During their downtime Winnipeg’s The Paperbacks enjoy semi-formal squash tournaments.
The Paperbacks prepare the musical equivalent of a Pynchon novel
After a two-year hiatus between albums Winnipeg’s The Paperbacks will soon complete its Great Canadian Novel. With a whopping 32 new songs the indie-pop quintet plans to release its upcoming album Lit From Within on two CDs or on an almost-unheard-of eight sides of vinyl.
“We’re trying to figure out how to put this monster out on LP but it might be a bit of a task” laughs frontman Doug McLean chatting over the phone while manning the till at a local record shop. “Four records is kind of stupid and it’ll probably cost around $90 so obviously it’ll only be for collectors.”
Since the band’s formation in 2001 The Paperbacks have always seemed content with a modest but devoted following. With a recent month-long stint of Tuesday night gigs at Winnipeg venue The Lo Pub performing highlights from the band’s back catalogue alongside Lit From Within in its entirety it’s clear The Paperbacks earned the status of hometown heroes. The band’s 2007 sophomore release An Illusion Against Death was produced by Weakerthans singer John K. Samson and the band was even crowned “the kings of Sled Island” in this year’s festival program guide following its third back-to-back spot on the lineup. Nonetheless it continues to fly well under the radar despite penning fittingly literate and puppy-dog lovable pop songs.
“We just write a lot” says McLean with an audible shrug explaining how — somewhat amazingly — an additional new EP will precede the double-album’s January drop date. “We’re usually behind ourselves on our releases so I guess this is our chance to catch up. I imagine people are overwhelmed by double-albums under any circumstances so hopefully we’ve written good enough songs to keep people’s attention.”
Though McLean cheerily describes recording with Samson as “a great experience and a lot of fun” the band decided to return to Paperbacks bassist Jaret McNabb’s home studio for Lit From Within hoping to reclaim the same laid-back process that birthed its debut long-player An Episode Of Sparrows .
“He did the monster job of recording the whole thing so I have to give props to Jaret” McLean says. “If we were in a studio environment I don’t think we would have had the luxury to record that many songs or work on them as hard as we did. It’s cool to have an outside set of ears but since Jaret and I have been working together for so many years it’s great to have such a comfortable environment where we’re all in tune with each other.”
Travelling backwards in time even further McLean also recently reunited with his beloved yet equally unsung 1990s pop-punk band The Bonaduces for a string of Winnipeg gigs in June. (More info and band-approved downloads of out of print Bonaduces cassettes at musicruinedmylife.blogspot.com/2009/06/bonaduces-chapter-one.html )
“Those shows blended in pretty well with the four Paperbacks shows at the Lo Pub” says McLean. “Over the last couple of months I’ve basically gotten to revisit every song I’ve ever written. It was kind of cool to feel the continuity of it all a bit more seeing what the uniting threads are along with the differences.”
With such a busy summer and so many opportunities to reflect on his musical past McLean has come out of it feeling positive for the future. As a result this overriding optimism has also carried over into his songwriting.
“An Illusion Against Death had kind of a negative vibe with lots of lyrics asking ‘What’s the point of it all?’” McLean explains. “The new record is basically meant to be our answer to that question but it took us 150 minutes to say it.”
