few thousand bucks to get a worker’s permit to get across. It’s hard. The border’s making it harder. They change the rules every year to make it harder on rock bands, for some reason [laughs].

A lot of Canadian bands look at the States as a sort of golden egg, in a way. There’s obviously more places to play in a certain amount of distance covered, but people may be less inclined to listen. What do you attribute that to?
There’s really only a few media outlets that are going to talk about indie rock or punk rock, whatever, in Canada. If you get in Exclaim or CBC Radio 3, those few things… I’m an old timer in the sense that I think people share music through word of mouth, but we came out a bit before that. We got written about by people in Toronto, and suddenly, people in Edmonton knew about us, because there’s not much media. In the States, there’s so much media. There’s not one or two things that you can be in as an up and coming band, where it makes or breaks you. Pitchfork was like that, but I’m not sure that it has the same effect now. It’s just harder. There’s so much more people and background noise, way more going on.

With that in mind, I feel as though a lot of bands struggle to make it there, whereas you guys are comfortable with being Canada’s band. You guys seem to embrace that more than other bands.
Through a completely unrelated process, we started singing about Canada more and more as the albums went on. In a way, I am going to disagree with you. I think we’ve gone to the States way more than, say, Joel Plaskett has. We’re this in-between. We’re not like Arcade Fire or Broken Social scene, who are popular everywhere. Our renown or whatever is obviously focused in Canada. However, we have gone and trudged it out in the States, and we have small pockets of people who really love the band. There’s lots of people like Joel Plaskett, for example, who just haven’t gone down there that much. There are lots of people who are more focused on Canada.

You guys are playing this show, and you guys are doing CMW in March, with a show out in British Columbia somewhere between there. What are you guys planning for the rest of the year?
We’re not sure. It’s going to end up being a quieter year in terms of playing shows. I’m not sure what to tell you.

There’s no writing or anything going on?
Not so much, no. We’re a bit between things right now. Everyone’s working on their own thing.

Is that just a by-product of wanting to take a break after ten years?
It’s more of us getting to that point of, ‘What do we do next?’ It was just the way things rolled out. I’m not ready to tour again [laughs].

The Constantines will be headlining the fourth night of the Wavelength 500 festival tomorrow at the Polish Combatants Hall with Rockets Red Glare, Donne Roberts, Picastro and Danger Bay.