Weirdo bands smoothed ride for natural Born Ruffians
Words Gareth Dobson / Image(s) Emily Graham
Life, they say is all about moments. Most moments are created as a convergence of luck, fate and strange fortune. Ergo, for a trio of young Toronto natives as atypical as Born Ruffians to be a band of the moment is life, I suppose.
You doubt six months ago they would have expected their odd brew of Byrnsian logic pop, Violent Feminism and Animal Collective chanteuse to be soundtracking mobile phone adverts and appearing on hyper cool yoof TV programmes, but it is. And they’re largely unfussed.
“It’s a natural thing, this sound,” muses singer Luke LaLonde over a chicken burger on the periphery of Primrose Hill, near their record label, Warp. “We never decided for it [debut album, Red, Yellow and Blue] to sound a certain way. It’s however the songs come in. A lot of it is attributed to different writing styles. The album’s a collection of songs we built over two-and-a-half years.”
Mention the likes of Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer and British Sea Power, and you receive sage nods of affinity. “It’s not so much we’re influenced by those bands, but there are common influences,” reasons drummer Steve Hamelin. “We’re all similar ages and have the same ideal in songwriting. I like British Sea Power a lot.”
So why do they think that the world is filling up with quirky, non-coherent yet resolutely melodious bands right now? “I think it’s a snowball effect,” muses Luke. “You have bands like Animal Collective who do something really unique and really successfully and other bands think, ‘I can do that.’ They kind of opened the doorway.”
It’s no surprise to hear the band wax lyrical of the Brooklyn psych pop kings, not least because Animal Collective man Rusty Santos produced their album. And it seems he was an ideal partner for them. “We didn’t want to sound like the mainstream shit we heard on the radio,” says Hamelin. “We’d say, ‘I want to be weirder than that!’”
Yet, there’s always melody at the record’s core. “We’re fans of pop - fifties to eighties,” Hamlin states. “Nineties… I don’t know. I’ve condemned the nineties for so long.”
LaLonde interjects: “Our ultimate goal is to release an amazing pop record. We’re trying to write the equivalent of ‘Rockstar’ by Nickelback.”
We hope he’s joking. And what would your version of the trappings of rock life be?
“No diarrhoea,” Hamelin says, laughing. “We get it a lot on tour.”
