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July 3, 2008


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2008-07-03

Labour of love

The Telepathic Butterflies get set to release Breakfast in Suburbia, their first record in four years

Jen Zoratti

It's been almost four years since The Telepathic Butterflies have put out a new record - and now, the wait is finally over.

Both CD and double-vinyl versions of Breakfast in Suburbia, the Butterflies' new full-length album, will hit the streets on July 8 - a date that's been hotly anticipated by both fans and the band.

"It's been a long time coming," says singer/guitarist Réjean Ricard, over the phone from his home. "We're excited."

Ricard isn't kidding when he says the new record has been a long time coming. The band - then consisting of Ricard, Jacques Dubois on drums and Eric Van Buren on bass - actually started working on the album back in 2005, just after it released 2004's mod-pop gem, Songs from a Second Wave.

Halfway through that initial recording session, however, the Butterflies hit a series of snags.

"We had a bass player for five years, and about two years ago, we parted ways," Ricard says. "We also couldn't agree with the label (New York-based imprint Rainbow Quartz) about how to release it, so (the record) sat dormant for about a year. It was just a bunch of issues."

When it came to finding a replacement for Van Buren - who contributed some bass tracks to the record prior to his departure - The Butterflies had a hard time finding a third member who could commit to the band full-time. Ricard laid down the rest of the bass tracks himself on the album, while The Windups' Rob Pachol and The Black Aces' Russ Kroeker were brought on to handle occasional bass duties for The Telepathic Butterflies' live shows (it'll be Kroeker for the CD release).

Ricard says he and Dubois are still looking for a full-time bass player - but not as hard as they used to.

"I think, at this point, we're not not looking for someone permanent - if someone dropped out of the sky, that'd be great - but we've sort of settled with the fact that the band is me and Jacques," Ricard says. "Part of that four years was us looking for that permanent guy. We just thought, instead of worrying about finding that perfect person, let's just keep going."

As for label troubles, The Butterflies' disagreements with Rainbow Quartz over how to package Breakfast in Suburbia actually ended up working out in the band's favour. Initially, when it came to narrowing down the duo's surplus of songs to the 14 needed for the album, the band and label were at an impass over which tracks would make the final cut.

"When we approached Jim (McGarry) at Rainbow Quartz, he had a definite idea about what he wanted on the CD," Ricard says.

Meanwhile, Ricard was mulling over another idea for the record.

"Basically, we had a whack of songs to work with," he says. "I was looking at it and I thought that a double-vinyl would be a really cool way to tell the whole story."

Ultimately, Rainbow Quartz and The Telepathic Butterflies reached a compromise: As long as the band worked with the label on the CD, Rainbow Quartz would give the duo complete creative control over the vinyl project - a decision that was just fine with Ricard.

"There's no way we could've released a double-vinyl on our own, and I wanted a representation that was true to my vision of the record," he says. "Another good thing about waiting is that so much has changed in terms of how music is released. The CD doesn't seem to hold much power anymore."

The double-vinyl version of Breakfast in Suburbia contains 28 tracks, while the CD has 14 - which, according to the label's website, are "the most Rainbow Quartz-y sounding tracks."

Still, the point of the vinyl project wasn't just about releasing more tracks.

"There's something about having that complete product in your hands rather than listening to it as a file on your computer. You're taken somewhere else with a record," Ricard says. "I was picturing myself as a 13-year-old kid, and was imagining how I would feel having this thing in my lap and rocking out to it on my headphones."

In this, generation iPod, there's something refreshing about that - especially since Breakfast in Suburbia is very much an album in the traditional sense. Written from the point of view of several characters, the record follows a loose narrative about everyday life in a typical, Anytown suburb.

It's a concept that Ricard has been thinking about for quite some time - as far back as the early 2000s.

"I had this idea and it sat there for years," Ricard says. "We had more and more songs that fit the concept, so we just had to fill in the gaps. There's a core group of songs that actually dates back to 2002."

The Telepathic Butterflies still draw heavily from their melody-driven, '60s Britpop and '70s garage rock influences on this one, but Ricard says Breakfast in Suburbia sees the band expanding its musical palette.

"For the last few records, I tried to stay in the same stylistic realm," he says. "This one seemed like the perfect springboard to branch out."

That said, don't expect any crazy forays into electronica or hip hop.

"When I say branch out, it sounds like we're pushing the envelope and we're not," Ricard says. "We're showing all the facets of The Telepathic Butterflies."

So now, some seven years after the band first flirted with the concept of Breakfast in Suburbia, it's a completed record - and though he's still critical of it, Ricard is happy to be finished the album.

"I still hear things I'd do differently, but when I hear it as a package, I think it's an impressive piece of work.

"It was definitely something we needed to finish. I was trying to finish that chapter of the band," he continues. "Eric left halfway through, so it's sort of a looking back sort of thing."

To everyone else, however, it's a brand new record from The Telepathic Butterflies.

"I think that's the inherent problem of being in a band," Ricard says. "You're only at the halfway point when you finish a record."

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