Although best known for her roles in Stars and Broken Social Scene, Amy Millan understandably saves her most personal material for the records that bear her name alone. With her latest solo LP, Masters of the Burial (Arts & Crafts), awaiting release on September 8, Amy spoke about the benefits of having tight-knit bandmates and the perils of striking out on one’s own.
What’s it like being a woman in a band full of men that tours constantly?
Well, we’re all very much like a family. [Co-frontperson Toquil] Campbell and I can get pretty feisty with one another. We probably fight the most out of anyone.
Fight how?
We disagree on things. It’s like you can fight with your brothers or sisters as much as you want, but if anyone else on the outside does anything to attack them you’re the first person to protect them. That’s the feeling that I have with the band. But I’m living as a couple with [bassist] Evan Cranley, so that’s pretty sweet. It’s a sweet shack-up for sure.
Are intra-band arguments the catalyst for branching out as a solo artist from time to time, as you do?
I was very nervous about doing that, but to be honest, my bandmates were the ones who were kicking my ass to get it together and finally get into the studio. I’m always walking slowly backwards while other people are pushing me forwards with my solo stuff. [The brand-new solo album, Masters of the Burial, pictured below.]
With Stars, you released a full-length album online [2007’s In Our Bedroom After the War] before it was available in stores. You guys were early adopters on that trend, weren’t you?
It’s interesting because I really thought we would get more attention as being one of the first bands that did it, but Radiohead did it a couple weeks later and we got really outshined by that. It was an interesting thing to do, though, and you don’t know the alternative of what would have happened. My big fear was that the record was going to be leaked, which is what happens now. And once it’s leaked, the consumer has no option other than stealing it. So I thought it was important that we gave them an option to support the band and buy the record. They just want to hear it. I think it’s important, too, in this atmosphere, with the crumbling CD world, that you come up with alternative ways of releasing records, and imaginative ways of distributing it. I’m proud of what we did, and maybe one day people will know that we were one of the pioneers.
What did you learn from that experiment?
Digital sales are on the rise, particularly in the United States. People in Europe are really bad thieves and… piracy is just deadly there. But you have to move with what’s happening. I think that someday people will be held responsible for that, but right now we’re sort of in No Man’s Land.
Any suggestions for what can be done?
The computer companies should be paying up, and the cable companies should be contributing. These people are making billions of dollars by selling software that makes it possible to steal. It’s like giving somebody a skeleton key, and saying, “I didn’t know they were going to open any doors with that…” I think that eventually, there will be a restructuring of the entire business, but for now we need to stay on our toes and work the internet to our advantage.
Speaking of your audience abroad, Canadian bands have enjoyed a lot of international attention over the past few years. Is the reception still as warm as ever?
Well, one of the most exciting tours I’ve been on in a while is actually going to the east coast of Canada. We went to Norway, Sweden, Copenhagen, and Australia, and Japan, and Singapore, but we’d yet to be to Newfoundland. It was daunting to me that we tried to represent ourselves as Canadian musicians across the globe, without having even seen all of our own country. So we’ve now played every province, which I’m very proud of.
Were you surprised to find you had that kind of reach?
To go that far from home and see everyone sing along, again, that just shows you the power of the Internet. I think it’s important to invest in your own country, and I think the east coast gets ignored a lot because it is quite expensive to get out to Newfoundland. It’s relatively far. My renewed interest is within my own country right now.
