[ No. 20]

Canada's Sloan

by Ramon Lobato

Canada was never the best place for an insanely talented indie act like Sloan to find themselves. Aside from its Dion's and Morissette's, Canada's musical exports are few and far between, and the interesting ones rarely break it big anywhere outside its borders. Like Tragically Hip and others before them, Sloan are a Top 10 gold record act and a household name in their homeland, yet one would be hard pressed to fill a phonebox with Sloan fans this side of Toronto.

I don't get it. What's not to like about Sloan? There's the label they run, Murderecords (that is, Murder Records), whose roster has included such fine acts as Hardship Post, Thrush Hermit and the excellent Jale. There were collaborations with fellow Canadians Eric's Trip, and even a few excursions with the much loved and dearly departed indie label The Enclave (Belle & Sebastian etc.). Heck, these boys even had a four-year contract deal with Geffen which came close, but not quite close enough, to making us sit up and pay attention.

So why is the rest of the world so determined to ignore these four lads. Chris Murphy, bassist, vocalist and general nice guy tells all. 'We're from nowhere -- Halifax, which is in the very far East of Canada. The nearest city is a fourteen-hour drive. When we first signed to Geffen, basically what we were was the Canadian version of the Nirvana story -- they're from the middle of nowhere, it's like a punk ethic or something, they have their own label and they put out all these bands and all this crap. So then we really tried to shake that with "Twice Removed" (1994), to not be grunge. So then basically Geffen lost interest in us.'

Sloan have now set up an arm of Murderecords in Australia. 'We don't have any set way of doing anything', Murphy comments. 'Maybe we do, but we try not to have any rules, so that we can take it anywhere, even though for the most part we're a pop group, a rock group. I don't think we're gonna pull out samples and turntables and things like that. I find that kinda embarrassing. . .'

'I'm really trying to sell us as character driven -- you know. We don't necessarily have hits, but you can follow the four characters through these four records. I'd like to have people identify with the four members.'

Murphy laughs when I ask whether it's true that the band had a Canadian music magazine print and distribute four different Sloan covers for one issue, each featuring a different member. 'Yeah, it's true. It was kind of overblown assholeishness, but yeah, whatever.'

All the while, Sloan's Murderecords label has been chugging along showcasing East Coast Canadian talent to the rest of the musical world. It must be a source of chagrin to the band that some Murderecords acts have gone on to bigger things than their label-masters have managed. A case in point are lo-fi wonders Eric's Trip who released their first EP on Murder and were quickly snaffled up by SupPop, as were fellow Canadians Hardship Post. Other former Murder signees include cuddly all-girl rockers Jale (now known as The Vees) who also became a SupPop casualty; and Thrush Hermit, who are now recording for Electra.

'We were trying to run Murderecords as a stepping stone, so you could put out a record with us and then go wherever you wanted,' Murphy explains. 'Because we were making money with Sloan, we didn't need to make money off Murder so much. It was a bit of a fantasy for us. We were trying to be a bit of a utopian business, but really it was like any label. In terms of making money, we were using SupPop as a model -- you know, they had "Bleach" and that's where they made all their money. If any of our bands would go on to make a million dollar record, you know, we'd have this one record, their first or second, record, and people might wanna come and get it. But nobody blew up really big and everybody went to SupPop. The people who went to SupPop should have stayed with us, because they didn't know what they were doing and people got fucked over.'

'But I think we're realistic. We signed to Geffen and we were all psyched that we were gonna be big or something and of course we weren't. But now, I think the most we can ask for is what we have -- that we own everything. We control our own careers and if we just move slowly . . .', Murphy trails off, leaving the sentence incomplete. 'If we could play in Australia, that's just a dream, that's awesome,' he concludes. 'I can't believe I'm here.'

Sloan's latest release "Navy Blues" (Murderecords) is available now in all half decent record stores.