Vancouver’s Louise Burns says that once she started writing material for what would become her most recent album, she couldn’t stop. The end result is Young Mopes, which came out in February and landed itself on the Polaris Prize long list earlier this year. But Burns admits now that even though it was easy to get started, it was a struggle to get the album finished.
“When I started writing for the album, I didn’t know if I even wanted to make a new album. I was going through a weird time in my life, having a sort of quarter-life crisis in a sense,” says Burns. “When I was writing them, though, I really wanted to focus in on making the songs good and catchy, with no ulterior motives. By the end of the writing process I kind of realized it was my way of saying goodbye to my old mentality and opening up a new one into the future. I’ve been seeing things in a more positive light.”
Burns says that although the songs on the album sound very ’80s, she didn’t really take inspiration from many places. Most of the songs on there were her exploring the pop side to her music, and things just happened to come out sounding like they did back in that decade.
“I just sort of got more in touch with my pop songwriting style,” she says. “I just decided, ‘Fuck it, I don’t care about being trendy, I don’t care if it isn’t the coolest sound, I just want to go with what I like.’ I really just ended up selecting a little bit from artists that I liked, like Kate Bush and R.E.M.”
Young Mopes is the first album that Burns has worked on with her new band. She says that it was a whole new process for her in terms of getting ready to record the album.
“I haven’t had that experience before, doing pre-production and going over parts before we actually went into the studio,” she says. “Being a solo artist, I would just play with things myself or hire people to do things that I wanted them to do, but this time, a lot of it was all together as a band. [Guitarist and former Ladyhawk member] Darcy [Hancock]’s guitar playing, I think, is just so important to what I do at this point, I don’t know what I would do without it.”
Before this album, Burns was doing her thing as a solo artist. She says that she enjoyed working solo, as it gave her control, but she admits that juggling schedules with people who have other projects on the go can be tough.
“There wasn’t really anything hard about being a solo artist,” she says. “I’m a control freak and I really like to be the one who’s making the decisions, so, obviously, I didn’t really have any problems with that. I think the most challenging thing was making everyone’s schedules work. I work with some really talented people who all have a lot of shit going on with their own projects, so it can be tough to juggle schedules, but we make it work.”
Burns says that travelling the globe on tour has given her the chance to form some good connections and play to a variety of audiences.
“I started touring when I was 15, so I guess the whole ‘seeing new places’ in regards to Canada has kind of worn off. Having said that, there are now places that I feel really connected to and really enjoy going back to, which, honestly, is almost everywhere I go. I’ll play anywhere—I’m going to Australia in November, and I really want to get back to Japan,” she says. “I tend to pick up shows in weird places, since it keeps things interesting for me; I’ve played in China and Spain and even Germany. The audiences all are so different; I think a lot of artists that go to China, for instance, go as cover artists. So, since I don’t really do covers, a lot of people didn’t really know who I was, but they were still really polite.”
Louise Burns
8 pm Friday, October 20
$11, Lucky Bar
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