Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Torquil Campbell from Stars: Toronto Mike'd #1057

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

In this 1057th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Torquil Campbell from Stars about the band, Ageless Beauty, Your Ex-Lover is Dead, the new album, getting screwed by streaming companies, Gord Downie, Bookie, and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Duer Pants and Shorts.

Welcome to episode 1057 of Toronto Miked. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. line for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Palma Pasta.

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Guaranteed. Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Joining me this week, making his Toronto Mike debut, is Torquil Campbell from Stars. May I call you Torque? You may. You must. It's funny because I had Michael Barclay in my backyard the other day.

Do you know Michael? Yes, I do indeed. I love Michael. He just wrote a great book. He did. And you're... About some great bands. He wrote a chapter called Your Ex-Lover is in the Band.

Yes, he found some things out and that might be the greatest chapter title he's got but I will just shout out his new book do you know the name of his book all I've been calling it is the Michael Barton on fire hearts on fire yeah so if anybody is at all interested in the great Canadian music we put out from 2000 to 2005, check out Michael Barclay's new book. He wrote a great book about the hip, too. Oh, yeah, yeah. The Never Ending Present. Yeah.

No, every time he writes a book, I make him come over and we talk about it. He's a fascinating guy. I had him on my podcast, actually. Okay. What's your podcast called my podcast is called soft revolution and uh me and my buddy ali moment hosted well he knows his stuff so if uh barclay's on there uh people got to check that out for sure right that's right but we only get the best because i i your first name is uh i don't know any other again i like

the name tork but torquil right because yeah torquil uh not is it a common name anywhere i'm trying to think if i know any no it is not a common name anywhere there's an actor in newfoundland called torquil colbo okay um and the duke of argyle is called torquil campbell uh it's sort of like naming your son like Chauncey or like, you know, Brooklyn. Like it's for like nouveau riche assholes. And my father was a dirt poor Glaswegian. So I have no idea why he decided to call me Torquil. I think he was trying to get me, you know, up in the social stand.

It's almost pretentious, right? That's why Tor the social stand. It's almost pretentious, right? That's why Tork is better. It's almost pretentious. It's well beyond pretentious. It's ridiculous. It sounds like a character in a fairy tale or something. Awfully, like, la-dee-da for a guy who appeared in Strange Brew. Yeah, I know.

It doesn't track with my dad at all, except that it means son of thunder. And he was somewhat thunderous. So maybe he was paying himself a compliment there. Okay, so before I get back to Barclay, and there's another FOTM who wants me to shout you out, but your dad's name, Douglas Campbell, a pretty accomplished actor.

I was looking at his IMDb page. I shouted out Strange Brew because I love Strange Brew Brew and I just had Dave Thomas on the show. But tell me a little bit about your dad. extraordinary person. He was a socialist, a pacifist, a vegetarian, and an actor. And those four principles led him through his life. And he came from a very poor part of Glasgow and sort of taught himself how to speak like a posh English person and married the daughter of a couple of very famous actors in England called Lewis Casson and Sybil Thorndyke and went on to, you know, was playing Othello at the Old Vic in the West End, like two years after he started being an actor. He was a conscientious objector in the Second World War. So he was one of the few men around who was, and he had a trucker's license. So he got hired by an acting company. And then he went on to

Stratford and founded the Stratford Festival with Jerome Guthrie and then worked there for many, many years and was on Broadway and the West End and starred in a TV show called The Great Detective for a long time on CBC and was just an amazing drinking buddy and irreverent rebel and lovey. I adored him. He was great. Well, I know it's 12 years, but I am very sorry for your loss. Thanks, man. You know, it's weird because you forget sometimes. Like, you don't think about them for a while.

And then lately I've been thinking a lot about him. And I don't know. Maybe that's because his ghost is nearby. Or maybe it's because I'm getting older. I'm the age he was when I was born. So maybe that's given me some time to think about it. But he was a guy that a lot of people, we had three funerals for him. There was just, we had to have a funeral in Vancouver,

a funeral in Montreal and a funeral in Toronto. And he just touched a lot of people's lives. He was the kind of guy you could go over. He'd give you something to eat. He'd lend you a hundred bucks. He'd tell you honestly who you were and he'd send you on your way now you know i mentioned an actor as you did and you know you did some acting yourself so we're gonna get back to all this but right off the top uh decisive decisive says that he loves you he goes i love him derrick christoph decisive recently

came over here and just basically sat here. I know you're remote here. Whereabouts are you in the world right now? I'm at our jam space in Montreal. I'm at Mount Zumar. We just finished rehearsal. Okay. So you've got a good excuse for not being here physically. You're not in the hood. But Decisive came over and he just, you know, just let it out, man. He just was complete real talk. He talked about his struggles the last several years. And what can you say? How do you know Decisive?

I don't think I've met him. I might've met him once, but I admire him a lot. I think he's a great rapper and I think he's a very honest artist and a very vulnerable artist. And I love people who can tweak the kind of model of hip hop and make it something like, like, like Kendrick does and like Decisive does and like Andre 3000 does. And a lot of people, Pasta Noose do that.

Rap is a great forum for reflection. It's not just a great place to boast. It's a great place to be honest as well. And, uh, decisive is amazing at honesty. Well, he's a storyteller much like yourself, right?

And he's a storyteller and he, uh, he, you know, he speaks from the heart and he, he writes from the heart. And I think that's why we all love this guy. I agree.

I think he's great. He's fantastic. So I thread him. I meet him one day. Well, listen, next time you're hanging around Toronto. We should do a song together.

That's what we should do. Well, listen, I'll broker that deal. Meaning I'll just like, we'll all get together. I would love it, man. That'd be cool. That'd be great. Now I thread him to come back to Michael Barclay. So I'm coming back because he knew you were coming on today

and he sent me a little note. He says, be sure to ask him about Platinum Blonde at Nathan Phillips Square for Toronto's Sesquicentennial. And I happen to know our Sesquicentennial was 1984 because I was playing softball at Rennie Park and our team in 1984 was nicknamed the Sesquise. It was the only year there was a team called the Sesquise and I was on the sesquise so i'll never forget 1984 tell me about this platinum blonde show for some reason they made a big deal out of the sesquicentennial i mean that was back in the day when in toronto it really it was like one reason a year for people to go out after six o'clock you know it was not popping um so everybody was making a big fuss about sesquicentennial. Charlie Spearin, who is in Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think

and has worked with all kinds of amazing people and is probably, I don't know, he's in the top three musicians I've ever met in my life in terms of his skills and abilities. I have been friends with Charlie since we were eight years old. And the first gig I ever saw was Platinum Blonde at Nathan Phillips Square, because that's how Charlie celebrated his 12th birthday. It was by taking us all to see Platinum Blonde. It was a free show. It was a good thing to do with a bunch of kids. You didn't have to pay for them.

It was cheaper than bowling, you know. And Charlie even then was like,lie looked amazing when he was 12 he had like swept back elvis hair and he was taller than all of us and he wore cool clothes and he was already way ahead of us he was uh already a complete cool so okay so you're at this time you're in toronto i just wanted to you know recollect with you here like i were you at all listening to any uh cftr at this time any top 40 you there oh you froze up okay so if you're watching on the live stream torque has frozen up and we're gonna wait to get him back here uh i gotta find out if he was listening to uh situation critical this is where i can pipe in the platinum blonde

while we wait for him to reconnect. Hey, maybe since I'm recording this, and to save me an edit, I want to thank the sponsors real quick here. So, Palma Pasta. Go to palmapasta.com. That's delicious, authentic Italian food. And they're in Mississauga and Oakville.

And Great Lakes Brewery. Delicious, fresh craft beer. He'll be back. That's an internet or maybe a power outage or something in Montreal and Tork has left us. But when Tork gets back, he's going to wish he was here in Toronto where I could give him some GLB Fresh Craft Beer. Go to GreatLakesBeer.com and again, free delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. StickerU.com.

Y-O-U. Upload your image and then order your stickers and your decals and your temporary tattoos and everything. Badges. It's amazing. Those guys make amazing products. I have stickers that are now several years old and they're still like pristine condition. This is quality stuff. Speaking of quality stuff, Dewar Pants. D-U-E-R. quality stuff. Speaking of quality stuff, Dewar pants, D-U-E-R, rugged, comfortable. I can bike in them. I can roll into the boardroom in them. The world's most comfortable pants. Go to Dewar.ca, use the promo code TMDS, or you can go to the retail store. They have a retail store on Queen Street. And you can use the promo code TMDS and save 15%. Shout out to Ridley Funeral. When we were opening up talking about Douglas, that's Tork's dad. He's passed away 12 years ago. I almost said,

shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, but I'm like, no, this is too personal. Hold on to that. But I will say now, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Brad at Ridley Funeral Home has an amazing podcast called Life's Undertaking. And you can subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts, even right here. One more sponsor, but I'm going to talk to TORQ about this company later because TORQ is a big fan of cannabis. And if you're a fan of cannabis, regardless of how you consume cannabis,

you need to be buying your cannabis at Canna Cabana. They will not be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories. Go to cannacabana. They will not be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories. Go to cannacabana.com and buy your weed from people who love weed and know weed. I know Tork loves weed and he knows his weed. But now we have a technical problem.

So if you're on the live stream, bear with me. I'm going to see if I have a note from Tork telling me he's lost power and cannot connect. Was it something I said? Okay, so I'm going to patiently wait for the bell. I thought, I honestly, I sincerely thought about playing some Platinum Blonde for Tork. But I'm like, I have some Starz songs I want to play. But while we wait, I wonder if this will get us booted from the live stream,

but let's see what happens here. Typically, in my experience, so I've got my text here, is that TORC? Let's see here. That's my daughter, everybody, texting me just to tease me here. Okay, so we'll get back to that. My daughter's amazing. So we just learned that Tork is in Montreal, and my daughter's going to be living in Montreal next year, so I will have ample opportunity to visit. Are you sitting comfortably?

Then we'll begin. Crying, crying over you. Dedicating some platinum blonde to Tork. We're going to have a great chat. Assuming he returns. It's all part of the fun, part of the adventure here. Yeah, I can shout out the O'Cannabis Conference and Expo, which is happening this week,

because I'm moderating a panel there. So if you're going to the O'Cannabis Conference at the International Center, track me down and say hi. I'll be there Friday. There were two back-to-backs. So I was a big Platinum Blonde guy. I used to buy Hostess potato chips and I had the little cards in there for the bands of the time,

like Corey Hart, Brian Adams. A lot of cool bands, Glass Tiger, and of course, Platinum Blonde. And this song was a big hit on CFTR for me, Crying Over You. And then the follow-up was, I want to say, and I hope this is going by memory,

so it's several decades ago, that was like mid-80s, but Situation Critical was like the next song. And I remember I would hear Situation Critical and then in my mind I would map it. Here comes Tork. I would map it to this jam, which I'm going to fade out now

because I've got the man back. And it was the same song. It was the exact same song. Let's welcome Tork back to the party. He can listen to what he missed later on the podcast dude was it something I said?

too much platinum blonde talk off the top too much platinum blonde talk I apologize man power outage? they've had these terrible storms here things are fucking weird they just disappear all of a sudden and stuff. My apologies.

I'm back. Well, let's get to the important stuff then. I'm glad you're back. Let's get to something very important. So this happens to be the anniversary of when Mark Weisblot dropped by three years ago today so we could pay proper tribute to the late, great Dave Bookman.

Ah, bookie. Now, I thought we were going to have some kind of a bookie day every May 30th. I just signed a petition, man. I just signed a petition. It's online. Go sign the petition to have a bookie day. Because he's the spirit of radio and the spirit of Toronto. Elaborate on that.

Did you listen to CFNY? Oh, man. Dave Bookman is a very important centerpiece of my life. When I was 12, my dad was at the Stratford Festival. And I got a job at the Stratford Tennis Club because I love playing tennis. I got a job at the Stratford Tennis Club because I love playing tennis. I got a job washing the courts. And the assistant man or the manager there was a guy, an amazing guy named Bill White. And Bill was the coolest dude in southwestern Ontario. And he had all the music. You know, remember, people, this was before you could just turn on a tap and have music piss out

of it like it doesn't matter. You had to work to find music. And then when you had music, you had to listen to it because you gave a damn. It wasn't just part of your algorithm. So he had all these mixtapes of and he introduced he changed my life. He introduced me to the Smiths, to Billy Bragg, to Elvis Costello, to The Clash, to De La Soul, to Derek May, to, I mean, I could go on and on and on and on. The Dave Clark Five, he was my musical teacher. He taught me about great music. And the tapes that he had, many of them had been sent to him by a guy called Dave Bookman, who lived in Toronto. And Dave could get the tapes because Dave could go to the record store. There was no record store that sold any of this in Stratford. So Dave would buy

the records. And Dave also had a band called The Bookman with his brother. And I loved that record. So I didn't know Dave Bookman, but he existed as this kind of mythical person to me that he was in Toronto and he was the coolest dude in Toronto. And if you knew bookie, he'd send you music. Um, and he had this band. So cut to, you know, 20 years later or whatever, and stars are coming up. And in between that CFNY had been a place that I went to, to continue to discover music. There was a show called London Calling on Sunday afternoon where I found a lot of my favorite music. Even by the late 80s, I'll be honest, CFNY was already playing a little too much, you know, problem rock for me. But I loved Sundays and I loved late nights. That's when the DJs were allowed to play whatever they wanted and the DJs would play amazing stuff.

And I don't think Bookie was a DJ yet on CFNY in the late 80s. So when stars started to come up and Dave Bookman had become like one of the biggest DJs in Toronto, I was astonished that this guy from my past was basically doing the same thing that he always did, which was playing cool music for people. And we went in and met him. And Dave was one of those DJs that like when you went to see Dave, you felt special. You felt like you'd made it because Dave cared. David done his research. David listened to the record. Dave could talk to you about other records that it sounded like. He was a consummate broadcaster.

He was a true champion of music, a true lover of music and a mensch, just a lovely, relaxed, warm person who always made you feel like an old friend. And, you know, I think I'm sure that, you this, Mike, part of being a great host is making people feel like they've been there before. It's like a good maitre d', you know what I mean? When you walk in the door, it's like, welcome. And Dave was that person. And I know that he existed in a lot of people's lives

as someone who was a huge source of support and positivity and, you know, just kind of personified the great shit about Toronto, the fun of Toronto and the relaxation of Toronto. When Toronto is at its best, it's filled with really interesting, weird people doing really cool shit. And Dave was just the king of that. And it's really tragic that he died so young. He's a great loss. When Dave and Gord both died at the same time, that was pretty much it for me.

Well, we'll get back to Gord. But Bookie, I mean, I mean this sincerely. And as a guy who was a fan of listening to Bookie on the radio, he got a start, by the way, on Live in Toronto. He would call in when Kim Hughes was hosting. No way. This is like the start by the way on live in toronto he would call into the when kim hughes was hosting no way this is like the start of bookie on uh cfny so i was in new york probably at that point so i would have missed that right right right right you're in new york years we'll get to that in a moment but new york years yeah how do we replace bookie is he irreplaceable i don't

think there's another bookie coming up the ranks i i don't know what do we do great djs out there there's some great djs lana gay is a great dj and rated doris is a great dj and except she's in pittsburgh now he's in she's in philly now philly yeah you know talia schlanger is a great dj i mean i i'm amazed actually by the number of how many there continue to be like really good DJs. I just think that radio has taken less importance in people's lives and it's less of a power. So maybe we're less aware of the good work people are doing. But I don't know, man. I think that that's the thing about Bookie is, yeah, he was exceptional, but he was also kind of like the standard of what everybody should be.

he was exceptional, but he was also kind of like the standard of what everybody should be. And I know that Lana and Raina and Talia and lots of people learned from Dave and were mentored by Dave. And so I think we actually have a pretty good field of DJs around. It's just that we don't have a monoculture, you know, we have a shattered, we don't have a culture. It's fragmented. Well, we just have an algorithm. There is no more culture. Culture is just grounds to scream at each other now. Culture used to mean things that brought us together. Now it means things we yell at each other about on Twitter. So the internet has killed culture. The internet has killed politics. The internet has killed love and sex. The internet has killed the music industry. The internet has killed radio. The internet has killed conversation. The internet has killed us. And if we're smart, we'll turn it off. But you can also leverage that

for good, right? Like you can't turn it off. I guess so. I guess. I mean, literally, we're right now chatting on Zoom here for a podcast. That's great. But at the very least, they got to turn the algorithm off because the algorithm is antithetical to everything human. Life is not about constantly having your beliefs affirmed and constantly having your tastes reinforced and constantly living in a fucking bubble where everyone tells you you're right all the time and you can gang up on other people and yell at them. That is not life. That's grade two. That's grade seven. Like when you grow up, part of being a grown up is being exposed to things that you may not immediately like, but that you might find eventually are something that you do like or that you care about or that opens your mind or changes your mind. The algorithm is designed to just isolate people and then sell them garbage. Once we figure out exactly what they want, just sell them more of that shit over and over and over and over again until they think there's nothing else. It was invented by sociopaths and it's run by sociopaths. And like what the world needs to do

is imprison people like Mark Zuckerberg, not fucking buy their stuff. Like if you show signs of being like Elon Musk, you should go to an island where you learn to love and leave us alone. So if I'm following along here in Southwest Toronto here, so yes, so internet actually, because I think there's a lot of positive attributes to the internet. The internet's one thing. here in uh southwest toronto here so yes because so internet actually and i think you can you

there's a lot of positive attributes to the internet internet's one thing the algorithm is just is an invention that destroyed the internet and and if you think about the early days of the internet it was a place that was quite idealistic and where you could go and discover stuff and be exposed to different things it It is once the algorithm arrived, it became profitable. Once things become profitable, their main motivation to exist is to create more profit. Well, that's not where art lives. That's not where you're going to find a healthy cultural milieu. You're going to find a healthy culture in a place

where people pay each other fairly for the work they do and where they are exposed to things that don't represent just a complete list of all their favorite fetishes. And the only person the algorithm benefits is ad companies. You know, Facebook is an ad company. Twitter is an ad company. Instagram is an ad company. If you're posting there, you're just working for free for an ad company. I do it all the time because they've built addiction into it, right? They studied heroin addiction. They studied, you know, porn addiction. They studied how people get addicted to gambling. And then they baked that into the algorithm. Now, if that's not a crime against humanity, I don't know what is. And like, we should reject those people, not embrace them.

Okay, so if the game is rigged, and the only way you can't lose is if you don't play. Yeah, that's the trick thing, isn't it? It's like, how can the revolution happen if the only conversation is happening through the algorithm? It's like Gil Scott-Heron said, the revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by Pepsi-Cola. It will happen inside you, and it will be a soft revolution. It will be one that doesn't go anywhere. That's why I think ultimately – I was talking to Shad about this recently.

He was like, we need spiritual revolution. The politics, it's sad for me to say this, but over the last two years, I really don't, I've lost all faith that the political process can change anything in the world. And until we all try to elicit a sense of togetherness within our own self and express that locally to our neighbors, to the people we see every day, to the people we run into in the world. I don't think anything's going to change. And it's hard work. Like that's a lot.

That's asking a lot. So it might not change. We might be screwed. But the only hope we have is actual love, not algorithmic love. and a lot of that though in my humble opinion is uh you can't be lazy you have to be savvy it's knowing like who are the people you can dial into directly and kind of bypass the algorithm you know your yes tastemakers and your bookies essentially like who are the bookies where you know they'll let you

know the jams you should be listening to and, and the bands you've missed, but you should check out again and stuff where it's not an algorithm. I've heard Strombo use this sometimes of his show. It's like, you know, I'm choosing this music. You mentioned Lana Gay.

I think Lana Kay is a tremendous broadcaster. Uh, you know, I used to hear her on, on CFY. Now we hear her on Indie 88. Lana Gay is great, but Lana Gay,

I don't believe has any input into the songs that will play on CFNY. Now we hear on Indie88. Lana Gay is great, but Lana Gay, I don't believe, has any input into the songs that will play on her show. She has very little choice in the matter, that's for sure. This is all programmed into a machine. There's an automation element where these are the songs. Well, they've done the market research, right? Like we heard from a radio station in Vancouver recently, they started playlisting our song and they were like, well, it tested badly. Well, what they mean by that is they got six people in a focus group and asked them if they liked it. And four of them said no. So they stopped playing it. They didn't ask the actual listeners. They didn't ask the people who were listening to the radio station. They didn't like trust that

they liked the song and they believed in the song. They did what you're supposed to do when you have a marketing degree and that's go do some marketing research and then deliver a powerpoint presentation to the dude who runs the station and you know it's all just um it's make work projects so but okay so when they when this market research happens and they come back and say oh no uh we're better off to play your ex-lover is dead again for the four you know four million the hundred thousand times or more likely we're better off to play your ex lover is dead again for the four you know four million the hundred thousand times or more likely we're better off to play cage the elephant for the seven millionth time right but but as opposed and i've heard this from a lot of artists will come over and they're like we're making our best music today but everyone's going back to the the hit

from 1996 or whatever because that's you know they'll play that one again. Like if I hear Smashing Pumpkins, 1979, one more time, right. And it's a great jam, but they're, you know, you gotta, it's very narrow. That was kind of always thus, you know, that, that I think has been a struggle for musicians, pop musicians for a long time is like, you are both lucky to have that one big song and unlucky to have that one big song because it does define you. And it does kind of set this moment in time when you were quote unquote big and the rest of it is kind of the detritus around you being big. So it, you know, double-edged sword. Over the years. Yeah. I think on balance, I would rather have that one big song than not have one,

you know because then you're just fighting you gotta eat you gotta you gotta eat i mean not that that song helps us to eat nothing helps us to eat anymore because spotify has okay just steals our money every day so okay i'm calling yeah i'm calling the audible on the line of scrimmage because typically here like typically there's a bit of a bio and we kind of walk through and then we get to this juicy stuff but we're doing it right now. Cause last week I had Martha and the muffins here sitting at a table. Okay.

Martha, Martha, uh, Johnson and, uh, Mark again, Martha and the muffins, those,

those two anyway. And Mark wrote echo beach. And we were talking about, you know, I think echo beach, much like I think this of, uh, your ex lover is dead and others jams.

We're going to get to this later, but I think that's a great fucking song. might be one of the definitive toronto songs echo beach amazing song the ultimate cfny song that's right no absolutely we talked a lot about cfny no it's just it's a wicked song i love that song wicked song but we talked about how you know they were very grateful to that song because it helped them buy a house in toronto and it it has been very lucrative through the years and stuff but then we did talk about you know today and they said they got a check and i can't remember if it was spotify or whatnot i have to go back to the review the tapes but they got a

check for two cents yeah we have a check for one cent on the wall of our studio that hangs on our on the wall of our studio like repeat that though like you have a check somewhere that somebody actually took the time to postmark and send have a check somewhere that somebody actually took the time to postmark it and send you a check for one fucking penny for one penny well you got to do your accounting mike you know you can't uh there's this there's you got to answer to the bosses you got to send that check out is that spotify i mean that's that's spotify that's that's streaming. We have, we have, um, about 10 million to 12 million streams a month on various platforms. We make, I don't know, $7,000 from that. I mean, we're six people. We have a rent to pay on a building. have management we hire we spent we people don't

understand when you get a record deal you're spending that money the label is lending you the money at 150 interest that is what that you spend every single penny every record manufactured every recording budget every bus we pay for it we are just a shop and we pay for everything. So we can't pay ourselves anymore. I mean, since the pandemic started, we pay ourselves what I would call an honorarium. And there are other income streams. Fortunately for me, I've been doing these commissioning songs. I've been writing songs for people, right? I went on Twitter and I said, if you want a song, I'll write one for you. You get to keep it forever. It's yours and it can be about whatever you want it to be about,

including you. And it's been amazing. It's been an amazing response. If you want a song, if you're out there, go DM me on Twitter. My DMs are open and I'll write you a song. But I charge a thousand dollars for that. In order to make a thousand dollars on Spotify, But I charge $1,000 for that. In order to make $1,000 on Spotify, I would need a song to stream 400,000 times. So what is the, like, what's the incentive for a musician to spend any time trying to succeed on that platform. You can find one person who'll pay

you a thousand bucks or try and find 400,000 people who'll play your song once. That is how stupid their business model is. It is theft. And when they say they pay musicians, that's like me coming to your studio there and stealing every piece of equipment you have and then leaving a quarter on the table and saying, well, I didn't take everything. I left that cannabis poster up on the wall. It's pure theft. I get it. If you want to stream, go for it. I'm glad you're listening to our music. I'm thrilled. It's better than you not listening to our music, but don't kid yourself. The same way that going to H&M and buying fast fashion, the same way that going to Costco and buying cheap coffee, the same way if you're paying nothing for something, someone's getting exploited in order for you to pay nothing for it. So make your choices. But I just think people should know that. Musicians are being strangled to death, and people who used to make a living are not making a living. And that's just the facts of the matter.

It sounds fucking gross, and I don't even know how you fix it. It's like, at least, what do we do? Well, part of it is the labels, right? And this is Spotify's thing all the time, is they say, don't blame us, blame the labels, because the labels did a deal with Spotify and with all the other streaming services that essentially says, you are not the radio. We are licensing this song like we would license it to a film or to an ad or to whatever. So you pay that part of what the label takes doesn't go to

the artists. The labels are making more money than they've ever made in history. Yeah. Everyone's making more money than they've ever made except the people producing the thing they sell. And this is not unintentional. And this is true in every single industry, man. This is end stage capitalism. I hope everyone's enjoying it. It's run by sociopaths. It's a Ponzi scheme. It is designed to fuck the little person and enrich the least important person along the chain the most. It's a sick sociopathic system and we're all in it. And what do we do? We take care of each other. We start buying from each other. Go to our website, buy from us, join our Patreon, patreon.com slash your star is five bucks a month. I DJ every weekend. You get exclusive tracks. We do ask me anything. You get a party when you come see us at the shows,

you get free merch. You know, when you, if you want to know where to buy coffee, go somewhere where you can find out who the farmer was. And yes, it's more expensive and that means we have to buy less. But this thing of like constant growth, constant consumption, constant access to everything, it's not working out for us. It's not working out for us. And it's going to end anyway because climate change is going to end it. And it's going to end anyway because climate change is going to end it. So to me, this is an exciting time because it's an opportunity right now to make alliances with people in your community. I bet there's someone in your community who's a great carpenter or who makes really nice vegetables. And I bet you have something you could trade with them. And to me, that's the future is like us looking in each other's faces and deciding what we

need and trying to provide it to each other and stop relying on pimps. It's just pimps, pimps up, hoes down. That's capitalism. And I'm not playing it. I'm sick of it. You know, it bores me and it's mean. Barclay warned me. He said, full value when Torque's on the program. I'm telling you, like out of a fucking cannon. Okay, Tork. So, and again. I'm feeling frisky today. I love it. No, I love it. And a lot of these themes will return.

Would you be okay if I did like a little bit of a little bio here where we kind of walk through? I got some like stars questions. And then we'll get back to the current day. And then we'll get back to that fire brand i love it honestly uh that's my style but here just a little bit in fact just i just want to let you know i remember my class trip to uh the young people's theater i remember distinctly we all saw jacob tutu in the meets the hooded fang and i have no idea if you were the guy

playing jacob tutu uh i might have been i might have been what year what year did you go okay so i'm born in 74 and i'm so i'll start there uh it it was primary school so uh i mean if that helps us i did it the year i was nine i don't you know what calendar year it was 1982 1982 maybe or 81, something like that. I feel like we're in the right ballpark. I was probably maybe 84, maybe back to the sesquies again. It's all about – Well, Hadley Kaye did it and Karem Maliki Sanchez did it and I did it

and I think a couple of other people did it too. But this is your dad's influence, I'm guessing, and you're an actor. Well, my mom was an actor too. But this is your dad's influence, I'm guessing. And you're like, you're an actor. Well, my mom was an actor too. My brother, Ben, is an actor. My sister, Bea, is a stage manager. My wife's an actor. Yeah, I mean, that was my world. That's what I come from is 100 years of theater, really. That was what I was raised on. So how do you end up in New York? Is that so you could do what all actors must do at some point, which is have a role on Law and Order? Yes, I did eventually. But no,

I ended up in New York using acting as an excuse. The reason that I ended up in New York was because me and Jimmy Shaw of Metric were hanging out in Toronto for a couple of years, listening to Steely Dan and plotting our takeover of the pop music world. And Jimmy, you know, once Jimmy doesn't settle for anything less than the best, you know, like if you're hanging out with James, it's not good enough to have like a nice glass of wine. You have to have the best glass of wine. It's not good enough to have it, you know, find a good place to play baseball. You have to find the best place to play baseball.

So Jimmy was like, this place, we can't do it here. This isn't good enough. We got to move to New York. So we came up with this excuse. I auditioned for theater school and Jimmy auditioned for Juilliard. And we got in and we moved to New York and neither of us did anything at school. We never worked at all. We were fucking useless.

We just jammed. We had this amazing apartment that Jimmy had found because Jimmy only finds the best. It was three stories high. It was in Midtown. And the top floor was separate from the rest of the building. So we could jam 24 hours a day. And we just played music from, you know,

the time we got home from school at about four o'clock till four in the morning, every single day for four years. And that's how we learned to write songs. And that's how we sort of became musicians really. And, and Jimmy and I had a band and then Chris Seligman joined and Chris Dumont, who I do Memphis with joined. And then we all moved out to Williamsburg and then Jimmy met Emily and you know the rest is history I couldn't compete so when when stars when stars forms are is that back in Toronto I guess because that's all stars forms in New York Jimmy and Emily had Jimmy had gone back to Toronto and met Emily okay and it was clear that he was now out of our band because he had met Emily. And so

Sully and I were in a room together. We lived in Christopher Street in the village and we have one room that we shared like a bachelor apartment. And that's where Stars started was I was 97 and I was doing a play called Shopping and Fucking downtown in New York with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Justin Theroux. And I did that for almost a year. And that was an amazing experience too. But like every night I would go home to write with stars and Phil would say to me like,

what the fuck are you doing, dude? Like, you're going to go do that Pet Shop Boys bullshit again? And then he'd be like, Oh, I love my girlfriend. He was always making fun of me for being in a band. He thought it was really fruity, but he was an amazing human. Well, he was my favorite. I think he might've been my favorite actor of all time when he passed away. Yeah. He was the, he was easily, I don't know,

one of the two or three greatest actors I've ever been on stage with. That's for sure. And a person who taught me so much and so many things and a total. What can I say about Phil? Phil was someone you could count on. And the fact that his life ended the way it did is should make everyone understand what addiction really means. And, you know, Phil said to me once, don't ever do heroin, dude, because it's the best fucking thing in the world. And when he said that to me, he'd been clean for seven years.

You know, when I knew Phil, when I was working with Phil. He was 100% sober. But he knew what, if you watch his career, if you look at his career, he often sought out roles that would allow him to reenact the taking of drugs. The play we did together was about a heroin addict. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was about a cocaine addict. There was something in Phil that was in love with the idea of destroying himself. And it was so, so far away from who he was as a person and from the rest of him. Phil was a quarterback. Phil was a fucking jock. He was like a dude who was like on point, a responsible person, an honest person who showed up. And there was just this part of him that couldn't live.

And it was devastating. My condolences. Yeah. Thanks. It was brutal, man. Have you seen licorice pizza? I have.

And I loved it. I thought it was so beautiful and I loved Phil's son in it. Interestingly. And I think, you know, happily he didn't remind me of Phil, you know, he,'t remind me of Phil you know he he has the same husky frame and stuff as Phil and the same joy right and he was he's a great listener like Phil Amy Adams said an amazing thing about Phil Hoffman she said when Philip looked at you

you felt seen and that was like that hit me like a million tons when I heard her say that because that's my memory of Phil is being on stage with him and him looking in my eyes and feeling so seen and heard by him he was so focused on the person that he was listening to and his son has that talent too but he's just a gifted guy in his own right and i thought danielle was or uh s not s day um baby heim what's her name she's her name? She was fantastic. Alana Haim. She was so incredible. She's a superstar.

I love that band. Haim might be my favorite band presently operating. All right. Man, they represent everything good about rock and roll. Don't they? I mean, that's how you want your bands. Okay, so at this- Kick-ass players, sisters, killer pop songs. They they're sweethearts i got to hang out with

them once they're fucking hilarious they're just the best i love heinz speaking of sisters i've never i have not yet had emily on the show but avery haynes is an fotm so avery yeah i know avery shout out to siblings everywhere okay but uh okay so many questions but at this time you know your passion seems to be music, but you're still acting. Like at this point, is it still your plan to be an actor? Because we mentioned Law and Order. Like I went to your IMDb page, like Sex and the City is on there. Like there's some.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't get any of those things until I was almost about to leave New York. I did a lot of theater work in New York, but I could not get arrested on TV. And I actually, I came up, I was so desperate that I called my agent. I was like, I can't fucking get a job on television. I'm going to change my name. I noticed that everybody who got a lot of work had three names,

like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Sean Leonard. I saw these guys. I was like, I'm going to change my name. I'm going to use my middle name. So I spent like 500 bucks and I got all my headshots done again. It says Torquil John Campbell. And my agent was like, you really do need some help. Like this is not going to work. This is a ridiculous plan. And I bet him a hundred dollars that I'd get a job on TV within a month of getting new headshots. And I got three. I got all those jobs within like two or three months. It was crazy.

They were all a day, of course. But the Sex and the City one was with Alanis Morissette. So that was fun. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And she was, again, one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life. I remember being on set with her and thinking, if I wasn't poor and anonymous and short and ugly, I'd ask her on a date.

Then she'd write a song about you when it all goes badly so you gotta be careful yeah no i was but she was a sweetheart she was so nice okay so start any regrets by the way in hindsight that you named the band stars like i want to know only because for seo purposes even for me doing my homework here that's you're getting all my best stories today mike i'll tell you another story that's a shitty name. You're getting all my best stories today, Mike. I'll tell you another story. Here's a story about that. In 1999, we finally got a record deal. By sending cassette tapes in envelopes, we would find the address of the label on the

back of the record that we liked, and we'd send them that. And eventually, we got this guy in Detroit who had an indie label who was going to put it out. And he said to us, I want to put the record out, but I'd really like it if you change the name of the band. And I said, why? It's iconic. It's amazing. He said, well, have you heard of the Internet? And I was like, kind of. Yeah, vaguely. And he's like, have you heard of Google?

And I was like, no. What the fuck is Google? He's like, well, it's this thing where you go and you enter something into a box. And then all the relevant information about that thing comes out on a page and if you call yourself stars like no one will be able to find you it'll just be astronomy sites and stuff and i said to him dude no one is gonna find out about bands by something called fucking google that is the stupidest idea i have ever heard. The way you find out about bands is by reading the village voice, you idiot.

That's what I said to him. So that was my prescience again, my genius for understanding the future. That's what I was wondering. And it's funny because bands like Linkin Park were purposely misspelling the name. Misspelling, yes. Like Lincoln. People often ask, is it with a Z. Misspelling, yes. Like Linkin, right?

People often ask, is it with a Z? I'm like, why would it be with a Z? You don't spell stars with a Z. Yes, I will say, stars is a tough band to Google. It is. That's for sure. But that was sort of the point also. We intended not to be stars.

That was the joke. See, sometimes you're too cool for school, right? Yeah, definitely. all the time for school or wealth or success all right this this album in 1999 this is and we're not gonna do this for all the albums but the first one we're just gonna shout it out night songs right yeah so could i play can i play something and then i'll bring it down and we'll we'll uh we'll move on here so go for it here just let me play some stars it's hard to remember days mornings lost in a chronic haze breath is fast and the trains are slow I barely feel it though, all day long

I fantasize in the dark behind other people's eyes and then they disappear words get lost in the atmosphere the truth I'll tell, I'll tell the truth, sixteen on a summer roof, you ask

for the facts, well, if you prove Hot sun on skin That crimson dress too thin For winter of the woods I touched it, it felt good All I want is my radio. All I want is my radio. Torek, I'm digging it, buddy. Yeah, I love that song. It's a great song.

My radio. Tell me how and when Amy enters your life. That's not Amy, actually. That's a lady called Renee Shasan. Okay. The first record we were making was just me and Seligman, and Jimmy was helping us with it. And Emily sings on a couple of songs because we were all living just me and Seligman and Jimmy was helping us with it and Emily sings

on a couple of songs because we were all living together in Williamsburg so Emily sings on two songs maybe Renee sings on one song and our friend Kendall sings on one song who puts music out under the name mascot and we actually just uh played that song in New York at Christmas with her after many years of not seeing her. So it was a bunch of women that we had on that record because we had not yet met Amy. And then just before the record was about to come out, we met Amy and Amy joined the band. And so Toxic Holiday, which is the last track on the album,

was like the first Starz song with Amy on it. Okay, so Amy's, although there's a couple of appearances by Amy, she's not yet a member of Stars. No, she joined and then she appeared. So it was like just before we had put out an EP without her, a couple of EPs, and then Night Songs was coming out and we had to go on tour. And so Evan joined, who we had known since we were kids,

but Evan had been playing with, like, he was a horn player with Big Rude Jake and a bunch of bands and he wanted to start writing songs. And he actually contacted us because Jimmy had played him our music and he loved it. And he wanted to be in a pop band. So he called us and said, "'Hey guys, I'd kind of like to be in a band with you."

And we were like great please anyone other than us to please join the band so he came up to new york for a few months and sort of joined the band and started hanging out and then we were like we have to have a woman singer emily did our first few gigs the first stars gigs were me and chris and james and emily so it was like metric and stars but it was called stars. And those were gigs in New York that we did. But Emily and James had their own thing going and they weren't going to do it permanently with us.

So we had to find somebody. And Emily had been Amy's best friend in high school. So Emily said... Oh, Etobicoke School of the Arts. Etobicoke School of the Arts. I'm almost there. I can almost throw a rock and hit it from here. Yeah, they had gone with Kevin to Etobicoke School of the arts etobicoke school of the arts i'm almost there i can almost throw a rock and hit it from here yeah they had gone with kevin to to etobicoke school of the arts so we weren't we were introduced to amy through through emily and um you know the moment she opened her mouth and

saying i was like i fell to my knees she loves telling this story i literally fell to my knees and was like that's it thank you join our band so there's a lot of fate involved in these things you know there really really is like the fact that that kevin and amy and emily and me and charlie and evan were from two completely different ends of the city and jimmy was on our end of the city. And Chris were all these people. And then we found each other. And, like, we were all connected somehow.

It's quite weird. Well, think about this, right? Like, you're all from Toronto, and then you're in New York. And next thing you know, you're in Montreal. Yeah, Montreal, yeah. Well, Montreal we went to because of Murray Lightburn from the Dears. I loved that my friend Matt, who had grown up with me and Chris and Evan, had moved to Montreal to go to school, and he had gotten to know Murray Lightburn.

And he was like, I know this dude who loves the Smiths as much as you do, and you guys have the same birthday, and he's got a band. You should listen to his band. So he gave me the tape of End of Hollywood Bedtime Story and I completely fell in love with it. I was like, I can't believe this is actually happening in Canada that someone's writing music like this and that it's a black guy. It blew my mind that this guy was like a second generation Caribbean Canadian

writing Serge Gainsbourg, Morrissey music in fucking NDG in like 1998. I was just like, who the fuck is this guy? He is, I have to meet this guy. So when stars all got together, Evan and Amy weren't Americans. And so we couldn't stay in New York. And anyway, New York was dying and we weren't, you know we weren't in the scene like we were living with the yayayas but we didn't sound like the yayayas and we didn't we were trying to make pet shop boys records so we were like this isn't our place we need to leave and i suggested montreal because i'd heard it was really cheap and that murray was there the dears were there godspeed was there it was like i hear there's bands there i hear people are doing things

there and so we just came you know with nothing and none of us had to have a job back then man you could pay 200 a month rent it was insane yeah like it was completely insane what are the artists doing today i don't know they're not here man you know i mean there's still some artists in montreal and of course there's a huge amount of francophone artists. But that culture of like, get out of school and stick around and start a band or move here and start a band. See, it's funny. It's still cheaper than everywhere else, I guess. But it's my prayer.

My fervent prayer is the answer to that question is they're in Saskatoon. They're in Regina. They're in Fredericton.'re in Regina, they're in Fredericton, they're in, you know, Red Deer. They're not moving to these centers anymore because they have this machine that allows them to push their music out into the world from their bedroom. And, you know, that's amazing. On the other hand, it also means there aren't going to be neighborhoods filled with them. And that's sad because that was an extraordinary time to be a part of, you know? I mean, so many themes that you're speaking of, like are consistent with the Martha and the muffins discussion I had last week. It's actually kind of mind blowing,

but now I'm thinking of Chris Brown and Kate Fenner who are living on Wolf Island, right? Like it's like, you're right. They're just not in Toronto. They're on Wolf Island. My sister went to high school with Chrisris brown and kate fenner right so i knew about chris brown and kate fenner when i was like 11 years old they were playing high school parties right and chris cummins you know christopher cummins amazing songwriter an amazing writer he was in there with all those people so yeah okay it was quite a time amazing now uh i'm going into another jam because not only is it a fucking great jam and I want to hear about its origin story,

but I got a fantastic question about it from a huge fan of yours, okay? Okay, great. You're going to hear some more stars. Cynhyrchu'r ffordd y byddwn ni'n gwneud. I'm sure you're right. Darling, I'm always going to be. I'll always be your light. I'm sure you're right. All right, you ready for the question? I know you'll have the answer.

You ready for this? I'm ready. Okay. By the way, we'll get back to that song. I think that's just fucking fantastic. But okay, Elephants and Stars. I wonder if you guys inspired the name of this guy's band. His name is Manfred, and he's got a band called Elephants and Stars.

And I'm going to shout him out not only because he's an FOTM which means friend of Toronto Mike but he's going to do a gig in Hamilton with one of my favorite bands of all time, Lowest of the Low. Shout out to Elephants and Stars. I'm going to go listen to his music. Yeah, it's actually really good and I know Ron Hawkins

and it's funny because Ron Hawkins died yesterday. Okay? Yes. But that's the other Ron Hawkins. My Ron Hawkins produced the Elephants and Stars album so it's funny because Ron Hawkins died yesterday. Okay. Yes. But that's the other Ron Hawkins. My Ron Hawkins produced the Elephants and Stars album. So it's all cool. I'll check it out for sure. Check it out. In one of their many great songs,

Ageless Beauty, they changed the count slash time signature in the middle of the song from four to six. I've always wondered why. that their call is that a producer also just tell them i love them lol so please speak to us tork i love you too manfred uh i have a bunch of dudes in the band here with me who fancy themselves quite fancy. Some of them have even gone to music colleges and learned theory. And they're fucking musos and they like to show off. Like, you know, we have, we often have friendly fights about this.

There are many times during the recording process or the writing process of a new record where I will say to them, Hey guys, how about you send me a song that doesn't have a time signature change halfway through the third chorus that is impossible for me to fucking feel because it's really difficult to write over. Yeah, they're just very inventive musicians, you know, they're always looking for a way, especially Evan is always looking for a way to fuck with rhythm and to find another level on which to get you into the song. Like, I think what's cool about doing that stuff is that it comes as a surprise. Your body gets lulled into thinking that you're

in a certain time signature and you're bopping along. And then if it hits right, it kind of knocks you back against the back of the chair, you know, and they're really good at that stuff. But yes, I mean, you know, you blame post-secondary education. That's why I don't know anything about music. That's the greatness of stars is like, you've asked actually the exact wrong person this question, because I don't even know chords. And now I write songs on my own. I make records. I play music. I play the piano, but I have no idea what I'm playing. I know A, B, C, D, E, F, G, but that's it. I know how to read music individual notes because I play trumpet and stuff, but I learned how to play music by loving music. They hate music because they

understand it. so their their options are limitless i only have one thing i can do so i just keep doing it and that's the tension of stars okay firstly i know elephants oh manfred as he's also known i guess his uh his government name manfred uh he's gonna be very delighted with that answer and before i forget my dear friend rosie the first you know couple of dozen episodes of Toronto Mic'd had a co-host, Rosie, my friend from high school.

And I just remembered that she is a massive Stars fan. So I just want to say, Rosie, Stars are on Toronto Mic'd. It happened. It only took 1,057 episodes. That's all. That's it.

That's not that many. Ageless Beauty, what can you tell me about this song? The writing of Ageless Beauty, what was the response like? Was this a hit? Are there hits anymore? Please, talk to me about Ageless Beauty, because when I heard this on the radio, and I think it was CFNY, actually,

it was like, what the fuck is that? It's so gorgeous. I think it was our first, you know, now when I say radio hit i'm speaking moderately no we've never really had a radio hit we're not a radio band and that's despite the fact that i think we've written a bunch of great pop songs but we we produce things in a strange way that doesn't suit the radio and And this song is a perfect example of it. You know, this song reminds me a lot of a band that I loved a lot called the Drop 19s,

who were a band who formed in high school in Boston in the early 90s. But there's a lot of fans around that time, Slow Dive, you know, Chapter House, Ride, bands that they now called Shoegaze, I guess, but to me were just post-Smiths pop bands who, My Bloody Valentine were a kind of grandfather of that. The distortion pedal can create this kind of haze over the music and underneath that haze, you can write really, really poppy songs, but they have a kind of toughness to them because they have this grind in them.

All the pedals are turned on and there's a lot of reverb on the vocals and you multi-track a lot of things. And we've always had that side of us. We've always been in love with noise. You know, we love Spiritualized. We love Dinosaur Junior. We love Spiritualized. We love Dinosaur Junior. And we're mostly a pop band, but there's an element of noise in our music that I think has allowed us to have a little variety on the records that we otherwise wouldn't have. And Ageless Beauty is a song like that.

I had nothing to do with writing it, frankly. It was Amy and the Boys. But I think I came in and said to them, it has to be fuzzy. I think I came in and said to them, it has to like be fuzzy, you know, like I've, a lot of the stylistic things in stars might, might not have happened if it weren't for the fact that we spent a lot of time listening to my records, all of us, you know, and I think my major role in all of the, the group of people that I've made music with over the last 22 years is playing records for people. Kevin and I have that in common. Kevin Drew and I have that in common. We were both musically a lot less talented than the people around us, but we also had better ears. We loved

music more and we loved sharing it. And Kevin learned a lot from music and I learned a lot from music and we loved sharing it. So before I play this other moderate radio hit that we all love, maybe speak a little more about stars and broken social scene there. Cause you mentioned Kevin there, but like, it sounds like this was like one big blob and then you had these like two factions of one blob and there's a lot of swapping. Well, the blob happened after stars was formed really like stars was broken social scene opened for stars as did metric at lee's palace to like 40 people

we had already had a record deal neither of them had a record deal and we had been living in the states and we'd gotten a little buzz going in the states we'd been written about in pitchfork for example so so um yeah for a minute there stars was the big band but then that didn't last very long and broken yeah i guess in 2002 we had we had moved back to toronto i had moved back to toronto with my then wife who i just met and um james and emily had i can't remember whether they were in toronto at that point or in new y, but they were going back and forth. They were around all the time. And I got introduced to Kevin by Jimmy. Kevin was 17 when I met him. He was a bar back. And it was like he was running the whole bar. He ran, he worked at Monarch. Remember that place? And it was like Kevin

owned Monarch, but I asked what he did and he was like, he's the bar back. Like he washes the dishes, but he owned the place. And, um, I just thought he was the most charming fucker I had ever met in my life. I completely fell in love with him immediately. And we had lots in common in terms of the music we liked. And then he introduced me to Champy, to Brendan and to Whitey, to Andrew Whiteman and to Jason and to all those and to Feisty and all those incredible humans that I met sort of in the space of one year in 2001, 2002. And it was a real love affair. Everybody just, there was a period of four or five years where we just did just be with each other every moment we could be. And whatever happened happened, you know, if people fell in love, they fell in love. If the band was formed,

a band was formed. If it was, it was a, it was a social scene, I guess. I was going to say what an appropriate name for a band because what a scene. And no wonder Barkley had to write a book about this. I mean i mean we even you know in there meanwhile there's a arcade fire out of montreal and you know you can run down the list of bands in this country that are making great music in this era like do you ever step back and go yeah we were we were part of that scene like we were there like that's awesome i do i'm very proud well not proud i'm feel lucky i feel lucky that i had that and um i wish i could remember more of it frankly so i was pretty i was pretty fucked up all the time what were you fucked up on though is this is this cannabis what is this

mostly cannabis yes and and um white wine but whatever you, even if it wasn't drugs, it was I was fucked up on love or fame or poverty or whatever. Right. I was just a crazy person. And so I don't remember huge swaths of it. But it's also because it's a continuous moment. It hasn't ended for us. Right. Like, I still love those people and they're still my closest friends and we're still making records and we still have stupid arguments. And, you know, like it's not it's still my life. You know, I'm not dead yet. No, I mean, we got to get to the new stuff. But there's you happen to be the stars have recorded one of my very favorite songs of all time.

OK, and there's no like qualifier on that, like favorite Canadian song or, you know, no qualifier, like just favorite songs of all time. So I And there's no like qualifier on that, like favorite Canadian song or, you know, no qualifier, like just favorite songs of all time. So I've got to play some of it. In fact, I played this with Barclay when he was in my backyard the other day. And it was, we had a moment,

like we were just like soaking it in out under the sun. It was quite a moment for Michael and I, and maybe I'm going to revisit those memories now. I'm going to play it. You're going to tell me what you can about it. Then I have a bunch more questions. We've got new music. There's so much we're going to revisit those memories now. I'm going to play it. You're going to tell me what you can about it. Then I have a bunch more questions. We've got new music. There's so much we're going to do.

But here is one of my favorite songs of all time. When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire. ¶¶ God, that was strange to see you again Introduced by a friend of a friend smiled and said yes I think we've met before in that instant it

started to pour captured a taxi despite all the rain we drove in silence across Pont-Champ-Layne And all of that time you thought I was sad I was trying to remember you and me This scar is a flack on my porcelain skin

Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in Now you're outside and you see all the beauty Repent all you see It's nothing but time and a face that you lose I chose to feel it and you couldn't choose I'll write you a postcard. I'll send you the news. From the house down the road. From real love.

Live through this and you won't look back Live through this and you won't look back Live through this and you won't know that I don't actually want to fade it down, Tork. This is, honestly, I'm just having a moment here. Thanks, man.

Dude, congrats, man. I can't believe I'm talking to a guy from S.T.A.R.S. who created Your Ex-Lover is Dead, which I legit think is amazing. How does it sound to you when you're listening in on this thing? Sounds good. You know, it's funny, that song, because it has a life of its own. You know, the song is bigger than the band in a way.

And it was almost immediately bigger than the band. Like, we didn't think of it as a single. We weren't aware that it was the song on the record that would change our lives. We thought Ageless Beauty or Soft Revolution or, you know, there was a bunch of songs, Reunion. It wasn't that song. And then we played it for Kevin, I guess. And Kevin said, this is it. This is the one.

This has to open the record. And so we got my dad. That's my dad there at the beginning. And Amy called up on the last day of mixing. She called me up and she said, if you want your dad to say something, you have to come up with something for him to say right now. Like we're mastering the record.

So what is it? And I was like, tell him to say when there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire. Wow. So she called up my dad and he said it over the phone to her. I had been writing set yourself on Fire on my arm in pen for like

three years. And I wasn't sure why I just kept writing it. And so I knew that it was going to play some role in the record. But and yeah, that song just emerged quite, quite easily in terms of the lyrics. I think it took me maybe 10 minutes to write those lyrics. It was one of those songs where everything just, I had it, you know, I had God, that was strange to see you again. And everything after that came naturally and easily. And I think that's part of why people like it. There's something very inevitable about the lyrics. It's a story that everyone can understand because everyone's experienced it, you know?

Well, okay. We talked earlier how you're getting fucked on streaming, getting paid for streaming, okay? That's awful. But this song must be, I mean, licensed for TV shows and movies and such like this. It has been many, many times over the years.

But, you know, oddly, like I think it's a tough one actually to license because it's a story. It's hard to know when to cut in and out of it. Ageless Beauty and Take Me to the Riot have done actually better for us financially in terms of licensing. But this is a song, you know, that I know there are millions of people out there who have this

song on a playlist and have never heard a single other song by us. And I love that. That's something I always aspired to, that the song exists in and of itself as this massive thing. You know, not a lot of people can tell you who's who wrote video killed the radio star what the name of the band i can every you can and i can but not not a lot of people can but they hear that song and they're like oh i love that song i think that's a cover that's yeah but are you sure they wrote it i know that's their hit yes trevor horn so it's not a cover then that's no no that's a trevor horn production man that is like essence of his greatness right there okay okay genius i know it's the first song they ever played on mtv

that's that's right it's a trivia question i have the album it's a great album amazing okay uh okay where do i go from here my goodness okay so the uh uh role of factor grants and i don't want to set you off anything can you just give me a little like i'm trying to so so tell me how factor grants helped stars oh man i mean there's no there's no canadian music industry as it presently exists without factor everybody should understand that it's an amazing program. People attack it for all kinds of reasons and it's not perfect and nothing is, but you know, name a great Canadian artist of the last 20 years who isn't Michael Bublé, The Weeknd, Justin Bieber or Drake. And that person would not have a career without the help of Factor. They've helped touring. They've helped recording. They've helped development. They've helped. That organization has given life to a marketplace where you have to drive

sometimes three days to get to the next show. So for people who criticize government funding and say, oh, they should do it on their own. That's one thing to say in a place where there's 380 million people or in England where there's a major city every two hours in this country in order to make any kind of uh connection across the country you you have got to drive a long long way and in between mike just opened up a jar of spaghetti for someone as i'm talking by the way that's for monica hi mon, Monica. Tork says hi. Hi, Monica. That's my official job around here is to open up these pasta sauce.

I think it's psychological. I think Monica could have done it on her own. She just feels it's just like this thing now. It's a block. That's what I believe. Because my wife always gets me to open the pasta jar. I'm like, but you're stronger than me. Look at your arms.

You're much stronger. So yeah, Factor has just, you know, given us breathing room and also allowed us to go to the States five times and fuck up and not have people there. And, you know, that's the kind of steady support that labels should be giving but are not giving and haven't given in years. And if we didn't have factor that kind

of development support a band like land of talk or a band like winter sleep or a band like uh you know um hey rosetta yeah right all those bands employ people they they produce wealth in the community because they were invested in in order to to produce wealth in art, you have to invest in it. You can't just throw it at a wall and say, go ahead, climb. You have to actually help. And that's what corporate music industry seems to have forgotten, that if they want a healthy music industry, they have to develop artists, not just go on YouTube, find somebody they think they can make a quick buck off,

and then put it out. That's not the way to develop a sustainable music industry okay let me ask you about uh a band well basically canada's canada's house band uh the tragically hip yeah like okay so i know i know you're maybe maybe you step back and uh tell me, were you friendly with Gord Downie? Yeah, I mean, you could not be friendly with Gord Downie. If you met Gord Downie, you were a friend of Gord Downie's. That's the way Gord rolled. And next time Gord saw you, he'd remember your name, no matter who you were. He knew our names and the name of every single member of our crew the second time we played with him.

That's the kind of guy he was. And that's what he exemplified. He was a talk about a champion for other people and for other musicians and for community. He he lived his he he walked the walk and he talked the talk. You know, He did it. That was who he was. And that's who all those gentlemen are. That's how they rolled. That's why they had that place in the history of music in this country that they did. Because they taught us all how to behave, how to treat people, how to play a show, how to show up on time and do your fucking job and be kind

and be passionate and give everything you have and watch the other bands and show them respect, show the staff who work the venue respect, show the audience respect. You know, he's just an incredible person, incredible teacher, a really fun person to be with and to talk to and hang out with. He was curious about other people's lives. He made you feel important when you were with him. And it was really, really, really, really sucks that that wonderful, beautiful dude had to leave so early it's not fair not fair at

all no it's not he was the goods he really was the goods so yeah you know the hip wasn't a band i grew up listening to because i wasn't into that stuff until i was older i was an english pop guy you know but um the moment i saw gordon on stage before i'd even met him i was like that's the most incredible fucking rock star i've ever seen like he just never stopped and then the first time i met him we played a festival in calgary and he sat on the side of the stage and watched every single band they were headlining it and it was an all canadian day and he sat on the side of the stage on a guitar case and watched every moment of every other band and it was just like who is this dude this dude is a dude was flown on that bill maybe i can't

remember who the hell it was i saw canada i saw it at molson park and barry but i saw canada day show headlined by the hip and uh yeah i think they did it a lot i think it was virgin it was a v-fest but i bet i guarantee you the hip were like we'll headline it if you put all canadian bands on it i bet that's why they did it man amazing that's amazing when we got there there was a fence around their dressing room like their trailer and i can't remember who said to me but somebody who knew them i think it was evan or somebody was like that fence will be down within 10 minutes of the guys arriving. And they arrived and they pulled up and I watched them.

They got out of their van. They were kind of looking at the fence. And they went into the trailer for like five minutes. And then they came out and started pulling the fence up. Wow. Not roadies. The band took the fence down. Because they didn't do fences.

That's not how the tragically hit so if you see me looking to my left it's not that my wife wants me to open any more jars it's i've actually got a print of uh gourd downey the chenny wenjack foundation there's a print of gourd walking the secret path and uh just as you talk about you know gourd i look over and it's i can't believe he's gone to be honest yeah i think of him lot, all the time. I think of him because I want to be like him. I want to remember. I have a T-shirt that says, doing it for Gord, that I wear when I really need to feel like being cheered up. In Gord we trust.

Yeah, we're doing it for Gord. Gord was the spirit of what we're doing here. That is how good a man that was and how good a person and how important he was. We're doing it because he taught us how to do it and he told us it was important. Gord was the kind of person, dude. Gord came to a

star show. He bought tickets for his whole family, came to the show, didn't tell anybody, went home, wrote us an email the next day like i love you didn't want to impose wow gourd downy amazing and again i would give you all the time in the world to tell to tell gourd stories yeah i could go on and on he's the best uh somebody by the handle uh how soon is now how soon is now i like that it's a great handle

there and uh favorite venues for you to play in toronto do you have a favorite toronto venue to play i love the dampforth musical that's a good room um i love lee's palace that's a really good room um i really like the great hall that's a good room to play uh where else massey hall is overrated it's a great place to see a show but not the best place to play one in my interesting okay okay um yeah there's there's some good rooms in toronto for sure awesome opera house is a good room yeah yeah yeah yeah well you're an east end guy right east of young guy no i grew up in uh i grew up on brunswick avenue okay okay so okay kensington market college in brunswick gotcha gotcha okay cool the uh new album i need to find out uh what spark this is uh from capleton hill from capleton capleton see that's what you're

hearing yeah tell me about the new album and i do have a song i have patterns loaded up but i want to hear about the album and then maybe set up this so we can hear a bit well we made it during the last two years so y'all know what that was like and um from capleton hill refers to a place called north hatley quebec which is a place where my family have had a house for 120 years and where we recorded set yourself on fire we wrote and recorded some of set yourself on fire and it's been a place that's been a gathering spot for stars and for my family all my life it's the only real permanent home i've ever known i've moved around a lot in my life right but but that place has always been there and it's been come really

important to the band as a place to be together and so I think in in the last two years everything was wrenched away everyone had a sense of what they've lost and what they might not get back and we wanted to make a record that came from a place where things hadn't changed you know and where the music could take you to something that felt familiar and something that felt like home and an acknowledgement that like, even that will go. Cause that's the cost of love, baby.

Cause you gotta lose it. And this is a last gang records. So tell me about last gang records. Last gang. We've been making records with them for a couple of records. Now they're part, they're run by some great people from Torontoonto chris moncada and uh actually the the head of it is chris taylor and he's a whole other side of our story i've known that guy he used to sleep

on our couch in williamsburg when he was an up-and-coming lawyer and he used to front a band called one a reggae band that our friend was in that we used to go and laugh at a lot. So, yeah, they're just local people who have been really supportive and really let us do our thing, been really, you know, hands off and given us freedom to be the band that we are. Chris, who runs the label, is a real fan, I think, a genuine lover of this band. And the band's meant a lot to him in his life, I think, in terms of him and his wife memories that he has. So it's really nice to be there because he understands what this band is. He understands how it works on people, you know, and they're engaged with our legacy. That's what they, they don't want to just

like try and make one record. They want to try and stay with us. So they're, they're great. We love them. And before I play a little patterns and then find out about the tour, what would, what can you say about the song patterns? Again, nothing to do with this song. I love it. Amy wrote this, the lyrics for this song. I think it's about friendship. I mean, I, when I heard it, I heard it as a letter to me. I think a lot of the lyrics on this record actually in a way are sort of letters to me from

Amy or letters from me to Amy because we weren't together a lot. And I lost it, dude, in the middle of the pandemic from sort of November 2020 to March 2021, that was as depressed as I've ever been in my life, ever in my life. And I really lost hope for a while there. And I think a lot of what Amy's trying to do in the lyrics of this record are cheer me up and give me strength. But I think it extends to the rest of her friends amy's very engaged with her friends she's very very very serious about friendship so here's what we're gonna do because i know you you gotta heard out here you got other things to do this is a very busy time in your life so i'm actually going to play this song and then i'll do the extra without you so before i start playing since we'll

say goodbye now and it's been, you gave me so much time, you probably didn't have. It's been a real pleasure, Mike. Thank you so much. No, any time, like, I love this. You're awesome. You know your facts. You want to talk. This is how I love to do it. Thank you. It's been an honor. So on your way out, because you can just exit the Zoom, because

I'm going to just play your music and talk, and then wind down. But do you want to tell people, like, for example, the tour? You're on tour. How people can support you? Look at youarestars.com. We're on tour down the West Coast. The Vancouver show is sold out, but we're playing Victoria in July.

We're playing Calgary in July. We're playing Niagara-on-the-Lake, Prince Edward County. We're going down to the States in September. We'll be doing some shows in December near you, Toronto, and near you, Montreal, and near you, other people, New York, Boston. We're going to Europe in February. Just go to urstars.com or join us on patreon.com slash urstars. And we are in touch.

Or just write us, Stars Band Management. Like, you know, just write to us. We're people. We talk to people. We're not fancy. If you have a question for me please get in touch i'd be happy to answer it tork you're an fotm now buddy and we'll be uh doing this again one day but thanks for this you go do your thing i will i'll take us home but thank you so much

buddy i loved this it's been a pleasure i loved it too and i'll see you soon. I hope. Be well. What I want to do for you What we couldn't get through You're beautiful when you cry What you might have done to me We never let each other out easy But we don't do goodbye Lightning strikes twice In my life The thunder rolls like it's scared Lying in my bed

Catch my head What I wouldn't do for you What we couldn't get through You're beautiful when you cry We are now at Upper Session Road If I could count up every mile we passed How did we even make this last? We stumbled through the doors And what I might have done to you Our memory splits in two

But we don't do goodbye We are now at Upper Session Road We're gonna change the rules And bury that cross for good Watch the garden grow Abandon me for hope We're gonna paint the road A prettier shade of gold We're gonna take the time And you're gonna be mine We're gonna change the rules And bury that cross for good

Watch the garden grow Change the rules, bury that cross for good. Watch the garden grow, and then we need for home. Thank you. The new Star album is called From Capleton Hill. It's available now. Get it. Support these available now. Get it. Support these guys. They're awesome. They're getting fucked by the streaming companies. Buy a t-shirt.

Buy a ticket to the concert. Join their Patreon. Support stars. Loved my chat with Tork. And that brings us to the end of our 1057th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Tork is at Torkwill Campbell. You can follow Stars on Twitter. Let's get the right handle here. You are Stars at You Are Stars. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Dewar, they're at Dewar Performance.

D-U-E-R. The promo code is TMDS. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. See you all. Tomorrow, when we have a doubleheader, Mike Hannifin in the afternoon and then stoner jams outside in the backyard

with Andy from Canna Cabana and Stew Stone and maybe some Canada Kev, some Kareem. It's going to be awesome. See you then. is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away cause everything is rosy and green I've been told that there's a sucker born every day but I

wonder who yeah I wonder who maybe the one who doesn't realize there's a thousand shades of gray. Because I know that's true. Yes, I do. I know it's true. Yeah.

I know it's true. How about you? Oh, they're picking up trash and they're putting down roads. And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am But who gives a damn? Because everything is coming up rosy and gray. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today.

And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine. And it won't go away, because everything is rosy and green well I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain and I've kissed you in places I better not name and I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour

but I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up Rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Warms us today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine and it won't go away.

Cause everything is rosy now. Everything is rosy and everything is rosy and gray. Yeah, yeah, yeah.